Monday, June 7, 2010

RAT RACE

Back when I was living in good ol' Dover, New Jersey, I was working with a Science Fiction publication called Aboriginal Science Fiction.


I still think of this as one of the highlights of my career. I don't remember why I contacted the publisher, Charles C. Ryan, with an unsolicited comic.
Maybe I got the listing through the Artist's Market.
Anyhow, I remember him getting in touch with me, and being quite happy with having something so odd, and short, ( the comics were from two to four pages in length), and were just the thing to plug up those annoying holes in a magazine's layout, with a deadline looming.
The stories were about the creatures that inhabited Earth after the final war had been fought with everything Man had, including the Nuclear Kitchen Sink.
Mutated rats, cockroaches, moles, etc., plus a whole range of EXTERMINATOR
class robots.
When Mr. Ryan agreed to publish the comics, I was on Cloud 9.
That first Rat Race story was on exhibit at the
Angoulême International Comics Festival in 1992, ( Thanks Joe Kubert School!)
This was the last story to appear in the magazine. I used Coquille board to create the comics.
I couldn't find the originals, so I scanned from the original newsprint.
Sorry if it's a little muddy looking.
So...here's Rat Race.
As always, click on the all of the images to see more detail, including the cover.








The art is a wee bit on the klunky side, but then again that was 17 years ago, and I don't draw with my feet anymore.