Vault O' Shame: Baby Screwy

So very busy, busy! I really haven't had the time to post a proper entry lately. I do know, however, that there are one or two of you out there who  check this site on a semi-regular basis for a heapin' helpin' of my nonsense, so I felt I should post something.  So here is... something.

The illustration you see here comes from the deep dark pits of my archive. "Archive" is a fancy word I use to describe the enormous piles of crap that are spread about my home. I was rooting through the archives recently, when I came across this curious piece. It is curious, because while I can tell I drew it, I have absolutely no recollection of doing so.

The drawing is, of course, a rendition of every body's favorite stupid duck-infant, Baby Huey. Huey starred in a bunch of Famous Studio cartoons in the glory days of animation, and for years was a staple of the Harvey Comics line. I love this character! One of the highlights of my otherwise laughable "career"  was drawing Huey for a line of European comics in the 1990's.

This drawing is not from that era.

I really have no clue when, why or where I drew this, but it must be pretty old. For one thing, this  drawing isn't too good, to put it mildly. The composition? Check out the complete lack of negative space between the little duck and Huey! They are practically on top of each other. The inking is pretty dreadful, too. From the looks of it, I used a brush marker that had worn out well before I started inking this piece. A napkin dipped in chocolate might have produced a smoother line. They say, "A poor artist blames his tools". They are right. The characters are "off model", too, but frankly, I have always considered that my Editor's problem.

Of course if I did this drawing today,  a few clicks of the mouse in Photoshop™ would fix most of the problems. Actually, it wouldn't, as I am not really "up to speed" on the whole Photoshop™ shizzle.

On a positive note, the gag here is in the same vein as the gags they used to use on the covers of the old comics.  Most of the jokes in the Baby Huey comics were of the "Wow, that baby duck is big/strong/a glutton!", variety. Here, I cleverly combined all three themes in one drawing.

Some of you may puzzle, "Why did Bill  post a drawing he isn't proud of?" There's a good answer for that: I dunno. Maybe I hope to inspire young cartoonists out there who are frustrated that they will never see any improvement in their work. Perhaps this will demonstrate to them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, if they keep practicing and drawing a lot.

That sounds nice. The truth is of course, I really had nothing to post.

Better luck next time.

By the way, all the characters in this post are copyright by whoever owns these characters now. So be respectful!