ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

This is one of those books that I picked up at a library sale (discard, Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont Street, Lawrence KS 66044) and kept around for years past its usefulness to me because somewhere deep down I believed that eventually some hidden artistic ability inside me would awaken and I’d desperately need this book to know what to do with it.

The same basic reason I have any of my art how-to books, that is.

Flipping through it, the book does appear to have some good common sense advice for kids who want tips on drawing comics. At least I assume it is written for kids, because most of the example drawings are by people younger than 15. A rather odd one is on page 17, by a thirteen year old. The comic is titled BILLY FREEDOM AND THE YOUNG INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM BRIGADE and there’s this burly man in a bodysuit outside a building marked “SLAVE QUARTERS” and a small black woman urging on someone we can’t see: “C’mon gang! These slave tradders aren’t so tough!” Whoever the hell Billy Freedom is, I salute this person as well as the brigade he? belongs to.

Another one on page 59 is by a sixteen year old, and tells the tale of a girl named Linda Chavez who was brought up in a traveling circus in Mexico and became a martial arts, acrobatics and sword eating expert until she was orphaned by a fire. Then her grandfather taught her the “wisdom and secrets of the Mexican ancients”. When he died she vowed to use her knowledge to help the “weak and oppressed” and “THUS Linda Chavez became LA CHARRA: the skills of the CIRCUS and the wisdom of LOST CIVILIZATIONS combined in one woman–the world’s greatest fighter for the cause of justice and freedom!!!” The comic is rather cute actually and I wish I could look up the artist on Google or something.

On page 21 there is a comic by a fourteen year old, titled ECOLO MASTER, who “battles those who would destroy the world’s living things!!” “Pure ozone, major–it will only render you temporarily helpless…long enough for the air purity police to round up you and your whole gang of despoilers!” warns ECOLO MASTER, who stands there in a mask showing off his torn tights and man boobs. Things continue on page 54, where “one day while ECOLO MAN is enjoying the forest” he observes, “OIL POLLUTION: something sinister is going on upstream” and later “a net of natural plant fiber comes down on the villains.” Ecolo Man pronounces their crime: “Illeagle strip mining! This should hold you!” On page 57, ECOLO MASTER observes a factory and thinks, “Thats their hideout, the smoke is that of melted gold!!!!” When he arrives to save the day, he announces to the bad guys that “This is Pure Sunlight, it will only blind you long enough for the police to round you up!!”

On page 66, The League of Ugliness is formed, in which a man barely survives a fall into toxic chemicals, which render him extremely ugly, but super strong. “But his face…it will always look horrible!” the doctors diagnose. “No one will ever be able to look at me with these bandages off,” laments the man, “except OTHER people with BIZARRE FACES! You can call me Brother Bizarro!”

I think the League of Ugliness is my favorite.