Fone Bone
Matt Zimmer
I finished the final issue of Gilda And Meek (Gilda And Meek #33 "Dark Child: Part Two: The Pilot, Un-Iverse #47). I had been planning it for 30 years, and it ended exactly the way it did in my fifteen-year-old head. I wondered what kind of Sketch I should draw to celebrate this milestone, that I frankly NEVER expected to ever reach.
I thought it would be neat if I posted a very early drawing of Gilda, made when I was seven-years-old, to sort of show how far I and the character have come. Unfortunately, I don't have any old drawings of Gilda (or Love as she was originally known) in my apartment. So what I decided to do instead was think about how I used to draw her. And even though I have drawn over 30 comic book issues with my grown up version of her in them (even more if you count The UnComix Saga's earlier iterations) I almost certainly drew the character herself as a seven-year-old more often and consistently than I do now. I drew that character EVERYWHERE. ALL the time. All day, every day. And I never shut it off. While the other kids were doodling the Smurfs and Pac-Man, I was all about Love, and later on Meek. But I drew the character so often that I thought to myself today, it's probably the exact same thing as riding a bike in that I probably possess the muscle memory of how to draw the earliest version of the character 38 years later.
So I sat down with a pen, recollected how I used to do it, and this is what I came up with on my first try. It's scary how accurate it is, and yet it's also far more even and polished that I used to be able to do with my shaky kid hands. But, dang, it's a bit scary how I can wind up not drawing this specific picture for around 36 years, and be able to nail it from memory with no mistakes on the first try.
I added color here for effect, but I didn't always use color as a kid. I drew her all around my schoolwork in pencil, so that would have been impractical. Love also didn't initially used to wear clothes. Her legs were based on a tiger stuffed animal I owned. Her eyes were oval, with Cats' Eye slits, and frankly, creepy as hell. I made them a glowing yellow. Occasionally, I would put a pink bow on Gilda's head or tail to match her pink stomach. As the character evolved, she stopped being the kind of cat you see in Tom and Jerry, and became the kind of cat you see in funny animal Disney cartoons and I added clothes (initially a cheerleader outfit).
Her iconic head shape and red fur were there from the very beginning. Gilda is a great cartoon character design in that you can tell exactly which cartoon character it is by the shape of the silhouette of their head. Not a ton of characters you can do that for, but Mickey Mouse, SpongeBob, and The Simpsons all have memorable and iconic designs because you can do that, and I think the same thing is true for Gilda.
This picture is nowhere NEAR precise because it's even, and doesn't look like it was drawn by a guy in the back of a moving pick-up truck (as Peter Griffin commented the Bob's Burger's characters look like). But seeing the design is like seeing an old friend, and drawing it is exactly as easy, and I did it with zero mistakes the first try, after 36 years of not having done it. That is how often I drew the character. Everywhere, every chance I got. And it's not something I ever forgot how to do. It was that ingrained and deeply important to me. And it's pretty much how I got to this point to begin with.
I thought it would be neat if I posted a very early drawing of Gilda, made when I was seven-years-old, to sort of show how far I and the character have come. Unfortunately, I don't have any old drawings of Gilda (or Love as she was originally known) in my apartment. So what I decided to do instead was think about how I used to draw her. And even though I have drawn over 30 comic book issues with my grown up version of her in them (even more if you count The UnComix Saga's earlier iterations) I almost certainly drew the character herself as a seven-year-old more often and consistently than I do now. I drew that character EVERYWHERE. ALL the time. All day, every day. And I never shut it off. While the other kids were doodling the Smurfs and Pac-Man, I was all about Love, and later on Meek. But I drew the character so often that I thought to myself today, it's probably the exact same thing as riding a bike in that I probably possess the muscle memory of how to draw the earliest version of the character 38 years later.
So I sat down with a pen, recollected how I used to do it, and this is what I came up with on my first try. It's scary how accurate it is, and yet it's also far more even and polished that I used to be able to do with my shaky kid hands. But, dang, it's a bit scary how I can wind up not drawing this specific picture for around 36 years, and be able to nail it from memory with no mistakes on the first try.
I added color here for effect, but I didn't always use color as a kid. I drew her all around my schoolwork in pencil, so that would have been impractical. Love also didn't initially used to wear clothes. Her legs were based on a tiger stuffed animal I owned. Her eyes were oval, with Cats' Eye slits, and frankly, creepy as hell. I made them a glowing yellow. Occasionally, I would put a pink bow on Gilda's head or tail to match her pink stomach. As the character evolved, she stopped being the kind of cat you see in Tom and Jerry, and became the kind of cat you see in funny animal Disney cartoons and I added clothes (initially a cheerleader outfit).
Her iconic head shape and red fur were there from the very beginning. Gilda is a great cartoon character design in that you can tell exactly which cartoon character it is by the shape of the silhouette of their head. Not a ton of characters you can do that for, but Mickey Mouse, SpongeBob, and The Simpsons all have memorable and iconic designs because you can do that, and I think the same thing is true for Gilda.
This picture is nowhere NEAR precise because it's even, and doesn't look like it was drawn by a guy in the back of a moving pick-up truck (as Peter Griffin commented the Bob's Burger's characters look like). But seeing the design is like seeing an old friend, and drawing it is exactly as easy, and I did it with zero mistakes the first try, after 36 years of not having done it. That is how often I drew the character. Everywhere, every chance I got. And it's not something I ever forgot how to do. It was that ingrained and deeply important to me. And it's pretty much how I got to this point to begin with.
