Q-Force

 

My introduction to anime was in the late '70s, when Gatchaman was imported and repackaged as Battle of the Planets, to capitalize on the sci-fi craze reignited by Star Wars.

While Greg, Monica, and I were having a mini comics retreat early in 2019, somehow the idea resurfaced of "us" as members of G-Force (who, in the anime wore bird-themed uniforms: eagle, condor, owl, falcon, swan).

Here we are, Monica the cockatoo, Tim the toucan, and Greg the parrot.

I like it, I like it a lot.

Another long overdue drawing in both the categories of "I want to draw ___" and requests I receive, "I'd like to see your take on ___." I've teased you with other primers, but here it is: science ninja team Gatchaman.

I, of course, was first exposed to the team as the focal point of the series Battle of the Planets, a drastic rescripting of the Japanese series for a US audience in immediate and desperate need for sci-fi after the runaway success of Star Wars.

This drawing took me a while to work up to; it can't really be a stand-and-pose drawing, since the characters are all similarly but distinctly dressed. And, with 5 of them having similar but distinct abilities, a fight scene is also a challenge. At the end of the day, I thought the task at hand would be to showcase their personalities as best I could.

And, a major challenge in the drawing in layers don't smudge the heck out of the original art. I mostly succeeded, with just a few smudges that cleaned up alright. Color would be good on this one someday, but it was a nice exercise. I'm somewhat pleased!

Oh—the blog post title comes from the mid-90s redux of the series. Richie and I say that to each other often, as well as a quote from Solaris, "You fool, you failed."

A Study in Gatchaman

After Star Wars took the country by storm in the late '70s, the demand for sci-fi was back, with little supply.

Capitalizing quickly, the (non sci-fi) Japanese Anime Gatchaman was rescripted, dubbed, and repackaged as the sci-fi show Battle of the Planets, which I loved as a kid.

I decided to draw a nice image of the group, in color. To gear up, I was sketching the team a bit around xmastime.

If you're not familiar, the science ninja team's uniforms (visors in particular) are bird-themed (eagle, condor, swan, falcon, owl). So I added two guys I draw often suited up as teammates (dodo and chicken).

UPDATE: It probably was too indirect, so I clarify that the teammates I added were Matt (dodo) and myself (chicken).