Air Raid Robertson

Author notes

My Hurricane Life Page 1

Air Raid Robertson

on Aug. 29, 2011

I took a bit of a sabbatical after the completion of "Rhapsody in Beige". This was partially due to personal matters of my private life and also because I felt a bit drained after the somewhat frantic pace of my working schedule on the pages. However, it also took some time to adjust to the artistic demands of this new story.
It's important to me that I continue to try new methods while writing and drawing Air Raid Robertson. I want each story-arc to have something in it that wasn't in any of the prior ones. On this page I blended watercolor painting, marker, and colored pencils to create a vibrant color palette. It took a bit of struggle and trial-and-error to get it where I wanted it to be, but overall I think it looks pretty nice.
After all the black and white stories I've done it seemed necessary to jump back into a color comic. I've also been itching to do another story with Air Raid Arfington. This anthropomorphic canine version of Robertson has been used on several one or two-page stories in the past. This one, however, will stretch things out a little further than that.
Most golden-age comic book fans will recognize this story as a nod to the classic Donald Duck comics written and illustrated by Carl Barks. To be more specific, I've decided to do a riff on "The Giant Robot Robbers", which was published in Uncle Scrooge #58 with a cover date of July 1965. This story was also adapted into an episode of the television series entitled Ducktales. My design of Grinchy's money bin owes more to the television show than the comics. Also, the title is derived from the program's theme song.