"Artin it Up" with Tommy Lombardozzi - "Co-Creations" Edition

TL’S CCD ARTICLE #14 "Co-Creations Edition"

Hey, fuckos. I hope you’re all having a good week, enjoying the heat and all that.

Ok, so lemme give you a bit of back-story before I present this week’s art.Last Friday, my old friend Lockheed Lee (next year, we’ll have been friends for twenty years) came by for a day of pool fun. I busted out some old sketchbooks of mine, from my junior high school and early high school years. Lock (aka Lock “Man” Lee, aka The Dragon, aka Chink, aka Chigga, aka Lockweed, aka Chinaman, aka Lockhead, aka Loki, aka Lucky… this Asian’s gotta lotta nicknames!) is also an artist. Back when we were obsessed with comics, all we’d do was draw Marvel characters. I have books full of ‘em! Looking back, all I did was really copy other artists or just draw scenes straight from the books. Whatever, it was practice, I guess. So, as we were looking and laughing and reminiscing (we kissed a little, I got to admit), I got to a book from 1993 that had quite a few original character designs, along with their cheesy histories, origins, etc. Good fun! We had a good chuckle, but also kinda liked the design of some of these characters we’d created together. There were some he and I created together, some I created with my oldest friend and fellow nerd, Joey Armao (aka Monkey Boy), and even one my brother and I came up with; a war veteran who came back from Viet Nam after being experimented on by his own government who now had the ability to blend into any environment. His name… CAMOFLAUGE! Very high concept.

Anyway, I told Lock that maybe for this week’s C.C.D. “Artin’ It Up” article, I’d redraw these old designs! Good times! But alas, I am lazy, so I only redrew two of them (details below). But I thought a cool thing to do this week was to feature characters that I have created WITH or FOR friends of mine. Unlike doing freelance work where you take someone’s idea and bring ‘em to life, these people didn’t pay me! Haha. No, but really, these were done for fun in collaboration with friends. And now, without further bullshit, I bring you…… “CO-CREATIONS!”

Drawings #1 & 2: KUNTAGE KAT!

This is kinda cool. Back in 1991-1992, Joey Armao and I created this cartoon/comic strip cat character called Kuntage Kat (yes, it IS pronounced like THAT). Basically he was a half-moron who got into sexual adventures (or WANTED to) with the assistance of a wacky cast of pals (like Stumpy the Ringworm, his best buddy). Basically this cat was us. Haha. The first drawing is an old one I found a few years ago dated 1992. It features Kuntage, his pal Stumpy, and a lizard missing a leg (I forget his name). I was 14 or 15 (there is no month stated on the back of the sketch). After I found this old dis-colored drawing again in 2005, I decided to do an updated Kuntage Kat design, also featuring Stumpy the Ringworm. And here they are.

***click Read More below to see the rest of the post**

Drawing #3: JEFFREY BOND’S “ASSASSIN PIG”

My old buddy and fellow C.C.Degenerate had told me about some characters he’d created when he was younger. He showed me a few of his old sketches; with the idea that maybe I could revamp them or just modernize them. I liked his character ASSASSIN PIG best, so I chose that one to conceptualize anew! This was the result, and it’s dated April of 2007. I used an old GI Joe action figure gun as a model for A.P.’s own massive rifle. I think this came out pretty cool, and I am especially proud of the logo (as I am not always good with lettering or graphic design work); it is simple and effective. So, enjoy Jeffrey Bond’s Assassin Pig!

Drawing #4: JOE MILAZZO’S “THE PHAROAH”

Another old pal of mine, mister Joseph Milazzo, had asked me awhile back to do a drawing of a character he had created as a kid. I asked him why he didn’t just draw it himself, as Joe is a really amazing artist and an inspiration to myself (check out his online portfolio here: http://gallery48.com/ ). His answer was that he thought I’d draw a better comicbook character. Ok, fair enough. He gave me a description of The Pharaoh, a list of his powers, etc. I wanted to do something that was sort of classic, Golden Age comic style, so this is what I came up with in my initial… and only… sketch. I think it’s kinda cool, so there. It’s dated August 2006.

Drawing #5: KRISTEN GRILLO’S “CHANCHO THE CHILD WARRIOR!”

Haha. That name still makes me laugh. So, my lovely pal Kristen/Dirt (also a fellow C.C.D. contributor!) had to do a project this past winter for her astronomy class. She asked me if I’d help her create a character that was based on a constellation of stars that she’d pieced together. Yeah, I had no idea what she was talking about either. But, she came up with the whole history of this created constellation’s namesake, CHANCHO THE CHILD WARRIOR! It had to do with him saving orphans (Dirt, give us all the correct back-story, below, please!) She showed me her constellation and asked if I saw his “satchel”… I did not. It just looked like a triangle to me! Haha. But, I took her story and created the character design based on that. So here he is. This was done in February of 2010.

Drawings #6 & 7: THE DECIBLES & MR.NO

Now I’m bringing it all around. THESE are two of the characters that came out of my old sketchbook. I wish I could scan in the old drawings for comparison purposes, but the sketchbook was big and won’t fit on my scanner. Anyway.. The Decibles came from Joey Armao, again. At least the name/names did. The big guy is Woofer and the little guy is Tweeter. The idea was that the big guy would make subsonic sound and the little guy would control it, using their ear-splitting abilities for nefarious purposes! I remember coming up with the idea for these dudes while on the phone with Joey, throwing ideas back and forth. It all started with the name/names… that I remember clearly. I must have done the drawing soon after. It is dated 2-18-93, so I had just turned 16. Mr. No was a creation of Lock and I. He had done the pencil sketch, and then I inked it. It was just a cool design, and that’s why I thought to redraw it for C.C.D. There was no origin story on
the paper, but there was a word balloon that read “There is NO escape from MR. NO!” Hahaha. The logo was also the same then as I did it now. The old drawing was dated 2-13-1993.

We’d create these characters for the Mongoverse… which was our ongoing idea for a world our cadre of characters would inhabit. Ahh, good times. (On a side note: Joey and I still throw ideas around about characters… and man, some of our newer ones are fuckin’ fantastic! Maybe you’ll meet them one day.) In the early ‘90s I veered away from comicbook art for two reasons; 1- I didn’t think I was at all good at sequential art, and 2- I started playing music instead of drawing. But, as you can see I am back at the drawing board, freelancing again and also contributing to good ol’ C.C.D.! Sing our praises, tell your friends, and spread the word! I hope you’ve enjoyed the stuff this week, kiddies. Now go get your ass to the beach!
Until next week…

SMILE UP!
~TL