John K.

Brik Blastoff 5a - Sturtevant Styvesant

In the 1970s I thought it was weird how TV cartoons portrayed non-white races. They basically just took their stock white characters and colored them slightly darker so as not to offend anybody - as if having non-white features were inherently offensive.

I had recently just discovered the old Hollywood black cartoons that were extremely exaggerated caricatures of famous Jazz Musici...

Brik Blastoff 8 - Stories 2 - Popnose

Brik Blastoff 7 - Stories 1

Brik Blastoff 6 - Comet, Dik Diskusting

I basically lifted this cow design from a french cheese company.

2024-06-08 15:23:56 +0000 UTC View Post

Brik Blastoff 5 - Buck Bronto

Brik Blastoff 4 - Steve

In the pilot of Brik Blastoff of the Outback it is revealed that Brik's Rocket Rangers have been posted on Ganymede for their whole lives. They have never encountered women before. When Brik is assigned with some new cadets he meets women for the first time and is confused by them because they don't look manly enough to be rangers. They have funny proportions which baffles him. In a fit of crea...

Brik Blastoff 3 - Nit Hoatzin

I think Nit was originally just an odd doodle I drew with screwy eyes. I thought if I made her into a character she might add some alien spice to the Brik Blastoff show pitch.

2024-06-02 16:50:28 +0000 UTC View Post

Brik Blastoff 2 - Brik and Jimi

In our story bibles we usually start off by giving a brief personality description of our main characters.

 After each description we follow with some model sheets showing various expressions and poses.

2024-05-22 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

Brik Blastoff of the Outback

Around 1980 I created some characters for a science fiction cartoon I wanted to make.

The main character was Brik Blastoff, captain of the space police. Brik is the universe's most manly man. He was patterned after Kirk Douglas. As you can see, he is very intense. He is constantly having to suppress hi...

HB Atom Ant 7 - the origin of 'Flesh-Colored' Eyes

In the mid 1960s cartoon studios stopped coloring eyes white. Instead they just painted the whole face including the eyes in caucasian 'flesh color'. this continued through the 70s and 80s and it was always a mystery to me. In this Atom Ant story I decided to come up with a logical reason for it.

 ...

HB Atom Ant 6 - MMA skills

 to be continued...

HB Atom Ant 5 - Beamatron

I think the villain Beamatron was actually from HB's The Impossibles cartoon, but I thought he would work well in this Atom Ant story. He had a really cool voice that we used to imitate when we were kids.

2024-05-13 21:56:33 +0000 UTC View Post

Hanna Barbera Atom Ant 4 - Called to Duty

  To be Cont...

Hanna Barbera Story Bible 3 Atom Ant Blessed Event

 To Be C...

Hanna Barbera Story Bible 2 - Atom Ant's Double Life 2

2024-05-03 15:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Hanna Barbera Story Bible - Atom Ant Story

A few years ago Adult Swim asked me to develop a Hanna Barbera anthology series that featured many of their early characters. Here is a story Richard Pursel and I wrote featuring Atom Ant and his secret identity.

2024-05-02 15:39:08 +0000 UTC View Post

Ted Bakes One

Here's a couple cels from my first professional cartoon. It was animated by Lynne Naylor and me. Jim Gomez assisted the animation and Bill Wray painted the surreal backrounds.

We did it around the end of 1979 and early 1980 for a cable show called 'Channel Zero'.

 2024-04-24 19:03:40 +0000 UTC View Post

Cartoon Cavalcade 8 - Dave the Time-Tarsier

This concept was developed in the early 80s and added to the 1985 Cartoon Cavalcade story bible.

I was fascinated by our primitive relatives the prosimians (pre-monkeys) and especially the Tarsier. I thought it'd make a good cartoon character with its huge bulgy eyes and ignorant expressions. They can also turn their heads backwards and I assumed this would enable it to travel through tim...

Cartoon Cavalcade 7 - Your Gang Story Premises

It is customary in Storybibles to include short premises of the types of stories the characters are in. Here are some from the Cartoon Cavalcade bible.

 2024-04-20 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post

Cartoon Cavalcade - Fake Characters

I had pitched Ren and Stimpy as its own show to the Saturday Morning cartoon shows in the early 80s and the executives all thought I was crazy. It was just too weird for them.

So in the mid 80s when Lynne Naylor and I were were creating a pitch presentation for Cartoon Cavalcade we added some typical 80s kid characters to "Your Gang" to kind of take the edge off the more extreme ch...

Jeena The Jungle Girl

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I got locked out of the site for about a week for some reason and just now was able to open it again.

Here are some more recent drawings of Billy Bunting's girlfriend.

2024-04-18 16:56:33 +0000 UTC View Post

Cartoon Cavalcade 4

Here's another article I thought I already posted. It's the format of Cartoon Cavalcade.

2024-04-18 16:46:26 +0000 UTC View Post

Cartoon Cavalcade 5 - Billy Bunting

A little later in the year that I created Ren and Stimpy (1979) I also created a little bird character called Billy Bunting of the Apes and his human girlfriend Geena (sometimes spelled 'Jeena'.)

2024-04-09 18:24:47 +0000 UTC View Post

Cartoon Cavalcade 1 Ren and Stimpy

I thought I had already posted this but it seems to be missing so I'm uploading it again.

2024-03-28 18:33:18 +0000 UTC View Post

Cartoon Cavalcade 3 - Format

In the 1986 story bible Ren and Stimpy were just part of a show that featured 3 main character groups. Ren and Stimpy were part of 'Your Gang'. There were 2 other series: Billy Bunting of the Apes and Dave the Time Tarsier. The show was sort of a throwback to late 50s and early 60s TV cartoons like the Huckleberry Hound Show and Rocky and Bullwinkle.

2024-03-26 19:09:41 +0000 UTC View Post

Cartoon Cavalcade 2 - Kids

Shortly after I created Ren and Stimpy - also in 1979 I came up with some kid characters who interact with them.

2024-03-20 20:48:29 +0000 UTC View Post

Girls: Pretty and Not As Much So

Here are some girls I've been working on. I seem to have some trouble drawing funny looking women because my natural instinct is to draw them cute.

2024-03-08 17:19:45 +0000 UTC View Post

Fire chief Turns Into Animation Mogul

I found these layouts from Firedogs 2 where the fire chief becomes Ralph Bakshi. It starts with the chief having a funny feeling inside.

His brows get bushy, his nose widens and flattens and his lips thicken up.

2024-02-21 19:53:03 +0000 UTC View Post

More Jetsons

I always thought the Jetsons Show had great raw elements; great character designs and voices, a funny concept and beautiful backgrounds. I think they could have pushed it further though especially in the animation. The first season of the Flintstones had some very funny and stylish animation, but the Jetsons seemed to be animated in a very mild conservative style.

I think Elroy was a funn...

Art Show Coming Up

I've been doing some marker art for a show coming up starting on February 23rd. Here's some of it in progress.