ASB Sketches

If you've heard of me, it's very likely because of Associated Student Bodies. And that's fine with me—ASB was an absurdly fun project to work on, and I wouldn't have traded that experience for the world. Especially since when I started working on it, I'd only been drawing for about eighteen months... and by the time we were done with all eight issues two years later, I had far more experience under my belt than I probably otherwise would have.

But that doesn't mean the process was easy. It involved huge amounts of developmental work, much of which (especially in the early days) was so bad that I can barely look at it today. For every drawing in the final comic, there's probably two or three kicking around in my sketchbooks somewhere. So now I'm gonna bare my soul and show off (if that's the right word) all this stuff that otherwise was destined to sit in a book crammed between other books on a dusty shelf in my bedroom until it burned down.

There's some juicy porn in there too—stuff that never made it into the comic. So hopefully it's worth your while. Enjoy!

Note: Dates on images are the dates of the scans, not necessarily the dates of the drawings.
Click the thumbnails for slideshow mode, or the filenames for direct links.

[IMG] UnderCovers.webp 09/02/2004 96 KB
This is technically not the oldest ASB drawing in here, but it's the
first attempt to visualize the very first image that Lance had that grew
into the ASB story. The characters are certainly still not designed
fully, but at least their species are correct. (Marcus was originally
going to be a tiger.)

As soon as he'd come up with this scene, Lance was off and running with
the rest of the story...
[IMG] DavidVince.webp 02/10/2000 66 KB
One of the very earliest visual concepts we had; once it became clear to
us that ASB would be a story larger than the confines of the four walls
of Daniel and Marcus' dorm room, this one was etched in our minds. It
made the transition to a scene in Issue 1 almost unaltered, and caused
something of a stir in the hallways at ConFurence when the book was first
put on sale...

This actual sketch, though, dates from a little further on in
development, after David had been fully designed. Probably around the end
of '97.
[IMG] DanielPrototype.webp 09/02/2004 155 KB
The first crack at Daniel, summer 1996. Note the crucifix... also the
big-ass barrel chest. I also hadn't been struck with the inspiration to
give him that giant pseudopod of hair that hangs in front of his eyes and
makes drawing his face from the right rear 3/4 angle impossible; though
you can see its immediate predecessor.

The little wolf thing was supposed to be a plushie I thought he might
keep in his bed. But... no.


[IMG] MarcusPrototype.webp 09/02/2004 156 KB
Ew. The first design attempt at Marcus. I guess I was originally thinking
"flouncy and flirty queen", largely because we hadn't come up with Ricky
yet at the time. Also he didn't have hair... which in retrospect may have
been preferable to what he eventually did have on his head. Ugh.

Incidentally, you can also see the original list of characters as Lance
rattled them off. I'm startled by how much of this history is actually
written down.
[IMG] DanielShower.webp 09/02/2004 172 KB
Okay, I'd like to know, first of all, what the hell college it is that
has telescoping massage shower heads installed in the student dorm
showers. What was I thinking?

...Oh yeah. Idealized furry world. I keep forgetting.

[IMG] DavidPrototype.webp 09/02/2004 193 KB
So Marcus was originally bald, and David originally had greaser hair.
Fascinating.

There was also always some confusion over who should be digitigrade and
who should be plantigrade. Lance preferred plantigrade characters, while
I generally liked digitigrade, or at least animal-like feet on human leg
shapes. So we struck a balance by doing all the characters differently,
which plays merry hell with any attempt to explain any kind of cosmology
or origin story for the ASB universe...

[IMG] GeraldPrototype.webp 09/02/2004 160 KB
The first Gerald. Yikes. I'm not sure what about this said "cat" to me...
but he ended up looking more like a beatnik than a Goth.

The hair is way too complicated in this drawing; that's why I eventually
replaced it with a grotesque mat of curls (thick with hair goo, great for
scaring off potential suitors), and eventually started forgetting to put
hair on him at all. So he started wearing a snood. It was for the best.
[IMG] MarcusFaces.webp 09/02/2004 126 KB
One of the first attempts to get Marcus' face figured out. I knew the
original prototype wasn't going to cut it, and he needed hair. So my
first instinct, apparently, was to give him fabulous Fabio tresses.

What was my problem?

[IMG] MarcusInterim.webp 09/02/2004 138 KB
More Marcus doodles, this one on the back of a piece of homework from my
community college where I was studying in the fall of 1997. ASB's initial
design took place during the summer/fall of '97, while I was on leave
from college, and I drew Issue 1 during the winter term after I'd gotten
back to campus.
[IMG] VincePrototype.webp 09/02/2004 156 KB
I think every single one of the prototype characters had different hair
from their final designs.

Most, fortunately, lost these ridiculous barrel chests.

[IMG] StevenPrototype.webp 09/02/2004 165 KB
Steven... the superhero! ...Though if someone looking like this
swooped in to save the day, the evil villains would collapse to the
ground and writhe in helpless laughter.

Hah! Look how I drew his ears!

[IMG] StevenSketches.webp 09/02/2004 179 KB
Trying to get a better handle on Steven here.

Dammit, Chris, would you knock it off with the extreme forced
perspective? It doesn't do anyone any good.

[IMG] DanielNaked.webp 09/02/2004 135 KB
This is getting a little closer to the final Daniel. He still needs to be
a lot thinner about the chest, and the girly-hips (though an explicitly
specified piece of the design) are a bit too girly, if you ask me.
But at least he's recognizable now.

Cock's too high up, though.
[IMG] DanielSketches.webp 09/02/2004 140 KB
Here are a couple of quickly dashed-off sketches that did more than all
the previous stuff to solidify Daniel's bearing and, well, yeah,
hairstyle. I think I liked how his hair looked in these little doodles,
and decided then and there that his hair should be modeled on it from
then on. Not the best decision I've ever made.

[IMG] MarcusDaniel.webp 09/02/2004 177 KB
Now we're starting to zero in on the Marcus we want. I was still dabbling
with Balto-style eye patches, and I wasn't quite clear on the
shape of his face, but at least I'd developed the all-important
soft-serve ice-cream-cone hair. <shudder>

The "Marcus 2.0" drawing looked to me like something off of the
professionally-done model sheets of a cartoon series a friend was
developing; so more or less by accident, that's the face that I mentally
stuck with.

Daniel looks like an otter here, though.

[IMG] MarcusFaces2.webp 09/02/2004 145 KB
Here's some more work on Marcus based on the "Marcus 2.0" drawing above,
with those eye patches and everything. Aside from those, this is actually
getting pretty close to how he looked in Issue 1. Which, fortunately,
changed again for Issue 2...
[IMG] Faces.webp 09/02/2004 137 KB
I was flailing trying to figure out what to do about Steven's face here;
good thing I didn't go with the Gigantic Eyes look.

Gerald has lost the goatee, and gained some Goth poetry.

There's another angle on the David Carrying Vince thing (it may in fact
predate the other one). And there's yet another instance of what I thought
would be the final Marcus design...

[IMG] MarcusSketches.webp 09/02/2004 139 KB
I guess I had the idea that Marcus would be sort of like a gay David
Hasselhoff... or that a whole lot of ASB would take place inside a gym.
But at least the eye patches have gone away.

At the bottom is an early experiment in using the top edges of a
raccoon's mask as surrogate eyebrows, for expressions and stuff. Stolen,
of course, from the aforementioned friend's model sheets.
[IMG] MarcusTurnaround.webp 09/02/2004 91 KB
Ah yes, because a turnaround model sheet is absolutely essential for a
comic book, especially when you're not even going to stick to the
character model halfway through the first page.

I like how I hiked up his tail so there's an official record of how his
asscrack looks.

[IMG] DanielTurnaround.webp 09/02/2004 87 KB
I think we can all be glad Daniel didn't end up looking like this, eh?
Whatever "lion" there ever was in his face, I sure don't see it.
[IMG] DanielsParents.webp 09/02/2004 84 KB
I needed to design these two for the very first couple of pages of ASB.
They ended up looking like characters from an executive boardroom at a
tobacco company, though, and that's really not what I was going for.

So by the time I had to deal with them again (Issue 5), I redesigned
them. And I hoped nobody would notice. Heh... fat chance.
[IMG] Faces2.webp 09/02/2004 143 KB
Here's where I finally sort of got Steven's head working. I was really
proud of how this looked, too, and was similarly pleased with him all
through Issues 1 and 2—until Terrie Smith submitted her "Peeping
Bandit" story starring Steven. At which point I wrapped a pillow around my
face and beat it against the wall repeatedly.
[IMG] TinyNaked.webp 09/02/2004 152 KB
Not my first crack at Tiny... but then, you don't want to see my first
crack at Tiny
.

His ears had a lot of growing up to do... as did my understanding of how
chests are put together. And necks.
[IMG] MarcusAlmostThere.webp 09/02/2004 133 KB
Some doodles of Marcus I did just before starting on Issue 1. At last we
see the eye patches disappear, and finally he looks—for better or for worse—
about like the would for the first couple of issues.

The big thick neckruff was something I had to slowly, painfully convince
myself was just not working out.

[IMG] LelandFront.webp 09/02/2004 126 KB
Early concept sketch of the approach to Leland's front gate, somewhat
influenced by the community college where I was spending the fall.
(Leland in its later envisionings probably contained no place that looked
like this, and I never had occasion to use this in the comic.)
[IMG] MarcusDanielsRoom.webp 09/02/2004 92 KB
Based more or less on the double rooms at my college, where the furniture
was modular and could be stacked to create storage areas above and below
desks, and so on. (I slept underneath my desk in my double during my own
frosh year.)

However, the room ended up looking quite a bit different... I totally
forgot to ever draw in that big hutch/closet thing with the sink, which I
had in my real-life room but which we curiously found unnecessary to put
into the comic.

I guess the best argument for putting sketches like this in here to show
you is that this way I can prove we actually did think about
things like this... some of them just, um, sort of got lost in the shuffle.

[IMG] Quad.webp 09/02/2004 132 KB
This quad, chunky and dorkily curvy as it is (yeah, Chris, you go right
on ahead thinking you know how to draw so as to approximate the curves
you get in a wide-angle fisheye effect), is actually based more on my
high school than on any college campus I know. There are fragments of
Stanford, elements of MIT, and ghosts of Caltech floaating around all the
architectural shots that appear in ASB. The bit in Issue 4 where Allison
goes running up to hug Marcus is the most blatant nod to the latter.
[IMG] DanielSuitedUp.webp 09/02/2004 61 KB
Finally Daniel's about ready to be deployed into his first comic-book
appearance. Whether he looks the way I really wanted or not, he's goin' in.

[IMG] TinyFootball.webp 09/02/2004 129 KB
I'm not a great fan of watching sports on TV... often because there
always seems to be someone like Tiny in the room, always on a
hair-trigger to suddenly snatch up some innocent bystander and
triumphantly spike him into the bowl of chips.
[IMG] TimmyPrototype.webp 09/02/2004 148 KB
Yes... yes, Timmy is supposed to be an homage to Timon. You all can stop
chortling and clearing your throats derisively now.

Funny thing is, this is how I originally thought he'd look. But this kind
of facial structure... well, it just didn't seem very expressive. So I
punted and started drawing him essentially based on the Disney design. In
retrospect, this is probably one of the less intelligent choices I've made.
[IMG] StevenIsNotGay.webp 09/02/2004 196 KB
By this stage I was back in college and kicking ass with a whole new set
of priorities, and I drew this and tacked it to my door. Which meant that
all my housemates, upon passing my room, knew from the handy advertising
that I was a misfit to be shunned instead of someone to allow into the
social cliques. Girls seemed to like finding sketches like this on
people's doors, but it was no way to run with the "in" crowd. (And the
"in" crowd among a bunch of physics geeks is a strange phenomenon indeed.)

The upshot was that it wasn't until I graduated that I finally found a
social circle where I actually fit. Someone imaginative could probably
find a parallel to that in the premise of this Steven drawing, but that's
not for me to do.
[IMG] TheyHaveSex.webp 09/02/2004 152 KB
Rumor has it that the characters in ASB occasionally have sex with each
other! <gasp!> Perish the thought!

I was getting impatient, though... halfway through drawing Issue 1, and
all we'd seen so far was a flash of Vince's ass and some off-camera
wanking. And it would be another couple of issues before any real juicy
sex would happen. I don't like waiting for my instant gratification.
[IMG] StevenNakedSketches.webp 09/02/2004 141 KB
Now that Steven was appearing in his final guise in the comic pages, I
wanted to see him undressed too.

Unfortunately, this doesn't look anything like the way Steven really
ought to look with his clothes off. If you want to know what the ideal
looks like, please refer to Smith, T.

[IMG] MarcusDanielSex.webp 09/02/2004 147 KB
When Lance saw this page of sketches, he must have felt a sinking feeling
as though he'd eaten a raw egg full of lead. Especially that thing at the
bottom. This is the sex we're going to charge people to see?

So I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for drawing this page
and shaving what must have been months off Lance's life.

[IMG] Disrobe.webp 09/02/2004 58 KB
Okay, this is a bit more like it. As far as attitude and aspect go, this
is pretty close to how they were destined to end up on the page. The fact
that you can see Daniel's face but not Marcus', I think, is a nice bit of
fortuitous composition. (I didn't premeditate it, in other words, but it
works.)

Too bad we never got to use this disclaimer anywhere.

[IMG] ASBCast.webp 09/02/2004 115 KB
By midwinter 1998, Issue 1 was wrapping up nicely, and we were working on
putting together the ASB website, which hasn't changed much to this day.
I did this group-photo of the then-current major cast for use as clip-art
on the site; it ended up being used as the back-link button that led to
the main page.

An updated version of the cast photo, about in the time frame of Issue 4,
was printed on large-format paper and sold as a piece of moychandising.
[IMG] TinyJockstrap.webp 09/02/2004 117 KB
Now that all the innuendo was flying about Tiny and his ironic namesake,
I wanted to see it. Well, to see it to start with, but...

His face is still pretty lame, and his ears don't look right at all; and
the musculature on most of his body is iffy to say the least. But I like
the part that's the focus of the picture, and that's all that's really
important. So there.
[IMG] DanielInRoom.webp 09/02/2004 132 KB
Toward the end of Issue 2, I found myself with a completely different set
of images in mind for the characters than what I'd started with. I was
drawing fur differently, and I'd finally realized that the chests I was
drawing just weren't working out at all, not to mention the hair on Daniel
and Marcus. So I started cranking out this series of character redesigns,
helping me solidify how they'd all changed just in the course of drawing a
couple of comic books about them.

Daniel's face, as you can see, has shed it's ottery oddness and actually
looks somewhat feline now. His nose is rather too big, though.
[IMG] TinaAtWindow.webp 09/02/2004 135 KB
Camel toe!

Figuring out how Tina works has been a long-term challenge for me. To
begin with there's that whole "boobs" thing, which is one of life's great
mysteries. Then there's "female hips", which freak me out a great deal.
Then there's her facial markings, which Terrie Smith makes look
effortless, but which for the life of me I just can't get a grip on. And
then there's that giant pile of Farrah Fawcett hair, which started out as
a weird congealed mass of hair spheres, and eventually turned into badly
rendered curls spreading awkwardly over her shoulders. And let's not even
talk about her tail.

Bottom line: Tina is probably my least favorite character to draw, mostly
because she makes me feel like it's my first time. Wait, that didn't come
out right...
[IMG] StevenGrooming.webp 09/02/2004 138 KB
Steven in the shower with a giant head.

I can tell you first-hand that collies require a lot of grooming.. a
lot of grooming. Why should an anthro collie's life be any easier?
Someone of moderate means like Steven would have had to leaarn early on
how to take care of his own tail instead of spending a hundred bucks a
week at the salon, like some dogs I know.

[IMG] NigelDoorway.webp 09/02/2004 135 KB
Nigel kept his eye patches far longer into the comic than Marcus did;
finally I got rid of them and added a "blaze" in his forehead, and
converted his hair to the DiCaprio/Simba part-in-the-middle that I think
looks so gosh-darn cute.

Note that I was trying my damnedest to find excuses to add little
atmospheric elements from my own college experiments, like comic strips
and editorials tacked to doors and taped to walls. I wish there'd been
more opportunities to exploit the transoms above the doors, too—I
can vouch for there being plenty of comic relief in the real-life ones in
my dorm. Think flinging a handful of superballs in through the
opening late at night...
[IMG] VinceInNature.webp 09/02/2004 166 KB
I was never very pleased with how Vince's antlers looked. I can draw what
I think are some very sexy deer heads, as long as they're just left
as rough sketches. The moment I start trying to fully render the
outlines of the antlers with all their points, the whole effect falls apart.

Anyway, this was supposed to be roughly in the hills above Stanford,
which is the real-life model for Leland University. It's all very rural
up there—probably plenty of opportunities for an exhibitionistic
naturist like Vince to scamper around unclad.
[IMG] MarcusCenterfold.webp 09/02/2004 80 KB
I think this was a desperate attempt to salvage Marcus' noodle hair; it
looks almost convincing here, but I knew I couldn't do this kind
of thing in the comic itself, so I had to start evolving it. I think the
form it took by the last few issues was all right, but not great... maybe
what I should have done is had Marcus consciously try a new hairstyle, to
try to impress Mr. King or something.

But in any case, Marcus' face is starting to look more wolflike... and
the black cock, which I tried to stick with through Issues 3 and 4 (but
eventually gave up as too off-putting), looks much better in pencil
than in ink.
[IMG] TinyGym.webp 09/02/2004 171 KB
Okay, now Tiny's starting to evolve toward something more like what one
expects from a football player. I might be erring on the side of
extravagance on his cock size now, but hey, that's fine, right? Besides,
the chest armor is sexy when it's half-on like this. Or I think so. His
face still needs a few more iterations to go, but the pieces are starting
to fall into place.

[IMG] AlexThomasInRoom.webp 09/02/2004 92 KB
Our poor neglected foxes. I always liked Thomas—Alex could go take a
flying leap as far as I was concerned; mostly he was sort of a
space-filler, a reason for Thomas to feel like he had something good
going on. But Thomas himself... well, he was sort of a way to embody a
sense of low self-esteem that really had no reason to exist. Thomas was
chubby, but he was cute as all hell, and I think everybody wanted to get
him in bed (including me, hey); but everyone assumed he was taken,
because of Alex, which made Thomas all the surer that nobody was really
after his tail, and all the weaker of ego. Sort of a mini-tragedy in the
background, one that was never really explicitly called out...
[IMG] MarcusDanielFinal.webp 09/02/2004 156 KB
Marcus and Daniel as they appeared at the end of Issue 2, more or less
(spring 1998). They'd both look quite a bit different by the time Issue 3
started; this isn't quite the Marcus that beats up the jocks with a chair
leg. Not just yet.

What this resembles most clearly is that one weird side story about Timmy
caught in the tree—the one with all the ugly cross-hatching, the
one I'd most eagerly redraw if I had the chance to do it all over again.
[IMG] DanielCheesecake.webp 09/02/2004 148 KB
I believe i drew these in the summer of 1998, right around the time of
San Diego Comic-Con. I wanted to see more Vince... and this doodle, while
it clearly has some proportion problems, is pretty close to how I'd have
liked to see him constructed in my ideal world.

Bondage gear has always been a bit of a mystery to me, so David here is
more of a style exercise than anything. And note that he's plantigrade,
unlike in his prototype drawing.

[IMG] LateForClass.webp 09/02/2004 157 KB
An atmospheric piece, done mostly to see whether I had any kind of knack
for layout work the way they do in cityscapes in animated features.
(Short answer: no.)

[IMG] ScratchRose.webp 09/02/2004 162 KB
Scratch Rose was based on a friend of ours with whom we've since lost
contact. Phenomenal rock/jazz guitarist, looks fantastic in leather and
chains, and that hat and the boots with the straps (seen in the final comic)
are his, as is the Les Paul.

The three little lines on his left cheek are supposed to be a Native
American "coyote" symbol; I picked it up from Chris Goodwin without
understanding anything deeper about it, so maybe it'd have been better if
I'd never brought it up and left it a mystery.
[IMG] ScratchRoseLayout.webp 09/02/2004 214 KB
Here's a layout page from the "Scratch Rose" story. I think this one's
particularly interesting because the dialogue changed so precipitously
between this and the final product. Rose wasn't always looking at the
microphone and commenting on how phallic it was...
[IMG] RickyPanties.webp 09/02/2004 92 KB
Ricky's starting to fall into his groove and develop his set of clichés.

I've never been particularly wild about how my Ricky faces turned out,
but this is one case where I don't necessarily think Terrie Smith can
claim the canonical version. Her Ricky tends to look like a fox, sort of.
But, well, raccoons are hard to draw convincingly... and there are so
many ways to do it.

[IMG] TinyCandid.webp 09/02/2004 114 KB
Probably the first "modern" Tiny; about analogous to the version in Issue
3. His ears are finally black, his muzzle coloring (and shape) are
finally chugging along, and his chest looks more natural. I still think
he needs more cock, though.

Maybe one huge one, and then one smaller one he keeps at his side, like a
samurai...
[IMG] Issue3Layout.webp 09/02/2004 262 KB
In case anyone's still curious as to what the rough layouts looked like,
here's one from the run-up to the fight scene in Issue 3.

Lance would dictate the panel layout and then mime what the characters
should be doing in each one, along with directions about where to leave
room for the speech bubbles; I jotted in the dialogue as quickly as I
could, which I'm going to use as the excuse for why it's so illegible. (I
can't use that excuse for why you can't read my calm handwriting
either.)
[IMG] ShowerTimeInHillard.webp 09/02/2004 173 KB
"Life sucks when you're Daniel," Lance said when he saw this.

The 6-30 date stamp would place this one right around the mid-Issue-3
timeframe. So would the hair.
[IMG] DanielGettinMessy.webp 09/02/2004 158 KB
Prefiguring the events of the New Year's party (Issue 5), Daniel and
Thomas share a moment of common cause. Also Daniel sees what he looks
like in a studded collar, and evidently someone thinks he looks just
peachy. (Okay, the bukkake shot wasn't actually intended to
suggest cause-and-effect, but I think it's fortuitous.)

[IMG] Allison.webp 09/02/2004 135 KB
For Issue 4, we needed a cute little lioness for Daniel to be tempted by:
hence Allison. Now, I'll be the first to acknowledge that I can't draw
females (Too late! I hear you cry); but I think the one on the
bottom turned out okay. In fact, she looks rather better than any of the
versions in the final comic. Grumble.
[IMG] VinceButt.webp 09/02/2004 92 KB
Did I mention somewhere that I like deer butts? I'm sure I did. Well,
lemme just reiterate it to make sure it's clear. I like deer butts.

This was in preparation for the "Fire Eaters" story, where Vince spends a
great deal of time wiggling his ass in front of the camera, to tease
David and make his loss all the more, um, stinging.
[IMG] DanielVince.webp 09/02/2004 80 KB
One of the problems with having certain sex scenes occur off-camera is
that we don't get to see them. There we were, all set to see Daniel
and Vince get it on, and instead all we got was a fade-to-black. Argh!

Well, I'm not one to stand for that sort of injustice, so I drew this (in
the airport on the way from college to Lance's for one of those weekend
visits that I did so often in 1998-99), which I found quite satisfying.
(I'm sure Vince was just tickled pink to have a much smaller, much gentler
feline cock up his tail than what he was used to... and Daniel got to be
on top for once.) But then, guilt struck me: I was the only one who would
ever get to see this. So hopefully including it here rectifies the
situation.

Now, I know the logical conclusion of this is to show you all the
previously unseen Ricky/Steven sex from Issue 8, but... well, we promised
Terrie Smith that she'd have dibs on drawing that sequence, and the offer
still stands. So I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you on that one.
Sorry about that.

[IMG] KingFamily.webp 09/02/2004 152 KB
The King family get redesigned. Issue 5 was going to feature them
prominently, so I had to redo them to get some actual character into
their faces, to insert a little we've-been-together-for-so-very-long
friction into their relationship as seen through how they visually
interact with each other, and other such pretensions to complex planned
design.

...Okay, seriously: Daniel's brother Mike turned out the best of all
these. I'm not sure what's up with his mom's muzzle, and his father's
head never sat right with me. I was trying to avoid him looking too much
like Mufasa, but I needn't have worried—my inability to draw hair
convincingly, even at this late stage, made that a moot point. Still,
these guys do look better than the Issue 1 designs.
[IMG] GraceCathedral.webp 09/02/2004 361 KB
On one of those weekend trips up to the Bay Area, Lance and I headed up
to San Franciscco and visited Grace Cathedral on the top of
Nob Hill. The cathedral in Issue 6 is based very squarely on this church,
largely because the Episcopalian denomination whose church it is is of
the open-minded variety, selling pins with slogans like "Straight But Not
Narrow" in its gift shop. So we knew we had our hook for tying Daniel's
sexuality to his spirituality, a key point in the story as Lance had
planned it.

These are sketches I did while inside the church. I can't help it: every
time I see that baptismal font (lower right, and also visible on the
church's website), I picture Mario popping up out of it.
[IMG] Priest.webp 09/02/2004 179 KB
Trying to get the character reference down for the priest, whose name I
don't think we ever specified. The trick was to make him look enough like
Marcus that Daniel would confuse the two in his addled state, and yet to
make him look older and distinctly unrelated to Marcus (lest it appear I
only knew how to draw one wolf head, a not irrational fear).

Above all, he had to be kindly, understanding, and prone to bursts of
humor one doesn't normally expect to see from someone in his position.
[IMG] MovieTheater.webp 09/02/2004 168 KB
While in Pasadena I walked to a couple of the local art theaters and
sketched them (okay, maybe a digital camera would have been useful
after all); I needed one to use in Issue 6 for when Marcus and Daniel saw
Titanic.

Hey, shut up. We both liked Titanic. You gotta see it in the
Chinese Mann in Hollywood. Eight times. Er... yeah.

As you've probably guessed, it's the bottom theater (the State on
Colorado Blvd.) that I ultimately used.

[IMG] TertiaryCharacters.webp 09/02/2004 169 KB
In case we ever decided to make character bio pages
for these four extra characters who appeared once the storyline got
going, I did sketches intended to be in the same series as the ones
already online. That's Allison, Julian (the leader of the Gay-Lesbian
Alliance on campus), Erik (the bartender), and Scratch Rose.

Missing still are Daniel's family, the priest, and Roy the leather-lion.
[IMG] TimmyAsleep.webp 09/02/2004 70 KB
Oh, how I wish I could have used this at some point.

Wait... I think maybe I did, like in a portfolio or calendar or
something. Ah, hell, I can't even remember anymore.
[IMG] OldBoyfriend.webp 09/02/2004 119 KB
I know some people were aching to see more of this guy: Marcus' old flame
in ROTC. I really like how he turned out, too: solidly built, and finally
(Issue 7 is what we're talking about here—summer 1999) I had the
wherewithal to draw his body the way it deserved to be drawn. No wonder
Marcus has a thing for lions... after a night or two with this guy, I'd
probably be smitten for life too. Y'know, that snow leopard bitch
probably had every right to be jealous...

By the way, if you've read this far, here's some other stuff for you.
Thanks!


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