Grim Sketches today... literally!

I found some old warm up sketches that related to the The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy comic I drew for DC Comics. I posted the full comic on my blog back in April.

You can see me working out Grim's gesture and basic pose for panel 2. Not sure why he's angry in my sketch and happy in the story. He was always yelling at the kids on the show. I still work out my ideas on cheap paper before I decide what to go with.

Doing warm ups can get you going and I usually sketch stuff that relate to the project I'm working on at the time. Some artists draw whatever they want to draw for fun to warm up but I usually like to get in a rhythm by working on backgrounds, props, or supporting characters. Some make it into the project and some don't.

SEQUENTIAL ART: Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy in "Model Citizen"

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy was another cartoon series that appeared on Cartoon Network and was part of what I consider to be the second "Golden Age" of animated cartoons. I have a lot of sketches that I had drawn of Grim as there was a lot of exciting visual poses you could do with him and I took full advantage of it during my morning sketch warm-ups.

Here follows a short comic story that I had drawn and my favorite part of it are the opening panels at the local mall where the characters are hanging out. A lot of planning went into it visually that wasn't in the script and it was a lot of fun to design. Also, I needed to create a magical creature that was made of wire clothes hangers. That was quite a challenge and I went through a lot of scrap paper sketches before I settled on the final design! Enjoy this blast from the past!

The Things You Find Out About By Accident...!

Don't know if any of my followers knew this, but I just found out about it a week ago! Apparently, about ten years ago, IDW got the rights to the Cartoon Network comic archives (from DC Comics/Cartoon Network) and they produced a massive 300-page omnibus trade paperback in 2015! 

The Cartoon Network All-Star Omnibus trade paperback was released in May 2015.

It's an All-Star collection featuring your favorite shows and characters from Cartoon Network! Cow & Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Codename: Kids Next Door, The Grim Adventures of Bill and Mandy, and Ed, Edd n Eddy get their due in this reader-friendly omnibus collection.

There are FOUR comics in it that I drew: 1 Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and 3 Ed, Edd n Eddy stories... on nice paper stock too!

Needless to say, they don't tell you about this stuff (ah, that work-for-hire agreement) and I'm sure there are no royalties either! If there are, I've not gotten any in a long, long while. It would be nice if they (at least) gave you a complimentary copy if you had any work in it. 

I was able to find a mint, unused copy of it on eBay and got one for my own archives.

Thought I'd let you all know! IDW did some new comics with the Cartoon Network characters back then as well. I wish they'd (or someone) would do some new stuff again in 2025! Those old shows were great!

More GRIM ADVENTURES!

Here's three more sketches from the sketchbook for Grim Adventures!

More GRIM ADVENTURES OF BILLY AND MANDY!

Here's some more sketches for Grim Adventures. Enjoy!

THE GRIM ADVENTURES OF BILLY & MANDY!

Here's some sketches for The Grim Adventues of Billy & Mandy. It's a smartly well-written show and I can highly recommend getting the first season on DVD. It was written for two audiences: adults and kids, and there are things that will make an adult chuckle while a kid will miss it altogether. I have had parents tell me that they don't let their little ones watch it though since it is edgier than the other cartoons on Cartoon Network around that time slot.

The Grim Reaper is my favorite of this series and he's a very simple design. As I posted before, the simplier the design the better the results. The more detail a character has, the more time it takes to draw it out many times over for a job. You have to design your characters so that you can draw them over and over without getting bored of them. That's a great sign if your design is working. I'll post more Grim art tomorrow!