Hoofnar's Gods are Real

I've always been a guy with multiple worlds in his head. And it feels like all of them have sort of collapsed or coalesced into two distinct worlds that are, as far as this writing, not connected.

One of them is Pan-Gea, which encompasses all of my work on Black Pudding and the new comic Hellion Cross as well as the Troika!-based RPG books I've done. It is all one grand setting, just spanning a lot of time. The connective tissue between them all is a pantheon of gods, demigods, and immortal beings such as Nest the Moon, Seer the Sun, and the Worm Witch.

Contrasting this is another world I call Yukkara. This world is about funny animals. Why is it distinct? Because in my lizard brain I NEED and WANT a world that is entirely comprised of talking cartoon animals (along with demons, dragons, wizards, etc.). No humans, you see.

The world of Yukkara is largely "governed" by six powerful gods pictured here in this sketchbook drawing. Each of these deities have "clever" names that are word plays which I will unpack for your pleasure and entertainment. If I'm not terribly mistaken, this is the first time I've posted about these guys. I know I conceived them years ago because I have multiple documents and journal entries that mention them going back in time at least a decade.

• Owldina is the Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom. She is represented by an owl. I don't remember Owldina's name referencing anything other than she's an owl. Which is funny because she's a knowledge goddess... get it? There's no extra knowledge to uncover on that one. Hah.

• Jehawkva is the God of the Skies. He is a hawk or some other raptor. Jehawkva is a play on both hawk and jehovah. Clever bastard.

• Marduck is the God of War. He is a duck. Marduck is just a play on Marduk, who isn't specifically a war god. But it also sounds like Warduke, and he's a war guy.

• Buddacuda is the Deity of Truth and Mindful Doing. He is a fish. Buddacuda... seems obvious to me.

• Porkus is the God of Death. He is a pig. Porkus is Orcus but a pig. It's been done before, but that's fine. Something as obvious as Porkus is gonna get done over and over. Same with Marduck. It's fine.

• Eweweh is the Goddess of the Earth. She is a sheep. Eweweh is a combo of ewe and yaweh. Clever bastard. I even threw in a little bit of lore, as the kids say, that Eweweh is often characterized as a male god, which pisses her the fuck right off. Which is a nod to the fact that Yaweh is a masculine god figure. The layers of my cleverness are rich and myriad.

Hoofnar's Return?

Since I'm in such a comic book mood lately I really ought to dust off this guy and actually draw this comic book. I keep threatening to do it year after year. Will 2024 be the year it actually happens? Mayhap by Marduck's steely bill it will be so!

 

Carry On

Been in a funk lately. I was working on the new game every day, kind of obsessed with it, then I got COVID. Seems like that's when the funk started. Been kind of flitting around since then, not focused on a damn thing. Arting randomly, no focus at all.

But such is life. I have a wandering mind. Sometimes it's worse than other times. I would probably fit into some category of neurodivergent, but I'm not dysfunctional enough to give a shit about checking.

Even unfocused, though, I still draw a decent amount. I berate myself for not doing much but then I look at my art stack and realize it just keeps growing and growing and growing. Even my daughter, who draws all the time, comments "How do you just keep drawing so much?".

I guess my issue is that I see all these accomplished comics creators, for example, who did x number of issues of their book over x decades and I'm like "Where's my x book?". I don't really have one. People know me either for The Pool, Pan-Gea, Black Pudding, or my pin-up art. I think. I'm so god damn random I can't even tell if any of that is true.

Here's a logo I recently drew for a character aptly named Hoofnar. Great visual concept. I even have a cool cover for it, pictured here. But I've been unable to settle on the character's core. Is he a goofy bastard bumbling through a cartoon world? Is he a serious straight Conan riff? Is he something else? I don't know. It's got me locked up on doing him.

I mean, this idea has legs, right?

Meanwhile there's Zarp. That little red bastard has been with me for 23 years and I've drawn lots of little comics about him. I even drew a 16 pager at the end of 2022. I want to get that into print. But I'm stumbling around not sure if I want to do a dedicated Zarp comic or not.

And now, suddenly, there's this Hymla idea. She's a badass warrior chick. She's thick and mean and missing a tooth. I like her a lot. She deserves a comic too.

Picture it in FULL COLOR.

Come to think of it, the Hymla piece, in color, would make a fucking sweet 11x17 poster. I might do up a few and sell them, signed and numbered and all that.

All of this leads me to the inevitable concept of a simple anthology comic wherein I can just dump all my comic book ideas. Like Random Order Comics, which makes sense. I already did a Random Order Comics & Games zine back in the oughts. And my imprint is Random Order Creations (established 1994, and consistently used ever since).

Which leads me to this concept.

Yeah, I'm a creative mess right now. But that's cool. I've always been a mess. I still keep messing around.

Hoofnar the Barbullian!

The age of beasts, witches, and sorcerers! A time red in tooth and claw! Witness now, o traveler, these tales of daring deeds and hirsute heroics. Truly these are the days of furious four-fingered adventure!

Hoofnar is a comic character I've been thinking about for a few years. Probably posted about him before. I did this cover mock up in a moment of inspiration. Maybe this might lead to an actual comic book? I do love my funny animal comics.

NOTE: I actually have no memory of how I ended up with two distinct comic book character ideas that are reddish-skinned, horned adventurers. Zarp and Hoofnar are vastly different in tone, but have certain shared traits. In fact, all my Hoofnar art prior to this cover shows him with very red skin and I labelled him a "red bull". I moved to a brown skin here to distinguish him a little bit more from the skinny little devil character.