Who’s your favorite fire breathing pet Pagoda Dragon? POCO! Named for a southern-rock band out of the 70s (duh), Poco brings a more surreal aspect to 1977 the Comic, and I just love drawing little critters. I am seriously considering doing a spin-off of the adventures of Poco and the squirrels. I’d like to animate it… but one day at a time here. 🙂
Stand by for an all out on-slaught for Mother’s Day on Sunday. If I hit the mark, you’ll pee your pants, spit your coffee on your laptop, or just generally laugh. If not, you’ll hate me for this build up. Crap, now look what I’ve done… 🙂
Today’s comic title has been used by a lot of artists, but what I had in mind was the 1968 song by the quartet of Arthur Brown, Vincent Crane, Mike Finesilver and Peter Ker, who performed it as the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Best known for it’s opening ling “I am the God of Hell fire and I bring you… FIRE!” Pure 60s psychedelia at it’s best, man… A very weird coincidence about 20 years ago a local station had just started that song when their transmission tower was struck by lightening taking them off the air for about a week. I think the pulled the song from their library. I would.
Enjoy the weekend and we’ll keep this 5-day a week groove thing goin’ for now! Thanks for tagging along!
😀
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Ouchie. Could’ve been worse for Lily, though. Poco’s flameshot could’ve burned her clothes off of her, especially her top…… (of course, I wouldn’t mind seeing that….) *waggles eyebrows*
I remember watching Arthur Brown cavorting around on stage on an early Top of the Pops, with a crazy headdress that was on fire for this song 🙂 I believe he also caught the set on fire with it at least once
He he!
One of my all time favourite songs too. I remember seeing Pan’s People (Top Of The Pops’ dance group) live at a local Gig for a Pub Rock band performing to this and when the band set light to trays full of lighter fluid the Management pulled all the plugs leaving Pan’s People dancing to silence amongst clouds of smoke!. Brilliant!
And I was also a little bit disappointed that Poco easn’t clever enough to do the boob tube justice in the smoking remains department! 😉
Look at Poco in the last panel! That’s hilarious. I look like that when people wake me up too.
RE: George – Yes, to me the real “punch line” is Poco’s expression/stance. We’ve seen him set people/things on fire before, so that joke itself is a tad worn (though it still makes me chuckle), but as the comic progresses, Poco has taken on more human characteristics (he was wearing glasses last year helping Jeff with his taxes). So, I figure if Calvin & Hobbes could do like 30 or 40 comics about Calvin building snowmen, I can do some Poco comics from time to time.
RE: Bob Long/Nurke – Funny you both mention Top of the Pops, a mate of mine from the UK (Mr Music Obsessive over there in the Cool Links section on the right) has introduced me to not only the show, but to Pan’s People! Small world indeed!
Who knew that a former redneck from Illinois would KNOW about Pan’s People? Love it, man…
RE: Vince – I have toyed with doing some desktop images that are more, oh, shall we say, “pin-up” style of both the ladies and the guys, but man, I am no Adam Hughes (for sure). This art stuff is hard! It’s one thing to be a comic strip artist, but totally another to be a real artist (which I’m not).
I am doing tutorials and lessons on anatomy and posing, but the actual digital painting is where the money is! I may have someone else colorize my sketches for those desktops.
I have done some comic sketches with tasteful nudity of the guys and the gals but I think the “tease” shots are so much more fun. I think the imagination is a wonderful thing. It’s like seeing one of your favorite actress/actor in a nude layout and you think “Wow, I liked them better in a swimsuit.”
If the moment is right, I may do some nudity, but at the moment it’s not in the works! But, thanks for reading just the same and keep that imagination going!
🙂
Lily in today’s comic – best!tits!evar!
dawww, I want my own POCO. and a fire extinguisher.
RE: dgriff13 – I SOOO want to do Poco as a really cute stuffed animal toy. The ultra cool part would be a sound chip that has a sneeze SFX followed by the sounds of flames. Killer. Where’s Hasbro when I have a good idea, hmm? Damn my being a “starving artist”! 🙂
Love the five days a week format, and the way you’ve been going with the storylines! You’ve kept it true to the original format we all know and love, but added some spice and difference that keeps it new and interesting.
I want my own Poco, too! 🙂
Although I liked Pans People (a lot) my interest was totally taken away by Sarah Brightman and ‘Hot Gossip’ dancing to ‘I lost my heart to a Star Ship Trooper’ I dont hink I ever recovered from the first time I saw them on TotP, I think it spelt the end of the road for Pans People too
Good thing Poco only breathes sooty fire and not killing-you fire!
Good luck on finding the time for that animation project! I finally squeezed out an extra day to work on the next book… and look what I’m doing with it. LOL!
[CWOAB] “Fire” also has a kick-ass thumping bass line. I can confirm that AB set his head alight for the number on TOTP. The sixties were full of that sort of stuff on the show. I saw Cream do “I Feel Free” with Ginger Baker dressed as a Roman legionary, one drumstick, one short sword. And Hendrix doing “Hey Joe”. I never saw such a huge wah-wah pedal in my short life. The reason the show was able to get away with this sort of thing was that the artists didn’t actually play (gasp!). This came to light in an embarrasing incident with the Rolling Stones in which a fan grabbed the guitar out of one of the players’ (can’t remember which) during a solo – which kept playing. After that a new contract was drawn up in which the group could mime the song, but had to cut a new backing track just for the TOTP performance. So if you had a tape recorder, you could get a (mono) version of the song being performed that was never available in the stores.
There’s a great story about a Status Quo appearance in the 70s, in which the drummer fell ill so was replaced by a life-size marionet made from a mannequin and operated from the lighting gantry by the manager.
Pan’s People. Heh. By the time I left for the States (84) the NME was calling them “Pan’s Pensioners”.
Keep up the good work. Much Kudos for the high quality.
Steve
Actually, the Ohio Players song was the first that came to my mind.
Took some poking around to verify this, but there’s a second “I” in that quote. It’s “I am the God of Hell fire and I bring you… FIRE!” When this came out I hadn’t gotten into, uh, certain substances yet.
I wish my Bearded Dragon sneezed fire!