POP-A-LOOZA: UNFINISHED AND ABANDONED! The Snowman

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is a look back at the one page I did for a proposed comic book feature to be called The Snowman.

The Snowman was a vague concept that never fully gelled. Its original inspiration came from ads in the back of Vampirella magazine. Wait, let's pause for a picture of the lovely Vampi.

Awesome. Anyway, my love of 1930s and '40s pulps and movie serials was fueled in part by ads in Vampirella, including one ad for something supposed to be like a serial supervillain's mask. I swiped that mask to create The Snowman, first as an attempt at a pulp novel (written in cursive in a spiral notebook early in my high school years, probably circa '74 or '75, and palpably influenced by cliffhanger serials and The Shadow pulps). Actually the aborted Snowman novel may have been preceded by a Snowman comic book story, written and penciled for my freshman Spanish class (with captions and word balloons en español). Similar time frame, either way. Much later, I used an entirely different version of The Snowman as a potential Batman villain in the journal for my 1979 Fantasy And Science-Fiction class, when I was a senior in college.

The 1979 version of The Snowman. The EVIL One!

Back to today's shared post. Although this undated single page of The Snowman was originally posted in my Unfinished And Abandoned series, it's also a good fit for He THOUGHT He Was An Artist! (Memoirs From Back At The Drawing Board). I still scribble little drawings--the illo at the top of this post was done a few days ago, when I realized I needed a new picture of The Snowman--but I have long since given up any notion of being an artist. 

And that's okay. I'm never going to stop doodling, but I'm a better writer than I am an artist. As I kick around the notion of self-publishing a collection of my short stories, I've toyed with the idea of doing the cover myself. I probably won't do that. I'd prefer that the book, y'know...sell.

I had a slightly more realistic shot at becoming an artist than I ever had at becoming a musician. It is possible that I could have honed my drawing skills with a little more dedication and a little more encouragement. My eighth-grade art teacher was a kind and positive mentor; my ninth-grade art teacher was not. I eventually put aside dreams of professional pencil-and-ink work, and concentrated on my words. (That story is told as part of a memoir of my childhood superhero creation Jack Mystery.)

Jack Mystery in the '80s

Other entries in He THOUGHT He Was An Artist! have revisited a pair of eleventh-grade high school art projects (done for a different teacher), Agent 690: Man Of Action! and Hero. Both are stronger on enthusiasm than they are on execution. My artwork did improve--a lot, I think--after I graduated from college. My sketches in the '80s showed some potential, but I was not prepared to pursue it. There were bills to pay, beers to drink, records to hear, and writing to do. The artwork couldn't be a priority. 

That's on me. Can't blame my ninth-grade art teacher for that. And really, I'm not putting myself down when I say that maybe he was right; I don't think my artwork could ever have become ready for prime time. But I still do it, for myself. It's still fun. And it's still mine.

One of these days, I'm going to do a deeper dive into my '80s sketchbook. Today, we look back on a single page--the only page--of an unfinished and abandoned comic book project. The Snowman serves as the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

Writing? Drawing? Saving the world? All this stuff makes ya hungry.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

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