Making Comics

In the Beginning…

The beginning. Well technically the very beginning of me making comics is when I was around 12 or 14 and I wrote and drew a comic called Pulberizer. I would say that was the way it was supposed to be spelled, but the spelling widely varied from Publerizer to Pulverizer to Pulbverizer.

For my Pulberizer (boy spellcheck hates that name), I would take a typical sheet of notebook paper on it’s side (so Landscape) and drawn in grids, usually 2 by 3, so six panels. I would then draw the action, which was just that, just action. It was usually fight scenes between the Pulberizer, his allies and the bad guys. I don’t even think there were any backgrounds or even props for that matter.

I did the original character design for the character by using sketch paper of a character in the Marvel Handbooks. I left the details out when I did the sketch, so I’d just have the pose and basic outline that I could go back and fill in details for my characters. I actually used to love to trace all my old comics with sketch paper. It’s one of the major ways I learned what little drawing ability I have today.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the origin and powers of Pulberizer. Pulberizer and his friend were US special operatives and one day they were on a special mission in South America. And they had special power suits.

So they get captured (actually shot down from sky if my memory serves me right) and the evil organization uses them as test subjects for a program to make superpowers. Pulberizer got the powers where his punches were super strong, but would not harm organic matter (that was my trick to make it more noble of a power and not a total gore fest). His friend got the power of shooting lasers and named himself Lazoid. Lazoid was traumatized by the experience so he had a lot of angst and was the dark brooding hero.

But those stories I did for myself. I don’t even think my parents saw them. I built a little universe of heroes like Mr. Metal and M.D. (Metal Dog) and villains like Blowhard (He could generate powerful winds and show that I didn’t realize how funny that name is when you’re older).

I could say that my younger self had cleverly distilled superhero comics to their pure essence of action in static motion, but that would be my older self shoveling you a load of BS. But in all honesty I was probably aping the superhero comics of DC and Marvel at the time. In those stories, a fight would resolve an issue and a big issue was resolved with heroes combining their powers.