UPDATE: Full 11 page story is now finished and posted, just click the "Read More" link below.
Apr 22, 2015
GoldBug Ep.2
Starting a new GoldBug adventure.. Some of you (some very few of you) may remember GoldBug from his earlier incarnation. Well, I've pulled him out of retirement, and added a few new cast members: We now have a kid sidekick, Ingot Lad; a Doctor Doom knock-off called Dr. Dollar-Dump; and a potential Poison Ivy-like love interest, Pepper Munee.
UPDATE: Full 11 page story is now finished and posted, just click the "Read More" link below.
UPDATE: Full 11 page story is now finished and posted, just click the "Read More" link below.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Most wonderful!!
ReplyDeleteGoldburg.....er.....Godbug.....uh.....Goldbug returns!
Yeah, that's it - GOLDBUG!!
I just now discovered (via a link to your blog on one of my blogs) that you had ventured back into Goldbug territory, so I Goldbugged my way right over here, so that my life would be all the richer for experiencing this latest episode in the annals of Goldbug history.
Did he have the sidekick, before? I don't remember that. Pray tell me that my mind isn't completely gone, Tim!
I like Goldbug, not just because he's Goldbug, but because your true strengths as a comic creator are better embodied by Goldbug than by any of the other stuff that I've seen you come up with, yet.
Here's the thing - your work tends to have a lot of depth to it. Some of your stuff that is done if more of a serious vein tends to not convey your strength of many levels nearly so well. The key, I think, lies in striking the right balance between serious and silly.
Artistically, you're capable of drawing anything. You do a grand job with the caricature tool of your experience powered repertoire of skills and talents. But, some of your more serious stuff gets drowned with too much of a good thing, if I may be so bold.
I like Goldbug, but I don't see Goldbug as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Rather, I see a glint from what is the key to something that holds enormous potential for you and your career.
Your Goldbug work reminds me of a cross between the Uncle Scrooge series and Captain Marvel (of the Shazam variety), mixed in a who only knows what assortment of tidbits. You have the serious aspect of your work honed to a razor edge quality. It's the silliness quotient that you need to expound upon more in your work. Granted, that's just my singular opinion of one, but it is what I feel as I sit here typing off-the-cuff, today, nonetheless.
You have wit. It's your ace in the hole. You use it to good effect. Your body of work tends to be character-centric, though. The environments in which your characters live tends to receive a rather muted degree of your attention. For example, Scrooge McDuck's money bin is more attention-getting and attention-retaining than Goldbug's vault is. yet, it is the connection that I make between the two that is one of the driving centers of gravity in why I was attracted to your work in the first place.
Scrooge McDuck swam in his money bin. Goldbug, by comparison, only hints of wealth. You overplay the use of subtlety in your Goldbug work. Or, maybe that's just my imagination playing tricks on me.
Your work is heavily infused with intellectual heft. Combined with a heavy hand of seriousness, as some of your work evidences, is akin to dropping dead weight on top of people's heads.
I like seeing your other work, also. I just haven't seen any of it that demonstrates exploitation of your strengths, abilities, and skill sets as an artist better than what I've seen with your Goldbug work, thus far. Of course, in fairness, your body of work with each character set is rather small, so at times, it seems to be little more than an exercise in comparing apples and oranges, when I sort through your work and try to figure out what I like the best.
Charles,
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to comment. You are correct, the kid sidekick is a new addition. You must have skipped over the text part of the post where I mention that, in your eagerness to get to the Goldbug page, and have meaning restored to your life again.. haha.
That's a good call about the Shazam connection I think. I'm not *that* familiar with the Big Red Cheese, but thinking of it now, he has a similar happy-go-lucky quality as Goldbug. Lil' Abner too, perhaps. Maybe there's a standard hero type that's a bit of a naif, but somehow always sails through their adventures anyway; and GB is a variation on that. Also this episode's villain has a similar look to Shazam's arch nemesis, whatever that guy's name was.
Certainly I'm a big fan of Barks, and specifically decided to adopt his basic page design of four tiers for this story.
Interesting ideas about balancing the silly and the serious. I guess it's a little hard for me to be objective about it, to see it as a reader might. When I have an idea, I just try to suit the execution to the tone of the story in question. You may well be right that I'm holding a weaker hand of "serious" cards than "silly" cards.
The damned thing gobbled my latest reply!
ReplyDeleteACK!!!
I'll try again, later. I went to post it, and it wanted me to log in, and I did - but what I had written was no longer there.
Damn you, Blogger!