That's right. "DOmolisher." I couldn't spell when I was seven either. That's how old I was when I created this guy. Mike was on the floor drawing one of his characters, probably the UNCANNY OWL and I was trying to emulate him so I drew a comic on the spot. Usually, I could draw an entire comic in a day or so. My comics were 8-10 pages on typing paper and usually consisted of a single fight scene that would end in a cliffhanger involving the appearance of yet another "surprise guest villain." None of my series ever went past three issues, so I never knew how the battles ended.
When Mike and I drew our comics, they were usually in full color, drawn in pencil and colorized with colored pencils. We didn't really have a good set of colored pencils; it was just a collection of odd colors that Dad would pick up willy-nilly whenever he found some that we kept in a Ziploc bag. None of them matched except the half-empty second-hand set Mike was using. Mom ended up getting me a set from the school supplies section of King's Grocery but they were really short (about 3 or 4 inches long) and the leads were really waxy and didn't lay down well. But they were mine and so I didn't have to keep begging Mike to borrow his, which drove him crazy.
Most of my characters were hodgepodges of Marvel or DC characters I liked. The Demolisher's costume was a riff on Starhawk of the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. His name was in response to my favorite Atlas Comics character at the time, the Destructor. I had observed Mike reading an issue of ASTONISHING TALES featuring Deathlok the Demolisher and just appropriated the name, not even fully understanding what it meant. My characters also tended to be a costume and a name and not much else. The Demolisher's powers weren't even fully defined. I remember him being strong and, when he hit you, his fist would glow like Iron Fist's. Not sure why. All my characters had the same origin too. They were always involved in lab accidents that caused them to be drenched in chemicals. (Except my character Heat-Ray, who was "blasted by a space alien.")
I was killing time late at night at work when I drew this picture of The Demolisher. It was the first time I'd drawn him in more than 30 years. I didn't have any reference handy so I got the costume wrong. For some reason, I thought he had the Star/"D" emblem on his chest but I found my old comics Friday night and his chest was actually bare. For some reason, 99% of my characters had their initials in an emblem on their chests. This was fine and dandy until I got to my Daredevil rip-off, Black Snake. I laughed my ass off Friday night when I saw that "BS" on his chest.
This guy's not nearly as cool as Mike's characters but it was fun to draw him again after all this time. And what do you want? I was seven.
8 comments:
The Domolisher looks cool. I wish I had all the comic books I drew when I was a kid. I've only recently taken up drawing again and didn't realize how much I missed it.
I play City of Heroes and my namesake character, HEROID, is a superhero I made up when I was maybe eleven or twelve. I've had some great times playing him in a MMORPG.
But he's probably not as cool as he was in my imagination when I was a boy.
Nice drawing there, my friend. I thought his mask looked familiar, so thanks for pointing out just where it was spliced from. I'm probably guilty of the same thing. Though the funniest story was a buddy of mine in college, who didn't get into comics until then, thought he had created the coolest character, that is until we saw his drawing and told him his character was Hawkman.
The spelling is better than my little brother's attempt at character when I used to draw all the time at home. He wanted some big Hercules-type guy, which he named Gulieth. His main move was the Gulieth Boot, which was capable of knocking down mountains. He also didn't believe in Santa Claus. In his world it was Holiday Jones who delivered presents with his snowman friend, Mr. Fuji. True story.
Nice drawing. I think it's cool that you did 8-10 (colored) pages in a day. I specially like the whole cliffhanger ending thing.
Reminds me of the 60's Batman TV series. stay tuned...
same bat time , same bat channel.
matt-- just got your e-mail, went to respond and realized that, in all of the confusion around here (i'll tell ya later...) i missed, not one, but TWO of your titanic blog posts!!!
the domolisher is awesome and can kick my ass! i can tell just by the burst of light behind him! that's an ass-kicking light! i've seen it before! (love his quote...)
sorry that durham is still so sad--though glad you got to have a nice night with the rich, colleen, andrew, and roxy.
todd
This guy does look cool Matt. Sounds a lot like what I used to do as well, although i didn't hit my creative stride til I was in High School for the most part. I used to try and come up with characters but every time I would there'd be someone just like it popping up. So I figured if Rob Liefeld could make a career out of ripping people off so could I. After realizing how much that idea sucked I stopped and then worked on my own stuff for a while before backburnering it for the past 15 years. I recently went through my old stuff as well and laughed my ass off at how bad a lot of it truly was!
I want to see the picture you drew at 7.
The mask reminds me a lot of the Michigan Wolverines football helmet, so instead of the "Domolisher," you could call him the Wolver . . . err, nevermind.
I remembera character I´ve created when I was 9. The same that happened to you, my character were mix of well-know characters. This one was called "Gold Ring", and was a mix between Buster Gold and Green Lantern. I remember it was the time when the Death of Superman got to my hands and I discovered Buster Gold, and realized thar superheroes are allow to use underweaR inside the costume hehe. I love his costume.
Hope to get back to that character and draw him again as you, it seems to be fun!
And, I like Domolisher design, looks great for a 7 years old artist! ;)
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