Thrust Monkey

When I am doodling away on my self-published comics, I can really disappear up my own creative tail-pipe on the preparations sometimes. I may spend days and days designing a character who only appears in one or two panels, drawing pages and pages of thumbnail sketches, and spending hours and hours thinking up names and back-stories and all that stuff…. none of which shows up in the final book.

Case in point, an airborne adversary for Rocket Rabbit, THRUST MONKEY. He’s a jet-pack powered bad-guy who, by the way, rolls (and flies) with JUMP CHIMP, a rocket-boot sporting fellow flying simian, both of whom are members of the APES OF WRATH, a freelance co-op of hairy marauders, each of whom got way more pencil mileage than was really required.

But on the other hand, playing around with all this stuff is the fun part of doing personal projects. And I get to post the left-overs in my blog.
Rocket Rabbit

7 thoughts on “Thrust Monkey”

  1. Yeah, I know what you mean. The details and backs stories are sometimes difficult to get into the actual story.

    But sometimes it just goes that way.

    However, what is also important is that you drew an evil, jetpack flying ape named “Thrustmonkey”! That’s the cool stuff.

    I like his gun; it looks like it shoots chewed gum or something.

    Reply
  2. I think all the back story planning and pencil mileage makes a difference in the end product. That’s why all your characters (whether primary or secondary) have so much, for lack of a better word, character.

    THRUST MONKEY!!!

    Reply
  3. Daniel>> You said it my friend; drawing evil flying jet-powered apes is its own reward.

    Roque>> I agree. The exploration isn’t really wasted although I would like to get more of it into the books somehow.

    Ted>> Thanks Ted. I am glad that you like these drawings. They were fun to do. Someday I would like to do a whole story in a scibbly pencil style.

    John>> This stuff was actually already in my LAST comic book. But it went by so fast you didn’t see it. Maybe I should do a RE-MATCH sometime? :)

    BTW, I wish I was the first person who thought of Rocket Apes but sadly that is not so. I liked the idea when I first had it (2003 or so, I think) but I found out that there had already been quite a few. Look up SKY APE, for example.

    Reply
  4. Hi Jamie,

    I read the The Tinest Bear and Jock. They are really incredible stories. Delightful and refreshing. You should seriously consider changing the format and publish a children’s book.

    Bravo,

    cK

    Reply

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