Zarp

I've been thinking a lot about this little red guy. I started to say "red devil", but I never actually said he was a devil. In fact, none of the published comics every stated in any way what Zarp actually is. Nor does he comment on the matter, as far as I remember.

The character has always been a simple vehicle for telling stories. He's a guy who sees things and whose nature is to explore, wander, and - to some extent - comment on his world. I stopped doing Zarp stuff a long time ago but always wanted to come back.

Today I looked at the visuals and thought about the simplest element of this idea. What does Zarp look like? I found that my art has a wild range of quality on the subject. Some of my earliest Zarp drawings are just shit. Just complete shit. But others are really cool. The sheet pictured here shows the really cool Zarp images (just the heads) and it captures what this guy looks like. I added new doodles to make sure I knew what the hell I was doing when I draw him. Because one of my weaknesses as a cartoonist is that my forms meander too much. I don't define a character's look explicitly before I just start drawing, and that often leads to a visual drift that, in hindsight, is unfortunate.

I need more discipline.