So I find myself embarrassed to say that in the rush and bustle of life, while putting things to the side for later, I managed to file away a Cartoon Craziness Challenge (C³) from the Indecisive Eejit and am just now putting in an entry that could have been in a couple of weeks ago. Today I may get in entries for both Weeks 7 and 8, but I’m not going to make you wait, lest rumors of my disappearance never abate!

The theme of Week 7 is “mythical creatures”,  and while this one is right up my alley I felt compelled to create something new, something never-before-dreamed-of in the entire lexicon of human history . . .

If I have failed, I can hardly be blamed considering “there is nothing new under the Sun” is a common mantra — the thought that you can never think up something new because everything has been thought of or done already. I beg to differ, though, because sometimes we do get something new — heck, sometimes we still find new species of life right here on Earth, and even though (we assume) they’ve been there all along, it’ still new to us . . .

A new discovery.

And even if that pessimistic adage were one hundred percent true, that doesn’t take into account anything that isn’t under the Sun — our old friend Sol, that is.

Presented for your inspection: a creature whose origins stem from another place, another world that finds its orbit around, and its aromatically gaseous landscapes below, a different sun. Its appearance is unsettling. The rational mind refuses to accept the jumble of visual information transferred to it by the alien starlight reflecting from the surface of this beast — a life form that can only live out its violently befuddling existence in  . . .

The Cartoon Craziness Zone

(Sound effect provided by AudioMicro.com)

And now for the first thought. Most of my other entries into the C³ have involved a “first thought”: basically, I managed to create the image that came into my head when I read the prompt for the challenge, and this week is no exception, except my first thought was a blast from the past. It’s a piece that I began over a decade ago while working for Erie Industries in Ferndale, Michigan. It takes quite a while to machine out a two-foot diameter, cast iron cylinder block, which is the job I was doing on a honking-big Mazak CNC lathe when I began to draw this dragon.

I intend to finish it some day, and then have it tattooed somewhere on me, and it’s going to be big. Once upon a time I drew a lot of dragons, and was beginning to get quite good at it. In the spirit of mythical creatures, I wanted to share this one because it remains the best I’ve ever drawn at the pinnacle of my practice.

Until next post, keep the adventure alive.