I can honestly say my Mom has never willfully departed with anything from my childhood. It’s not that she is a pack-rat but I think that the action of throwing something away is more like throwing out memories. But this Fall the folks are having their basement professionally finished and they are forced to purge a lot of my old stuff. I don’t know what I have down in their basement but I asked the parents to keep what they think I would want and send me some books I had. So they did. Here are a few and they came with something I haven’t thought about in many years.
The first on the list is this gem that back in 1982 cost a whopping quarter from a garage sale. I think this book has a lot to do with my love of sharks. I can’t remember much from ’82 but I remember taking this book everywhere. Reading this 17 page book doesn’t take me back as much as what is on the blank inside cover.
Holy shit, I can believe I have forgotten about my obsession with drawing on the inside of books. I see the movie Return Of The Jedi really made an impression because this is obviously the Rancor and if you look hard enough you can see Luke and Vader doing something. I like to believe they are throwing the Rancor dog treats between filming. Hey, it’s my art.
This one is a little bit more on topic. Inspired by the great whites in the book I present to you a diver-stormtrooper immersed in shark infested waters. His cage looks a little cramped but it’s cool because he is obviously a yoga instructor too. As for the sharks they are at least recognizable as what they are; sharks. My personal favorite is the one on the bottom. It looks like the poor guy has a touch of the downs syndrome. Apparently his Mom didn’t lay off the booze and pot while pregnant. (This post just gets weirder and weirder)
I don’t have many memories of Hucklebug but apparently I looked through it because it is full of my doodles. That sounded funny. Anyway, I remember having this book with me when I was strapped in a car seat while driving through the mountains of Yellowstone. I was looking at the pictures when carsickness overtook and i yarfed pink Neco-wafers all over the window. It’s funny what you remember. I think about that when ever I see people eat neco wafers.
Good God there is a lot of crazy in this picture. But I have to hand it to myself, I have never seen a stormtrooper without his shoes on. There is one thing for sure, I sucked at drawing feet and guns. I do like the bird and whatever that thing is to the right, though. I want to say it’s an octopus. What do you think?
If you have read my previous posts you know I think Richard Scarry is the cat’s pajamas. Here is proof that I was a Richard Scarry fanatic and it is full of crayon marks that are way outside the lines. The Best Rainy Day Book Ever is what it says and I loved this book like a fat boy loves burgers. There are many connect the dots and colorless pictures for one to fill in but that wasn’t enough to keep me occupied. I had to take it to the next level and add my own art skills to what I thought Dick missed.
I think I knew I was destined to fly planes because as you can see, I wanted nothing to do with helicopters, blimps or balloons. I likes the planes and I even added a oxygen mask to the bear in the jet just to make it more “Top Gun” like. As you can see I tried the balloon but quickly gave up. They just never seemed very fun. Even to color.
Anything in water needed a shark and it must have been close to Halloween because the mice are rocking a pumpkin. Actually there are a lot of pumpkins littered all over this book. I think they are just easy to draw. I must say that at first glance that fin looks pretty big next to that boat but looking closer you’ll see that it is full of mice. So, those proportions are correct! I wasn’t a total monkey on a math problem.
See? Pumpkins everywhere, even on a hippo’s ass. Honestly, this had no comedic intention. I really thought this was a good spot to put a jack-o-lantern. So maybe I was a monkey on a math problem after all.
Another shark book to defame! I swear I have over 50 books about sharks. I actually tried to major in marine biology in college but found that the effort was too great. So my only knowledge of sharks come from the discovery channel because no matter how many books I have, the pictures were all I paid a attention to. But that’s okay because the pictures inspired my own artwork like this monstrosity below.
I promise this is the last one. I can’t even begin to describe this because it is really all over the map. It is obvious that this was before my other drawings because the sharks suck more than the ones before. I mean, I had to improve over the years, right? Well anyway, I obviously never took the advise of many How To Draw Sharks books the folks gave me. I think they were trying to tell me something.
Well, I will leave you with that. Seeing these books bring back memories that have been long lost. I’m glad I had the chance to see them and I am even more glad I drew in them. It’s like a look into my mind when I thought there really were Smurfs living in the backyard and there was a very good chance that when I grew up I was going to join the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire.
Casserole of Disaster 
looking at your pictures it looks very much like pICASSO 🙂
Um, I like the last one with the faces on the sharks. They look happy. They are not going to eat anybody today.
when I was a kid i went through a phase where I drew skeletons that were dressed with a skateboard lookin all rad and badass. In middle school I went through another phase where I tried to draw the simpsons and I quit because I could never get it right without literally tracing a picture. But growing up I drew a lot and I wanted to be a cartoonist. The hardest thing I had to master was drawing hands, I couldn’t draw them well for a long time. I have a few drawings I would love to scan someday and show you and my other online friends.
eee! Scarry! those were the bestest books, maan. I’d always read them with a piece of paper next to me so I could draw what I thought looked cool. I drew an irish pig once!
yep.
Love the doodles, bro.
Wow. I had Hucklebug when I was little. It pulled my brain back about 25 years to see it again. I dont think I drew in mine though.
There is a Necco factory on the way to my dad’s house near Milwaukee. The silo is painted to look like a roll of wafers. It always looks so yummy, but those things are nasty. Except yellow.
Those are so cute. I drew in my books, too, but sharks were not the rage for me. It was freaking cabbage patch kids. I honestly thought that I was doing a fine job drawing them because they looked great. Now, looking back at them, not so much.