This one gets its own entry because it has to do with the comic itself. Fancy that, eh? Anyway, it deals with Flerpnip's Green Lantern companion. You might be wondering about Andy's comment of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Eyeball!!!" in the Tag-board. (If you're not wondering about it, well, start, because that's what I'm talking about). Because basically, that's were the character design came from.

It all started back in 6th grade Language Arts class (a term to encompass more than just English...there was reading comprehension and all that other stuff). Our assignment through the semester was a certain number of creative writing projects...stories, poems, etc, and I was having a difficult time trying to think of something to write about. So I tried a trick I learned from cartoons. After another one of Wile E. Coyote's schemes failed, he laid on the ground and mindlessly doodled on the ground before being struck with another idea. At the time, I thought he gained inspiration from the doodle itself, so I thought I'd give it a go. Basically I spent some time doodling in the corner of my folder (inconspicuously, of course). Eventually there was a little picture of an ambulance driving over a sewer grate, dropping some eyeballs out of the back and into some mutagenic sludge. And thus the Teenage Mutant Ninja Eyeballs were born. (Hey, give me a break, I was in the middle of my Ninja Turtle phase back then). I never used this particular doodle in my assignments, though. In fact, I'm not sure it even worked for me...at least at the time.

Flash forward one year to pre-algebra class. Someone next to me noticed my doodle of one of these guys on my book cover, and drew me up a doodle of his own...basically a fleshed out version of the same thing. (My original just had sticks for arms and legs.) Not that this is a terribly important step in the story, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Another year later, in English class. The assignment for the last quarter: write a story. That was it. And I remember spending a significant portion of the class not knowing what to write about. So I thought about how I had the problem before, and I remember my stupid little doodle. There were no restrictions on the assignment on whether it had to be fiction or non-fiction, so I thought, "Hey, let's go with it." And I furiously banged some lame story...because I had wasted so much time before, I had to work very quickly to get it done on time. And I didn't even get it done on time, I know I handed it in late. And what a steaming pile I wrote, too. I mean, I even included a part where one of the Eyeballs had to pull a choice of levers, and one of them said, "Not that one...that'll release the plot of this story!" Yeah, THAT bad. I still wince when I think about it.

At some point previous to that assignment, my brother and I spent some time expanding on the character designs and drawing them on a chalkboard. This mostly involved either designing them with some kind of pun based on their names, or just changing what they are to some other random animal/object. In addition to our appropriately-colored Eyeballs (Don, Mike, Leo and Ralph), we had: Splinter as a board of wood (get it? HYUK HYUK), Bebop as a bee, Rocksteady as a rock (not like the original Rock Soldiers from Dimension X, but your basic lump of stone with arms and legs), the "Bat" King, Ace Squirrel (flying squirrel instead of a duck...looking suspiciously like Rocky), ...um...Baxster Stockman I took "bax" like "backs" and made him a spinal column, in keeping with the body-part theme...Casey Jones I took similar to the legendary railroad engineer and made him a train engine (with cowcatcher and everything)...Krang was a giant frog...the Technodrome was a giant "NO" with tank treads and eyeball thing on top...I think Shredder might've been a food processor...and I know there's more. I don't know if this showcases my creativity as a child, or my insanity.

Fast forward to today, where I've decided to resurrect a childhood doodle into a fellow Green Lantern. We'll be seeing more of him and others (OMG SPOILER) later on.
posted by Tim at 2:03 AM