Who Farted? -- The Hacker

The Poon Tang Chain Gang was not the only group I belonged to that needed a banner. I also belonged to a group called Who Farted? For their banner I decided to depict all of the members as of the group as members of a super-hero team, in this case the Flatulence League of America. Starting today with myself, I present my initial concept for The Hacker.

Poon Tang Chain Gang -- Take Whatever

So I am looking back to find the link for the head detail in the Poon Tang Chain Gang when I think, maybe I published the finished poster at one time. So I search my blog for "Poon" and find that not only did I publish the finished piece, I published all the works in progress as well, so rather than do it all over again I just thought I would link to the original Poon Tang Chain Gang post and be done with it.

Daily Sketch -- Poon Tang Chain Gang , Take Two

In this second take on the Poon Tang Chain Gang, I have merged the three men together into one three-headed being and added the ball and chain. The woman is no longer dragging them about. Instead they are now escaping from her and the clutches of her vagina cave.

Daily Sketch -- Poon Tang Chain Gang, Take One

Years ago I was tasked with creating a banner for a group called the Poon Tang Chain Gang. You are free to make of that name what you will. This was my first take at it, done somewhere around 2000-2001. The three men in chains were later more detailed in this piece.

Daily Sketch -- Creeper in Town

Another Creeper sketch. This one was done sometime in the 2000s.

Daily Sketch -- Misc Figures

My guess would be I was flipping though the pages of a magazine and drawing what I found interesting. But that is just a guess.

Daily Sketch -- Deadman

I have been a Deadman fan since, hell, since I first came across the character. This is my heavily Neal Adams influenced sketch from some time in the 70s.

Daily Sketch -- Aquaman

I became an Aquaman fan when I first laid eyes upon the cover of Aquaman #37. I was just a kid, but it moved me. There was just something about the figure of Aquaman hold the body of his dead wife surrounded by a rotting sea that grabbed me. Shortly after this Dick Giordano took over as editor and brought in Steve Skeates to write the book and Jim Aparo to draw it and what followed. for the next few years, was my favorite comic series of all time. Anyway, Aquaman, cool character.

Glasses are for Pussys

Glasses were for pussies, or people who gave a shit; Eddie raised the bottle up to his mouth and swallowed twice before tilting it down. He began to cry. What he was doing was a crime; you didn’t treat a good single-barrel bourbon like this. Screw the price, you didn’t do this to something so finely crafted. Good bourbon was an art unto itself; guzzling it was just being disrespectful to the artist who created it. At least he wasn’t watering it down with ice or destroying its delicate flavor by drowning it in Coke like some clueless a-hole. At least he had enough respect to honor the craftsmanship.

Besides, he knew where the road he was traveling down was leading and he decided he didn’t want to go there, no matter how tempting. And he was tired of waking up on the floor covered in puke. He rolled into the kitchen and pulled a glass off a shelf. Eddie was no pussy, but he had decided that he actually did give a shit.

Copyright 2014 Barry Keller. All rights reserved.

The 44s

We will be cruising with the 44's in less than two weeks! Yes!

Daily Sketch -- The Flash Layout

When I was a kid and first thinking about drawing comic books, there was a Flash 80-page Giant that contained a 2-page section by Carmine Infantino called, "How I Draw the Flash" and it was the first real instruction I ever had on constructing a body or face. I think because of this short feature, I became a huge Flash fan. Makes no sense I realize, but there you have it. So over the years I have played with the Flash over and over. This is just me trying to do some storytelling using a static six-panel structure.

Royal Southern Brotherhood

We will be cruising with the Royal Southern Brotherhood in two weeks! Lucky us!

Daily Sketch -- Contemplation

I drew this a long, long time ago, maybe in the 70's even. It was the beginning of a page layout for a story about a guy contemplating suicide. I don't remember anything else about it.

Bernard Allison - Voodoo Child

Two weeks from today we will be cruising with Bernard Allison. Yeah baby!

Daily Sketch -- Posing

Just a page of miscellaneous poses from my sketchbook. Just me doodling around sometime in the distant past.

Daily Sketch -- The Star Queen

I have no idea how old this one is. This is a character I created in high school, The Star Queen. I haven't seen her in a long time. What a surprise to find.

This Could Be the Last Time

People always talk about the first time they did something; the world seems to revolve around it. Parents remember the first time their children walked, the first time they talked, their first tooth and their first day of school. People remember their first kiss and their first date, their first job, their first car and their first real relationship. That’s the way life is supposed to be, a collection of firsts. They fill your memories and get re-experienced in your dreams. But for Eddie, it was all turned around, all backwards. He couldn’t remember the first time he did anything…but he remembered the last times.

His healthy body he had taken for granted; he had always had it and always would, or so he had thought. He sat in his chair and looked out the glass doors onto his patio and at the brilliant sunset painted in reds and oranges and startling violets across the expanse of sky, and none of the beauty registered in his consciousness. He sat in his chair, sipping a cold beer and the reflection on the window glass made a sort of canvas upon which the movie of Eddie’s lasts played over and over.

On it he saw Emily Connors as he picked her up in his arms and carried her to his bed, where he gently laid her down and then crawled on top of her, kissing his way up her body. He didn’t know that would be the last time he felt the full weight of a woman in his arms. He saw himself in the gym, his strong muscles pushing against the leg press for the 10,000th time, never guessing that the last time he slipped off the machine was the last time he ever would. He saw himself walking to the green and addressing the ball and sinking the four-foot putt, never considering in a million years that it was the last one of his life. He saw Betsy Sherrod, glistening with sweat as he took her hand, his last dance, and her glistening again later that night, his last fuck. For Eddie that one hurt the most. He prided himself in the pleasure he could give to a woman and now that thing in which he had assigned so much pride, so much of himself, was gone and nothing he could do would ever get it back.

It was times like this that Eddie was pleased that he didn’t own a gun. 

Copyright 2014 Barry Keller. All rights reserved.

Daily Sketch -- Back to the Creeper

Or maybe, "Back of the Creeper" would be a better title. Another of my Creeper sketches. There is just something about that unusual Ditko costume that keeps drawing me in. This might have been done around 2000 or so.

Daily Sketch -- Canyon Living

Rough sketch for what a much larger piece I did as a possible portfolio page for Mayhem #3. This is called "Canyon Living" and it is an alien world where humans can only live in the depths of canyons and have built a city into the canyon walls. You can see on the right that I added a scale to use when moving this over to a larger art board.

Daily Sketch -- The Creeper

I have found literally dozens of Creeper sketches in my old sketchbooks. I always loved the character and wished something more had been done with this Steve Ditko creation over the years. Most of my Creeper sketches are like this, half-assed and unfinished. This looks to be from around 2002.