The Unknown Janitor!
Here’s something from the way-back machine. While digging through some old digital files, I found these pictures and thought I would share them.
In 2006, I noodled around with the idea of drawing a comic book. Unfortunately, I’m not that great of an artist, and that was made clear by my inability to draw faces.
To get around my “face problem,” I came up with an idea for a superhero who would wear a bucket on his head. I called him the Unknown Janitor. This allowed me to skirt the face issue, but a superhero can’t be in costume all the time.
This meant my guy needed a day job—a clever way to hide among the masses. I created the job of an Unknown Comic impersonator. It seemed like a good vocation for a guy without a face.
I sketched a couple of concepts which you can see here (click on them to enlarge). As I said before, I’m not much of an artist, but now I’m proving it. When people are looking for a creative outlet, they’ll take almost anything as positive reinforcement. This provided a further spark that I was on the right track!
The next step was to purchase some 11” x 17” comic page artboards from a local comic book shop. Afterward, I drew the cover. I should have written a script—hell, I was a writer. But in this scenario, I wanted to be an artist. I divided up the pages and lightly sketched a series of panels. The story created itself on the fly.
Even my hero’s foil - Captain Happy - was a superhero without a face. If anything, I stayed in my lane.
Once the pages were drawn, I scanned them and colored them in Photoshop.
A hand holding four aces is on the cover’s upper left-hand corner. There’s a fifth ace poking out from the sleeve. This was the logo I created for “Way of the Con,” my website at the time.
Throughout my life, I tried a variety of creative things. Most of them haven’t worked out. But that’s okay. I eventually found the one thing I loved the most—writing.
I hope you get a kick out of this comic and enjoy it as a snapshot into the growth of creativity.
Have you ever heard a great piece of advice and said to yourself, “Oh, man! That’s good. I should write that down.”
But you don’t write it down because you’re busy, then you forget that great piece of advice by the next day. Sometimes you might remember days or weeks later; other times, it’s just lost forever.