If you haven’t noticed lately, I have been in an artistic bind. No, it is not a new artistic tool or piece of equipment that I am stuck in (although as a child I did get stuck in an old desk chair, but that is a different story).

No, I have just been not as inspired to draw or paint lately. I think it has to do with the fact that I am one wing short (I cut my left thumb). Granted, I am right-handed, but it is amazing how many things you use with the other hand when drawing. Sharpening a pencil with the old hand sharpener is basically very difficult. Even putting my hand on the paper, that is tough as I should keep my thumb elevated. This blog is typed virtually without my left thumb. Difficult yes, but not impossible, and I like to think that my other unfinished projects are the same, difficult but not impossible.

So it was a surprise to me when I came home from school to see a comic book on my dresser. Now I know where it came from and how it got there, as I bought it and I just finished reading it. Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew was my favorite comic book when I was just about 10 years old. I think I bought only one copy as the comic book was not considered that popular. It basically was about animals in a super-hero role without humans. The main super heroes were Captain Carrot, a “Superman type rabbit”, Pig Iron, a musclebound colossus of pork and metal, Rubber Duck, think Plastic Man with a bill and feathers, FastBack the world’s fastest Turtle, Yankee Poodle, a patriotic dog that shoots stars and stripes out of her paws, and Alley-Kat-Dabra, a feline sorceress. The adventures were littered with puns like names of cities (Gnu Yawk, Mew Orleans, Cape Carnivore in FloriDuck, etc.) and names of real people like Byrd Rentals and Rova Barkitt. Granted this comic book was written in the eighties so the names may not be as hip and modern as now.

Anyway, after reading this compilation of comic books, I got some much needed inspiration. The illustration is wonderful and for the most part the storyline is pretty good except for the fact that some characters magically appear and disappear from the book. There is one character named American Eagle. I think it is a neat idea, kind of like a Captain America crossed with Batman but he just disappears after page 77.

Getting back to inspiration, this book brought me back almost 25 years into my own past, when reading a comic book and drawing the characters was my idea of fun. I would spend days scanning through my comic books, looking for the right pose for the right hero or villain and putting them as close as possible on one sheet of scrap paper. The more characters the better. It was actually kind of like a game to see how many heroes I could put on one sheet of paper. I would then color them with a set of 20 artistic markers. All doing this on the good coffee table in front of the television. Back then, I did not need inspiration to draw or create. I just did it.

It is kind of funny to think that a comic book may have gotten me out of a funk. I have tried different music on my ipod, different lighting, taking breaks, not taking breaks, taking a walk. I have tried almost everything I could to avoid the assignment I should just get done.  In essence, a comic book could be labeled a distraction or nuisance to the creative spirit. In fifth grade, I had a teacher that demanded “no cartoons”. What did she expect from ten year-olds?

Sometimes in the least likely of places, inspiration can hit you anywhere.

I better close up this article before all that inspiration rubs away.

Contact Me