I have known John Purcell since 1978. He was one of the first editors to publish my cartoons. I recently started coloring my cartoons and sent John several. The first he put in print he published in black and white. Here is the color version. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger image.
The cartoon appears in Askew, a print-only fanzine. To see other fanzines John has been putting his money into over the years, go to http://efanzines.com/Prior/.
I was the artist guest at AmigoCon in El Paso, Texas, in 1993 and created this t-shirt design for the convention. The story “A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum inspired my characters taking reverse roles. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.
I wore the t-shirt at a later convention and a science fiction fan told me that she saw deep psychological meaning in the caption. Yes, but did she think it is funny I wanted to know? Ouch!
I contributed artwork to the clubzine of the science fiction club in Jackson, Mississippi. During the Civil War, the residents gave the city the name of Chimneyville after the Yankees went through and left only chimneys standing. Here is the dragon I drew as a t-shirt design that appeared on the clubzine. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.
For my contributions to the club, the members voted me a lifetime membership. Unfortunately the club folded a few years later. I still have the t-shirt with the dragon on it however.
For the ConCancun bid to host the World Science Fiction Convention in Mexico in 2003, I drew a plumed serpent based on the mythical Maya creature Quetzalcoatl. We lost to Toronto, but the mascot lived on. Even the chairman of the Toronto WorldCon bought one of the t-shirts. He wore it until all of the colors were completely faded. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.
This year’s World Science Fiction Convention, Lonestarcon3, is being in San Antonio over the Labor Day Weekend. Its progress reports contained none of my cartoons, but my art covered the backs of all six progress reports for Lonestarcon2, the 1997 San Antonio WorldCon. They started by featuring the sites to see in the city and then moved progressively outward from there. Here are my fantasy tourist highlights. Click on the images for larger versions.
I had not planned on contributing to any of this year’s WorldCon pubs but wife Diana volunteered to edit the souvenir book. She knows that my cartoons often have a gentle bite and insisted that I give her at least one.
I hadn’t intended to draw cover art so quickly after returning to cartooning. Cover art requires more effort than single-panel cartoons, but I could not refuse a request from long-time friend Jeanne Mealy, official editor of Stipple APA, a Minneapolis-based amateur press association. I at least knew a few of its 20 members. Jeanne asked me to create something with a Spring theme. I immediately thought of something cool as the wintry Spring Minneapolis was enduring. I asked if she could print color. She said that she could not. We compromised with a spot of hand coloring. The issue with my cover art is out and the publication has no online presence so I am posting the artwork here. Click on the image for a larger version.
Now I need to get busy scanning the scores of other older cover art stacked in my office. I will as soon as I fulfill the numerous promises of cartoons I’ve made to others.
I’ve drawn hundreds of cartoons on postcards and sent them to family, friends, and fan editors. They have ended up on refrigerators, in file folders, in drawers, and in shoeboxes in closets. Some, however, appeared in print in fanzines. Seeing them published bothered me at first because the characters didn’t have the polish of those in my finished cartoons and my handwriting was sometimes difficult to read, even for me, and I thought someday I’d go back and make them into finished cartoons. But I never did because I was always coming up with new ideas. Now I am flattered and amused that someone published them, unconcerned that they reveal the cartoonist in the rough. And I am also careful to send only finished cartoons to fan editors. Here are eight postcard cartoons that saw print.
Plotka, edited by Alison Scott, Steve Davies and Mike Scott
Convention Log, edited by R. Laurraine Tutihasi
Counterclock, edited by Wolf von Witting
Bucconeer’s Broadside, edited by Michael Nelson
Someday I should revisit the postcard cartoons I sent to friends and family to see if any are funny enough to finish.
In 1818, Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy published Dictionnaire Infernal. In 1863, it was republished with illustrations drawn by Louis Le Breton, engraved by M. Jarrault. In the 1990s, Richard A. Dengrove included the rendition of Belphegor in the colophon of his fanzine Jomp, Jr.
It was so delightfully evil-looking that I couldn’t just let it sit. I drew my own take on the devil and sent it to Richard.
He is still publishing it 20 years later. Not willing to let that sit, I drew him a number of new cartoons. I will post them here as he includes them in new issues of his print-only fanzine.
Editors are desperate when they draw their own artwork for their publication.
David Levine and Kate Yule published this cartoon on the cover of their fanzine with the blurb “Cover by David, in the style of Teddy Harvia” under the credits. I didn’t know I had style, much less style worthy of imitation, but I responded by sending them a few cartoons of my own, including a few with my version of the Japanese characters for “bento”, edited for accuracy by a native speaker at my office.
Click on the artwork to visit their Web site. They promise to post an issue containing my new cartoons within the year.
I have added 12 more covers to my cover art gallery. Click on the thumbnails for larger images.
Teddy Harvia 