29 October 2010

"My Friend No More" #2

Here are pages six to eight from the memorable story "My Friend No More", as seen in issue thirty-one of the UK Masters of the Universe comic. We get to see Hordak perform a double-take!


(click on the images to see them at full-size)

26 October 2010

Memories #20 - Drawing He-Man at school.

In an effort to make a note of all my He-Man and She-Ra childhood memories I've decided that every once in a while I will make reference to them here! There is no particular order to these; just amusing little anecdotes from years gone by.

As I said previously, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, both the toys and the cartoon, were huge at our school. Every morning of every day of the week we had to write a story and illustrate what we had done the evening before, or at the weekend. I remember drawing numerous He-Man-related illustrations on Tuesday mornings having seen an episode of He-Man on the Monday evening before. I remember I drew a scene from "The Shaping Staff" with Prince Adam reaching for the Sword of Power as he prepares to transform into He-Man in his bedroom. I also vaguely recall drawing a scene looking through Tri-Klops' rotating visor as seen in "The Royal Cousin". The funny thing is I remember I had issues with drawing hands at the time and I illustrated Prince Adam with a lot of fingers! I also remember one kid in the class was always drawing Zoar, because he had recently purchased the toy...


(click on the image to see it at full-size)

25 October 2010

1989/1990?

One of the first questions I was asked when I began producing cereal:geek magazine was why I included the nineties cartoon The New Adventures of He-Man. Fortunately I was well prepared for that answer. Even though much of the series was dated 1990, the first few episodes of the series were actually produced in 1989, and as you can see below actually carry that date. That was enough of a reason to include this cartoon in cereal:geek. After all, how could I not include a He-Man cartoon in a magazine I produce?!


(click on the images to see them at full-size)

24 October 2010

Memories #19 - "James Eatock, you are not He-Man!"

In an effort to make a note of all my He-Man and She-Ra childhood memories I've decided that every once in a while I will make reference to them here! There is no particular order to these; just amusing little anecdotes from years gone by.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, both the toys and the cartoon, were huge at our school. We were all running around back then shouting out "I have the power!" I remember though at one point the teacher actually saying to me "James Eatock, you are not He-Man!" This became an infamous joke-quote in the Eatock household for a good few years. I would like to visit that teacher and show her how creatively fulfilling and financially profitable my life has been thanks to my love for all things He-Man and She-Ra! Heck, my association with both series earned me a place on Wikipedia! Take that, teacher! :)

23 October 2010

"My Friend No More" #1

Here is a very memorable story from issue thirty-one of the UK Masters of the Universe comic titled "My Friend No More". Many consider this to be one of the best of the entire UK run; a story which focuses heavily on two characters that we would not really think twice about. The writer not only tells an entertaining story, but also makes us care for these two characters! Here are pages one to five...



(click on the images to see them at full-size)

22 October 2010

Memories #18 - See him fall!

In an effort to make a note of all my He-Man and She-Ra childhood memories I've decided that every once in a while I will make reference to them here! There is no particular order to these; just amusing little anecdotes from years gone by.

It is amazing what memories the brain will hold in place for a number of years. As I have explained before, in the UK the He-Man series only aired twice on terrestrial television; so if you missed an episode the first time around and did not have the opportunity to catch the rerun, chances are you would not see it at all. I managed to record about seventy-something episodes from terrestrial television, so all I had of other episodes were brief memories of certain scenes from watching them the first time around! For years I had the memory of a villain falling out of a building and towards the camera. Twelve years later during my tape trading with Scott White I watched the episode "The Defection" and there was the sequence I so distinctly remembered!


(click on the image to see it at full-size)

21 October 2010

Come to their senses...

In this panel from issue twenty-two of the UK He-Man Adventure comic we see Skeletor and his Mutants looking a little the worse for wear. One thing that always puzzled me is that the artist who illustrated this comic had previously worked on the UK Masters of the Universe comic. Now, this may be due to Skeletor's new costume, but I always found his illustrations of Skeletor during this latter series to be quite comical. It may be the way the helmet accentuates his skull, or his tiny beady eyes; but something was amiss...


(click on the image to see it at full-size)

20 October 2010

Memories #17 - To be cotinued!

In an effort to make a note of all my He-Man and She-Ra childhood memories I've decided that every once in a while I will make reference to them here! There is no particular order to these; just amusing little anecdotes from years gone by.

For those that know me personally, they have probably heard this story before. I remember watching "House of Shokoti" Part 1 as a kid and not realizing that it was going to be a two-part story; even though the title card at the beginning of the episode was a bit of a giveaway. The image of Shokoti's face at the end of the episode accompanied by Lou Scheimer's booming voice declaring "To be continued" took me by surprise. During the years that followed I was haunted by the image of Shokoti, and as I never caught the one rerun of the episode, it would last a lot longer than it should have. Into my teens and early adult life I still thought about the evil glowing face and questioned what episode of the series it was from. Back in early 1996, a few months after getting on-line, I struck up a friendship with a fellow named Scott White. He had a bulk of the He-Man series recorded from when it aired on the USA Network. The first thing he did was kindly put fifteen episodes of He-Man that I had not seen in years, and in some cases never seen, on a video cassette! The first episode on the tape was "House of Shokoti" Part 1. Imagine my joy upon seeing the end of that episode for the first time in over ten years!


(click on the images to see them at full-size)

19 October 2010

Falling groundward!

Here is an action-packed sequence of three panels from issue three of the UK Masters of the Universe comic. I love the second panel which simply shows the action of He-Man throwing the tree in the direction of the escaping Trap Jaw. Interestingly in the first panel it appears that He-Man has torn the tree down, as we see a nearby matching stump, and yet the text in the second panel specifically states that the tree was already "dead". My theory is that the artist intended for He-Man to be tearing the tree down, whereas the writer possibly looked at He-Man's attitude in the animated series in which he would never harm a tree. Either way, Trap Jaw ends up in a world of pain, but has time to utter the phrase, "Falling groundward!"


(click on the image to see it at full-size)

18 October 2010

Memories #16 - My parents illustrated, too!

In an effort to make a note of all my He-Man and She-Ra childhood memories I've decided that every once in a while I will make reference to them here! There is no particular order to these; just amusing little anecdotes from years gone by.

Some say I can draw, and to a degree I would agree with that. Looking back I would attribute all of my creativity to my parents. When I bought the Masters of the Universe action figures I would always keep the card backs. For some reason I used to ask my parents to illustrate the poses of the small character illustrations. And they would! My mother is an amazing artist, she had that talent passed down to her from her mother; my father was not an artist, but could still copy the character illustrations. They did this for a while, and I would trace the pose and re-draw it with a different character in place. Without a doubt tracing those characters at a very early age taught me the basic fundamentals of how to draw; or at least how to hold a pencil! I seem to remember that the illustration of Tri-Klops was the one I traced the most...


(click on the image to see it at full-size)
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...