Star Trek Week, Day 4: Worf.

Me: “Jojo, you’ve seen some Star Trek: The Next Generation, why don’t you draw Worf?”

Jojo: “Ok!”

SEVERAL HOURS LATER

Jojo: “Alright, here it is. This is what Bork looks like, right?”

We might as well say this Klingon’s name is Bork, because while it looks generally like a Klingon, it really doesn’t look anything like Worf. She didn’t put him in a Starfleet uniform and she gave him an Amish beard instead of his reverse-Hitler goatee.

I will give her points for drawing a much more correct Starfleet insignia than on her previous drawings. She’s learning.

Star Trek Week, Day 2: Captain James T. Kirk

Today we continue our week of having Jojo draw Star Trek characters from memory.

This Capt. Kirk is basically right. The hair is a little off and Jojo actually draws the Starfleet insignia upside down (well she ACTUALLY draws it as a weird squiggle line). She went with “Fat Kirk” but she only made him pudgy in the middle, very restrained by Jojo standards. Also his command chair looks more like an upholstered living room loveseat, but that’s not totally out of character for Kirk.

All in all, she captured the essence of the character. He’s a a leader who confidently leans in his chair, while spreading his legs wide to accommodate his (cartoonishly) large package. 

Star Trek Week Day 1: Spock.

Star Trek popped up on Netflix Instant a while back and since then, all I do with my free time is watch Star Trek. So I thought it would be fun to have Jojo draw Star Trek characters. And before you say, “Hey, they aren’t super heroes”, remember there have been plenty of Star Trek comics.

When Jojo sent this to me online, she included some notes. Those notes are funnier than any comments I could come up with, so here they are:

“i wanted Spock to look bad ass, no hand thingy bullshit, i don’t need to draw that to confirm to the internet that i know who Spock is.

i know there are phasers, i don’t know what they look like. i imagine they’re gun things that don’t have to be very big cause it’s the future. like, in the 80’s there were ghetto blasters, now we have tiny nano ipods.

the only reason his shirt is blue is because red shirt people die and i think yellow is the captain? maybe it’s green. i’m hoping it’s purple. (it never is purple)

when i got to his feet i really thought about what kind of shoe one would wear in space. they’re probably black and boring, so i ignored that intuition and gave him some sweet kicks. that also match his shirt.”

Well, she got everything right but the shoes and at least she admits she just made those up.

Today Jojo draws Doctor Strange.

Like with Wolverine, Jojo has seen me wearing a Doctor Strange shirt, probably once a week. Also, I had told her that he was a surgeon, who became a wizard, and is a super hero. With this drawing I think she tried to hit all those marks. Let’s see how she did!

Surgeon: Check. He’s got a lab coat and bone saw. He’s ready to kick your ass.

Wizard: Check. He’s got a wizard’s hat. Although she admitted it looks more like a nightcap.

Super Hero: Check? She gave him red and blue skin… for some reason? Strange did used to have a blue face but there’s NO WAY Jojo knows that. And she gave him a, um… 

I can’t do it. This drawing is ridiculous. I can’t defend or explain it. Normally I can tell what Jojo was thinking when she does these. When she drew Doctor Octopus as a literal octopus man, I understood. When the only thing she knew about Psylocke was that she was Asian and had big thighs, that made sense. Heck, even when she drew Booster Gold as a can of beer, I could sort of figure out why she did it.

Not this one. This drawing belongs to you now. Make of it what you will.

Today Jojo draws Silver Surfer.

Me: “Jojo, do you know what Silver Surfer Looks like?”

Jojo: “He looks like a Capri Sun commercial from the 90s, right?”

Me: “I can’t argue with that.”

I don’t have much to add, except that by giving him hair, ears and (very noticeable) nipples, it draws a lot more attention to the fact that he’s got nothing between his legs.

Actually, that’s not true. I don’t think anyone will notice anything but the nipples.

Today Jojo draws Yellowjacket.

This is the third installment in our unofficial, unrequested, Hank Pym week, where Jojo draws all the different super hero identities that Pym has had over the years.

Here’s the thing, normally after Jojo draws a hero from memory, or just guesses (like with Animal Man), I then show her the real character. Often I’ll tell her a little bit about the character, mostly to see the astounded look on her face when she realizes that they’re even sillier than what she made up. So after she drew Ant-Man and Giant-Man, I think I mentioned that later on, Hank Pym becomes Yellowjacket and hits his wife during a time when he was worried the Avengers were going to fire him. So today I asked her to draw Yellowjacket and what do we get?

A man, in a yellow jacket, hitting a woman while holding a “rejected” letter, presumably from The Avengers. Probably nothing could sum up Pym better than that. As a bonus, Jojo also did a sketch of the aftermath:

See? He feels really bad about it, and he’s crying. That makes it OK, right? Oh, it doesn’t? Not even a little? That’s fair.

Today Jojo draws Giant-Man.

Well, I said I’d do it. You probably thought “what’s the point of drawing Giant-Man, Hank Pym’s second identity  after Ant-Man, when you’ve already had Jojo draw Ant-Man?” I’ll tell you the point, Giant-Man is great! Ant-Man is great too but people make fun of him for shrinking and talking to ants, so what does he do? He invents a formula that makes him gigantic! Now who’s tiny and talks to ants? Not Giant-Man! Heck, if Aquaman could grow gigantic, maybe Jojo wouldn’t have had to give him a shark arm.

Anyway, this drawing is great too. I like that she drew a cat (Garfield?) for scale, and that she made sure Giant-Man was wearing a cape. Plus, it makes sense that if you’re that tall, you paint your “G” logo on your toe, to make sure people can see it.

Tomorrow we’ll probably do Goliath, Pym’s third identity. Or if that’s too much like Giant-Man, there’s always Yellowjacket or Wasp, I can have Jojo draw Hank Pym all week!

Today Jojo draws Ant-Man.

If you think about it, Jojo has a tough job. Sure, it’s easy for us comics readers to remember which animal-based characters actually look like their namesakes and which don’t. It’s confusing. Black Canary has nothing bird related on her costume and Doctor Octopus’ name obviously mixed her up. I teased her for drawing Daredevil without any devil horns but now just one day later, I’m teasing her for taking Ant-Man’s name so literally. There’s really no way she can win.

There’s been three Marvel heroes named Ant-Man but since none of them are actual ants, let’s just say this is Hank Pym. I like that she gave him human arms, making him the opposite of her Shark Arm Aquaman. I also like the cape and belt. Whenever she does a drawing and is worried it doesn’t look enough like a super hero, she generally adds a cape, or a mask.

In fact, I like this so much I might have her draw all of Hank Pym’s various super hero identities (he’s had like five). I’m probably the only person who will enjoy that so you’ve all got one day to talk me out of it.

Today Jojo draws Daredevil.

Me: “Jojo, do you know Daredevil?”

Jojo: “He’s like if Iron Man and The Rocketeer had a baby, right?”

Well, Jojo is nothing if not true to her word. Although I think this looks more like if Rocketeer and The Flash had a baby. It’s pretty much Flash’s colors and body, with Rocketeer’s head. We know that Jojo is good at drawing The Flash, so I think that’s how that got in there.

There’s two funny things about this. She obviously didn’t know that Daredevil was all red and she didn’t draw the horns on his head, but she’s clearly seen Daredevil before. We know this because she drew his chest “D”s right. When I pointed that out, she said, “Really? I thought I made those up.”

Also, when I gave her a hard time about not drawing horns on him (his name is DareDEVIL, after all) she yelled back, “Well how should I know? Black Canary apparently doesn’t have fucking feathers!”

Today Jojo draws Swamp Thing.

Since Swamp Thing #1 came out two weeks ago we’ve been getting requests for Jojo to draw him. I’d say she got the right idea, but there’s a lot of details wrong. She made him more mud than plant, with only some twigs in his head, and she gave him a nose, even though his most recognizable feature is his lack of one. She also drew him smiling, which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen.

Mostly though, she added some clothes. She said he needed a mask because, “He doesn’t look like a superhero if he’s just some swamp muck guy”. I asked if his shorts were jean cut-offs but she assured me they weren’t. She then pointed to my X-Men T-Shirt and said, “He’s wearing shorts like Cable is wearing on your shirt.”

I was wearing a Cyclops shirt. Jojo, everyone.