Conan

Interesting: Conan the Barbarian is also known as Conan the Cimmerian, making my cartoon yesterday titled "Conan the Seminarian" an even better joke than I originally thought! I had originally planned on "Conan the Librarian" as a title and concept, but as I began to draw it, I wondered if I'd seen it somewhere else. Sure enough, it's an old gag. So I looked for something else that sounded similar to "Barbarian" that would be unlikely for Conan to do. "Contrarian" seemed too hard to draw clearly. I suppose I could've drawn him singing with the Beach Boys and called it "Conan the Barbara Annian", but no.

I was happy that I drew a pretty good Ahnuld-like character on the first try. I hate to re-draw; it seems that each time, you lose a little of the freedom of the original. As it is, I always feel that the final inked drawing loses a little vitality from the initial pencil sketch. I hope as the years go by, the pencil and pen versions become more and more alike.