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Paradox
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The characters and scene were indirectly inspired by discussions with Maggie Hogarth. Originally published in benefit portfolio to raise funds for Christina “Smudge” Hanson’s medical bills.
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The original was shaded entirely with gray markers, so the challenge in creating the print version was to convert those gray shades to color and to add missing details. Prints available for sale through Rabbit Valley. Original version published in Yarf! issue fifty-eight as gatepiece for M. C. A. Hogarth’s short story “Rosettes and Ribbons”.
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Unfortunately, a publication error meant this piece didn’t appear on its assigned page, leaving only a blank spot. Originally published in Yarf! issue fifty-eight as illustration for M. C. A. Hogarth’s short story “Rosettes and Ribbons”.
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This wrap-around cover illustrates the climax of the story arc chronicling Alysha Forrest’s struggle to balance two lives: by day a Fleet cadet, by night an exotic dancer and unwilling prostitute. The issue on which it appeared was my last as art director. Originally published in Yarf! issue fifty-five as front and back covers in reference to M. C. A. Hogarth’s short story “Steel”.
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Alysha emerges from a block of marble, a statue coming to life, and reaches toward the stars for which she yearns; the upper part of her Fleet uniform dissolves into exotic-dance costumery, in turn disintegrating and leaving her lower body nude. This piece is more symbolic and less representational than usual. Originally published in Yarf! issue fifty-three as illustration for M. C. A. Hogarth’s short story “Blood Money”.
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A range of seemingly unrelated thoughts and ideas came together in “Collateral Damage”, which turned out well enough to please both Maggie Hogarth and me. “The Visit” is a mood and character piece set after Laelkii Takara has retired from Fleet service to put out her own shingle and bring up a passel of kids. Maggie rated it “slick” and offered strong encouragement to finish it. Paradox created by M. C. A. Hogarth and used with permission. Stories are not necessarily canonical.
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This was based on a rough sketch drawn by the author. Originally published in Yarf! issue fifty-two as illustration for M. C. A. Hogarth’s short story “A Cold and Gentle Dark”.
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Alysha Forrest and Laelkii Takara each dance for a very special audience of one—Matthew Brighthaven and Ashley Browning, respectively. These were thank-yous to Maggie Hogarth for her friendship and support. Characters created by M. C. A. Hogarth and used with permission.
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The gatepiece was rushed for what was supposed to be a tight deadline, and suffered somewhat; still, it and the interior illos pleased the author. The flags are shown with heraldic hatching—horizontal lines for blue, vertical lines for red, and so on. Artistic license was needed to show the flags clearly, since the story describes them as flying from the same staff. Originally published in Yarf! issue fifty as illustrations for M. C. A. Hogarth’s short story “Two Uniforms”; gatepiece subsequently published as part of the short novel Alysha’s Fall.
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Captain Alysha Forrest meets Ashley Browning for the first time. Paradox created by M. C. A. Hogarth and used with permission. Story is not necessarily canonical.
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Miscellaneous Milieux
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This fascinating boutique originally catered to the porn industry based in the San Fernando Valley, specializing in erotic paraphernalia designed for the diminutive stature of mice and rats. The seminal version of the advertisement shown here, designed for industry publications, dates from the 1970s, when the business boomed; it changed very little when a digital makeover occurred in the early 1990s. Today the colors and composition remain largely the same, hearkening to a bygone decade, for the very simple reason that they work. The advertisement’s bold, striking simplicity catches the eye and instantly conveys the shop’s business model, and its unchanging look has created an enviable continuity of brand identity.
More recently its clientele has expanded beyond the original customer base to include discriminating mice and rats all over the world—necessitating a slightly different version of the advertisement that shifted the business name upward to obscure a potentially objectionable portion of the artwork. Expansion to a warehouse location has enabled Naughty Little Things to ship a large volume of merchandise, but the original store and offices remain where they always have been: at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street in Los Angeles. There is even a small showroom available for the use of microphile shoppers, though the bulk of the square footage is devoted to weefolk. . . . Well, not really. Actually, the store exists only in the mind of Baron Engel, who outlined its origins and mentioned that it’s located on West Sunset Boulevard in L.A. Apparently Petina deMouse and Jackie Lyon mail-order from Naughty Little Things when they are in the modern world rather than their native twenty-fourth century or adopted fourteenth century. Inspired, I designed the advertisement and made up the information on it; Vine Street does indeed demarcate the 6300 block of Sunset, but so far as I know there is no actual building with that address, because it would be in the middle of Vine. I like the idea of a microphile showroom, but as with the ad info I can’t guarantee it’s canonical. You’ll have to ask Baron. Still, I think the art captures the essence of the idea. Yes, by the way—in his world(s) mice are eight to nine inches tall, and rats get up to a foot tall. One can imagine the manufacturing difficulties. | |||||
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The most detailed and self-consistent furry worlds I have ever encountered are those of Baron Engel. Not only are the history and infrastructure workable and plausible, the characters are vivid and believable. Some of the latter work for, or head, unique and colorful business enterprises, and recently they’ve inspired me to indulge in a little corporate-identity work for practice. This is one of the results. . . .
When Petina deMouse found her way to the twenty-first and fourteenth centuries from her native twenty-fourth—she still won’t say how she did it—one of her first priorities was to establish a financial presence, using part of her original fortune to create Avalon Limited Holdings. Later she brought her old flame and business partner Jackie Lyon up to date (so to speak), which caused some real consternation. The “moderns” are people in fourteenth-century Andur that hail from later time-periods, including quite a few folks bearing a suspicious resemblance to Baron and his friends (including me); with few exceptions they are nominally employees of the holding company and draw generous stipends. Enough money started flowing back and forth from one century to another that Petina and Jacqui were forced to hire a forensic accountant, Tabitha Proudears, to launder it, since nobody else in the modern world suspects all this hopping around is going on. . . . Of course, the information on the cards is fictitious. I have no idea how many post-office boxes are in Carmel, but I doubt they would need to go to four digits unless the numbering scheme isn’t simply consecutive. | |||||
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The most detailed and self-consistent furry worlds I have ever encountered are those of Baron Engel. Not only are the history and infrastructure workable and plausible, the characters are vivid and believable. Some of the latter work for, or head, unique and colorful business enterprises, and recently they’ve inspired me to indulge in a little corporate-identity work for practice. This is one of the results. . . .
After Roberta Mendoza, following family tradition, graduated from university and passed her bar examination, she faced the question of what to do for employment. Being an entrepreneurial type, she established a modest little mail-order business—Bound to Be the Best—out of her apartment, catering to the BDSM community, of which she had been a member for some years. Before long she faced the prospect of being a victim of her own success; among other things she was forced to contract out steadily increasing custom work. When the time came to choose her legacy from her affluent family, she selected a large, rambling house on three-quarters of an acre in the midst of eastern San Jose, surrounded by the light industry that had grown up on the parcels gradually sold off from the original land belonging to the homestead. It had been in the family for decades, since the previous owners had deeded it over in lieu of cash payment for attorney services. It was an ideal site—elegant but discreet; roomy but not impersonal. Not only could it host all aspects of the business, it could host parties as well, without fear of alienating the neighbors. After a decade of more or less steady growth, Bound to Be the Best today boasts more than a half-dozen employees, including office manager Rumiko Hasegawa, seamstress Megan Rosenberg, and shipping clerk Natalie Taylor, and a solid reputation for supplying some of the finest garments, accoutrements, and accessories in the business. . . . Of course, the information on the cards is fictitious. There really is an Old Tully Road in eastern San Jose, and light industry does dominate the area—although there is no street number of 100 and no large plot with gracious house. | |||||
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Created for an on-line role-playing setting that never actually got started, this airship was designed for a world where technology and magic co-exist uneasily. Manse Wyrd created by Kim Liu and used with permission.
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The last issue of the limited comic series Bureau of Mana Investigation went through some editorial shuffling, ending with a hole on the inside back cover. The grayscale original was commissioned to fill that hole, and the print version was colorized later. Prints available for sale through Rabbit Valley. Bureau of Mana Investigation copyright 2004 Backbreaker Studios; used with permission.
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This was commissioned for a graphic story project. The vessel’s bow is to the left, protected by a debrís shield of fused asteroid-mining tailings. Aft of that, a framework (hexagonal when seen from bow or stern) holds eight fifty-foot cargo boxes filled with forty-foot containers, as used on container ships and big rigs. The red engineering module contains a fusion ring, an FTL generator, and a contragravity drive. It and the blue habitat module have a beveled-hexagon cross-section. The slab-like green module supports secondary engineering systems and six short-range trans-atmospheric vehicles on hardpoints. Four shuttles are configured for passengers and two carry four cargo containers each.
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This VHS sleeve for a hypothetical and rather unusual Zig Zag Studios product was an interesting design challenge, done for a lark. Zig Zag created by Malcolme “Max Blackrabbit” Earle and used with permission.
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This was the first major piece completed using Photoshop. Background shading and textures were “painted” onto the scanned ink drawing. Originally published in Anthrolations issue two as gatepiece for Kim Liu’s short story “The Crucible”.
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Amazingly, this took only three or four hours to finish, which was fortunate, because it was solicited two weeks before the printing deadline! Originally published in a promotional calendar for Associated Student Bodies. Alex created by Lance Rund and Chris McKinley and used with permission.
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The heavy outlines and flat colors are reminiscent of European propaganda posters of the twenties and thirties. The poster’s design follows the story’s description very closely. Prints available for sale through Rabbit Valley. Original version published in Yarf! issue twenty-four as illustration for David White’s short story “The Soloist”.
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According to Jymn Magon, co-creator of the series, Rebecca Cunningham wasn’t originally intended to be quite as bitchy as she ended up getting written. She was also supposed to be a very lonely widow and a bit of a romantic. And, yes, I had a bit of a crush on her. Talespin is the intellectual property of the Walt Disney Company.
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This outline inspired a couple of other folks. Dave White came up with Talespin Again, set a dozen years later, when the older characters are in their forties or fifties, Kit Cloudkicker is in his early twenties, and Molly Cunningham is eighteen, neatly avoiding the problem of finding new voices to play the children’s roles. Waverly Pierre considered writing some short fan stories to explore alternate futures for the characters, which led to Carrie Prim and the Prim family’s hotel. Incidentally, Jymn Magon, co-creator of the series, commented that describing Molly Cunningham as “Becky Junior” is spot-on. Talespin is the intellectual property of the Walt Disney Company.
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It seems many if not most Star Trek fans sooner or later write “Ensign Nancy” stories—wish-fulfillment self-insertion erotic fantasies. More than two decades after it was written, this one now inspires winces, but other folks seem to enjoy it, so here it is. Star Trek is the intellectual property of Paramount Studios.
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Playing around with characters and story ideas in the Star Trek universe seems to be almost inevitable at some point in a science-fiction fan’s career, and I was no exception. However, in a departure from the abundance of “galaxy-famous” fan characters, I decided to concentrate on an ordinary officer with a reasonably distinguished but relatively quiet career, ending as a commodore behind a desk somewhere in San Francisco. Star Trek is the intellectual property of Paramount Studios.
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