Jay (Dimmy) Geldhof

Here’s an ODD-BALL piece I did back in 1992.
I think I had just finished inking the Mr. E mini series, for DC Comics, so when I was asked to do a piece for the Amazing Heroes Swimsuit Special, naturally I did the Temptress and the Mister himself.
I was sure throwin’ a lot of lines around back then! I’m not completely ashamed of this stuff, but I am sort’ve stunned by what I considered, at that time, to be a good cheesecake drawing. I’ve ALWAYS liked to draw girls and my sketchbooks are crammed with ‘em but I get a little freaked out when I take these strolls down memory lane! And as much as I’d like to hide behind a lack of drawing ability, I really don’t think I can. At times, hell, most of the time, I just had a VERY odd idea of what a hot chick looked like. Crazy, furry eyebrows! Brutally angular faces! It’s all a little nuts! I’d like to think the girls I draw these days are pretty cute, but in 10 years who knows?

(Sitting here typing this has given me an idea. I’ve had a character named “Zetta” who apart from a brief stint in that long ago anthology book, THREAT! has pretty much only lived in my sketchbooks. I’ve been drawing her off and on since my days in art school, so this stuff will go BACK a ways. I may, given the time, scan in drawings of her from over the years, turn them into a collage and see what the progression looks like. It’ll either be mildly interesting or a colossal waste of time. I’ll let you, my three or four readers, be the judge.)

Anyway, I’ll also include this doodle from my sketchbook done around the same time.

I’ve known Will Pfeifer for over 20 years now.
It seems like just yesterday when I was inking away in a tiny Condo and Will would drop by and bust my chops. Hell, if he didn’t come by, I’d probably go weeks without seeing another living soul. We’d yak about music or movies or comics and then he would ask me for a Reeses’s Peanut-butter Cup. I always had a 20 pack in the fridge, and I would tell him, “But if I give you one, I’ll only have 19.”
I NEVER did give him one, it was a running gag after a while.
At that time, while Will was attending Kent State University, he used to plug away at a mini comic called: Violent Man. The art was pretty crude but amusing none the less. But what you REALLY noticed about it was the writing. Even way back then Will had a “voice” to his writing. I can remember back, sitting on the can, reading one of his little homemade mini’s and thinking to myself, this Kid could be the next Alan Moore. I may have been drunk, but the point’s still valid.
So, I’d be inking away and Will would be filling orders for his mini’s. He would receive these envelopes from people and inside would be a Quarter for the comic and a stamp to mail it back. The first time I saw one of these index cards with the Quarter and stamp taped to it, I HAD to have it. That thing hung on the wall of my studio for quite some time, and it gave me a chuckle every time I saw it.
Anyway, during one of the many lulls in paying gigs, Will offered to jump-start my career (It’s ALWAYS funny!) by offering me a cover gig. I did it as a “flip-up” cover because I was just too damn fancy to be confined to the dimensions of a mini-comic. I also did a centerfold (above) for another issue, or was it the same one, I can’t remember. (I threw some color at the cover for the hell of it. The original was of course reproduced in glorious Kinko’s Black & White.)
These days of course things have changed! Will is now the big time comics pro, and I’m the one content to self publish the odd mini from time to time. If you went back twenty years and told me this is how things would be in the future, I might not have believed you about myself, but I would have believed it about Will.

NEXT: Something NEW from Chappy & Me!