Dana & Potbelly Action Figures???

GREAT NEWS: Looks like there'll be some TOYS of Dana, Potbelly, Magic Boxes, and maybe some other trout creations!  This is a big deal for me, as Toys are usually made for more  big franchised characters, my dorky stuff usually doesn't have a shot. 

But that's what's so cool, along comes Kim Fung Wong, who does those amazing looking Ashely Woods toys, and turns out he really likes my stuff!  In a world of large Corporations pumping out toys based on big hit movies… he would only do figures like this because he DIGS my goofy art, thinks they'd just be COOL looking.  That simple.  

So, because of cool guys like Kim, lucky folks like you and me get a shot at a a few collectable action figures. 

Kim could make tons of more profitable toys too with bigger companies. He's no reason to do this, accept for the fact he just has the faith that whatever we come up with, might make really COOL figure.  That simple! 

Sometimes it's nice a lone person can cut through the corporate crap and just do things to please himself, eh? 

Kinda of interesting... trying to wrap my head around a figure in 3D again, like with Batman or Maxx figures.  Were starting with Potbelly, partly because almost everything i DRAW has a pot belly, and then move to Dana next. 

If you think about it, i've been drawing big bellies from way back, like this old page in Epicurus, so while the idea of big bellied monster may seem an odd choice, it's second nature to me. 

This also gives me a chance to re-tool some old ideas i had before. I went back and forth when i first drew Dana's boxes.. part of me wanted to make them living creatures, another liked them being inanimate objects she just collected in the real world. 

I still went back and forth, one legged, two legged? hopping? walking? Dana riding it like on horseback? 

These quick scribbled above were as far as i got.. 

But, i still didn't know: Living moving Box? Or ordinary non-moving box? Because i've spent so long drawing and designing the Boxes i built, i was stuck on the idea that they HAD to look exactly the real life version i built, which was stupid, because though those were built from MY drawings in the first place. I got literally too attached to them looking so real. 

Kim said he liked the slightly more cartoony version of the Box on the Bimbo cover. I was disappointed at first, because i was still stuck on the box looking as real as possible. But then i realized, it's actually flattering he liked the box on that cover, but cause it's kinda of funky and hand drawn looking.  I still like both: the super detailed vs. more cartoony versions of my boxes. 

What i'm getting at is, i am subconsciously kept drawing the boxed with one leg (hopping) or two legs (walking, duh!) ... because in the back of my mind there WERE already 'alive'. People like things that move, breath, have motion. personality! 

So it's because of the toy, which will move and have articulated joints, that i returned to what i wanted in the first place, a moving living box. 

One of the cool things is seeing how a action figure evolves, and why. 

So while designing pot belly, Dana's box is rolling around in the back of my mind too. 

Lot to absorb this post, eh? Toys take time, so it will be at least a year or so for all this to unfold. But might be cool for YOU guys to help give me feed back and watch this stuff grow along side the comics and art books that these characters all show up in too, 

Taboos of Body Fat in Comics.

Here's something you don't see everyday, at least in comics.

Body fat. I wanna talk about tummies. Even though TONS of Americans are overweight, it's weird how in fiction, a fat person, usually only makes their way into comics/movies/tv if they're a comical foil. I have always had an affection for chubby woman's bodies in comics...  little spots, pouches.. things most male comic artists have seen a million times in their wives, sisters and daughters, (or woman artists notice in others, or their own bodies to varying degrees.)... are still Taboo to draw in comics.

Now guys get fat too. My 'pot belly' character from My Inner Bimbo falls under the 'gross-monster' category. This is somewhat of a dodge, trying to poke fun at myself.  Many 'fat guys' learn to laugh at themselves out of habit, just like women do to beat others to the punch.

But for a main comic character, it's weird how you catch yourself 'self-editing' a figure... without even thinking. When you draw idealized male and female figures in comics, your always trimming off fat, or inflating muscles as if their water balloons. I got away with a few pot belly shots when i drew Julie in the Maxx, but that was partly tolerated because she was (for the most part) thin-ish, cute and blonde.

It wasn't until I started drawing Dana, that it sunk in that a LOT of fans, guys (and yeah, even some girls) may be turned off by ANY body fat in a heroine.

Yeah, I get why, but now that I have a spare tire myself, I want to draw some characters who look like, well... real people do. I know most comics and sci-fi are fantasies,  someone with an idealized body too. And I like drawing these impossibly skinny characters sometimes too.

But i don't care, If wanna have a chubby heroine like Dana, screw it - I will.  Jamie and Gilbert opened this can of worms years ago. Terry Moore's woman have some curvy figures too.

As for my motivations, it's It's not so much  to glorify (or fetishize) fat or chubby women in general. It's... more.. just reflects what a ton of people are struggling with, everywhere. Comics can idealize, but also ... reflect too.

It almost seems a weird thing to keep editing quirky or pudgy things out of a creator owned comic, almost weird NOT to add flab or flaws. It's almost a denial of what makes us human.

This also came up because I'm talking to a mysterious individual... and am in talks to do a possible Dana Toy Figure. So the question comes up, does anyone want to SEE, (let alone even BUY) ..a 'sam kieth chubby chick'?  (which, given the way i'm drawing these days.. might mean even chubbier than Julie, and might have (yikes) tats, or even worse (brace yourself) - body hair! I can see fans jumping ship in droves.

But on the other hand, I think I'm seriously seriously underestimate my fans. Sure, the amount into Dana may be less. But anybody who made it through the Maxx (or my art books) KNOWS to expect the weird, or possibly unusual or strange.

Hell, even if only a handful of fans were out there digging a chubby chick toy, how cool would that be? Just the fact there are so few comic characters with tummies out there with fat and flaws, it makes me all the more proud the folks to DO get it, totally get it!

I don't mean to preach or lecture.. more just work it out in my own mind. I also don't mean to come off as one of those 'sensitive guy' types sucking up to women, (who I usually really hate, even if i am sorta one myself sometimes).

Yeah, The female approval crap is always lurking, but many these rules apply to chubby guys too.