This sketchbook is from about grade 6 or 7. Pardon the swastika — I watched a lot of WWII movies with my dad and brothers, so I had a fascination with German fighter planes. But here's some other favourite movies...
(Corrections: Goonies was directed by Richard Donner, and Gremlins was directed by Joe Dante, not Steven "Spielburg")
Critters is a pretty average film now, but back then I loved it. There was a whole stack of really bad Gremlins rip-offs in the 80s, Critters being one of them, but even Roger Corman produced one called The Munchies...
...it was very unmemorable.
The following is a Bottersnike from 'Gumbles On Guard', a book by S.A.Wakefield, brilliantly illustrated by Desmond Digby.
And some more doodles...
A popular subject matter for me back then was beat-up people — people or animals with black eyes, broken teeth, bandaids, eggs on head, cuts and bruises, twisted necks, broken bones... all on the one character...
I believed in aliens as a kid (I don't anymore), so I got UFO books out from the library all the time.
This may be Basil Wolverton inspired...
My Tex Avery rip-off. I still love Droopy cartoons...
The following is from a movie I liked called Young Sherlock Holmes, about an Egyptian cult who goes around blowing poison darts at certain folk which causes violent hallucinations. It had some great special effects.
You might notice in the corners of some pages are frames from little animated sequences. I used to make flip books with all my sketch books, or any book for that matter. My fascination with animation goes back a while. It seems I dabbled in caricature early on too...
Big head + little body = instant caricature! Voila! It's that easy...
Loved the Addams Family, and The Munsters...
Some oh-so witty collage...
