GODZILLA - In Theaters Tomorrow!!!

Tomorrow's the big day!  I'm pretty anxious about it myself.

But I'll bet you forgot who else lives in San Francisco (where a major part of the movie takes place), so I'll let Bessie Higgenbottom get a word in...  ;)

Done tonight/this morning on tablet in FireAlpaca.

Happy Birthday, Katie!

Some time during my birthday yesterday, I whipped up this little birthday present for talented cartoonist/animator Katie Rice, whose birthday is a day after mine!  For a quick drawing, this was a lot of fun to do.  Done on tablet in Flash.

Here is Bessie Higgenbottom and her pet dog Happy (from The Mighty B!, which Katie storyboarded for in Season 2) and Skadi and her long-suffering slave-pet Diseasoid (from Katie's webcomic Skadi, which she co-created with Luke Cormican) switching places.  Yes, I always got this impression from both character sets!

Hope you have a great one, Katie.  :)

Honeybee Taffy & Candy Canes

I went to see Wreck-It Ralph (Disney; 2012) on November 23, and needless to say, I loved it!  (Ditto the animated short, Paperman, which preceded it.)  It was a 10:25 PM private 3D showing for me, my big brother Peter, Tony, Stephen, and my nephews Angel and Gabriel!  (When we left the theater, it was dim and creepy, as the theater was about to close, and everyone was leaving, but it was a pretty cool contrast to the movie we came out of.)  All four of the main characters (Wreck-It Ralph, Vanellope Von Schweetz, Fix-It Felix, and Sergeant Calhoun) are great, and they all manage to steal their own show (rather than let some marketable character steal the show from the main character).

I thought Vanellope (voiced by comedienne Sarah Silverman) was adorable!  At some point, I strongly contemplated doing a fan art of her meeting The Mighty B!'s Bessie Higgenbottom (voiced by fellow comedienne Amy Poelher).  I could've done this in the style of that Vanity Fair 2008 photoshoot which featured both Silverman and Poehler (with Tina Fey), but featuring them both in Vanellope's Sugar Rush video game was more interesting.  :)

This was done tonight in nearly 4 hours on tablet in Photoshop.  I might do more Wreck-It Ralph fan art at some point!

Bessie Kills Giants

I recently read a really charming and poignant graphic novel story, called I Kill Giants, which was written by Joe Kelly (of Man of Action Studios) and drawn by J.M. Ken Niimura, and published by Image Comics.  The comic is about a young girl named Barbara Thorson, who's a troubled outsider (getting into trouble at school, bullies, etc.), and imagines herself as a slayer of monsters in a fantasy world, being a D&D freak and all.  (Somewhat similar to Pan's Labyrinth.)

I sort of thought or Barbara as a more badass version of The Mighty B!'s Bessie Higgenbottom, in that, despite their differences, they're both "nerdy" bespectacled characters!  And then, it finally dawned on me; "I should do a drawing of Bessie as Barbara!"  And here it is, drawn tonight on tablet in Photoshop.

I think my Bessie drawing skills are getting better!  :)

The Mighty Bee and... the Mighty Pee!?!

Two fanarts of The Mighty B! I did for fun last year!
The above, finished on September 17, 2009 (and colored in Photoshop just tonight), is a drawing of Bessie Higgenbottom's imaginary alter-ego, the Mighty Bee. According to Honeybee Girl Scouts legend, whoever earns all 5,000 Honeybee badges will become a superhero called the Mighty Bee!

Below, two days later, I had fun creating an original character... sort of.

Yeah, the above image is kinda' dark, isn't it? :)

This is an original concept drawing for the Mighty Bee's arch-enemy, the Mighty Pee, drawn on September 19, 2009, and colored two nights ago. Yes, I indeed said the Mighty Pee! Here's my own concept for the character:

Portia Gibbons, as she appears in Nickelodeon's The Mighty B!

Imagine Bessie getting all 5,000 badges to become the Mighty Bee. Bessie's fellow scout/frenemy Portia Gibbons steals all of her badges somehow, and while she absorbs powers from them, the result is horribly wrong; It turns out that perhaps Bessie was destined all along to be the Mighty Bee, one reason being that Bessie's name begins with the letter "B", as in "bee." But Portia abused the power of the badges, and because her name begins with "P," she becomes whatever begins with "P" that rhymes with "bee!" So, Portia undergoes a horrible transformation (much like An American Werewolf in London), as she melts into a smelly puddle of pee (leaving her clothes in a wet pile), and the puddle congeals into a solid mass, in the form of a muscular, translucent-yellow creature known as the Mighty Pee! Besides the "drippy" theme of parts of her body (the hair, earlobes, six-pack, fingers, foot tip, etc.), she has swirls in her eyes which suggest a maniacal violent streak (not to mention a toilet flush)! As the Mighty Pee, power-crazed Portia wreaks havoc in San Francisco, until Bessie has to find all of her badges again to become the Mighty Bee, and then stop the Mighty Pee once and for all (but without harming Portia)! But there's only one problem... they're both of equal strength!

If the above scenario were done as an actual episode (which would obviously be titled "The Mighty P!"), it would be a great series finale, considering the badge angle, but as just a special episode, perhaps it would all be a dream sequence! I'd be fine with whatever works. :)

THE MIGHTY B! - A year ago next Wednesday...

Last year, early in the Christmas season, I was still downright despondent over the cancellation of Nickelodeon's The Mighty B! on November 24 that time. (Needless to say, at this writing, Nicktoons is finally starting to give the rest of Season 2!!!) On Nicktoons, I watched the Christmas episode of Ren & Stimpy ("A Scooter for Yaksmas," which was the original series' final episode), and thought it was hilarious, especially the over-the-top, earth-shattering drama from Stimpy (which, as the series does, parodies classic Hollywood drama)! I thought it'd be funny to draw Bessie Higgenbottom, The Mighty B!'s heroine, reenacting the moment where Stimpy made a spectacle of himself over not getting the scooter he wanted for Yaksmas (R&S' version of Christmas)! But along the way of drawing this, I was still depressed over B!'s cancellation, so I decided to make a subtle reference to that in the punchline of this pencil drawing, finished on December 18, 2009. I could one day make a better version of this drawing, fully colored, but I like this anyway. :)


More Mighty B! fanart to come!

THE MIGHTY B! Fanart 1

Here are two fan arts I've done, so far, of one of my biggest favorite cartoon shows, The Mighty B! (Original promo pic from series pictured above.) Created for Nickelodeon by Cynthia True, Erik Wiese, and star Amy Poehler, I always thought of this series as the girl scouts version of The Ren & Stimpy Show (one of my favorite cartoons, and the series I believe to be the King of all Nicktoons), and it comes the closest to capturing the spirit of that show.

The series' heroine Bessie Higgenbottom (voiced by Poehler, based partly upon her character Cassie McMadison from her series Upright Citizens Brigade) has become one of my favorite female cartoon characters. Wacky, wild, goofy, unhinged, charming, really makes me laugh!

As seen below, I have so far published two fanarts, which you'll also find on my deviantART page.

Above, drawn June 25, 2009, is the very first drawing I've done of Bessie. For reference, I used model sheets from Jerry Beck's excellent 2007 book, Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!, which had a "sneak-peek" section for The Mighty B! (back when it was still being produced) at the very end of the book (it was the final chapter, fittingly), and did this drawing as a warm-up.

On deviantART, this is currently my most popular Mighty B! piece, drawn July 31, 2009! Considering the above Ren & Stimpy reference, I could not resist drawing Bessie and her frenemy Portia Gibbons (voiced by Grey Delisle) dancing to "Happy Happy Joy Joy," with Portia wearing the Happy-Helmet (which Stimpy used to make the irritable Ren happy in the episode, "Stimpy's Invention," arguably considered the quintessential R&S episode)! Done over a pencil drawing in Photoshop with my Bamboo Fun tablet. Below is the original pencil draft:

No doubt, you'll be seeing more Mighty B! stuff from me in the future (I've got plenty of stuff yet to be scanned)!