"Popeye and the Phantom" Stills!

Sharing stills of my animation for the next Popeye reanimated I’m participating in that’s run by Dirk E. Schulz. This one’s a haunted house-themed episode from the 60s Popeye TV series (‘Popeye the Sailor’ I believe is the official title).

It’s currently being worked on and I think I’ll wait until it’s out to upload mine (thinking of doing exclusively to Patreon subscribers before it’s officially out), but today being Halloween, I thought would be neat to share at least some sneak peek stills from mine along with some inspo/scenes I couldn’t help but think of when working on it.

Trick or Treat: Expo Hallowideña

Wanted to share the mini comic and accompanying illustration I made for Soda Pop Comic's Trick or Treat: Expo Hallowideña at El Local in Santurce, Puerto Rico that happened last Thursday night (Gracias por invitar! ) Really enjoyed the comics and illustrations from the other artists involved. They were super fun. The theme was “Folk Horror” and was open to interpretation.

I was pressed for time (it was somewhat last minute for me) and the two things that immediately came up for me when coming up with ideas were the films Midsommar and The Wicker Man (the original 1973 one). I remembered the scene in Wicker Man where children are dancing/skipping around a maypole, holding and twisting ribbons around it, while they sung a creepy, folksy-like song, with a man, like a teacher figure, leading and guiding them to sing along. Really weird/creepy scene, considering the lyrics. Well anyway, I’m admittedly a simpleton and laughed at the idea that someone named May on a camping trip (kinda like in Midsommar) would be fated to be the adornment for a ritualistic, shrine-like maypole for some eerie, secluded, folksy-like town with children in cult-type masks skipping and twisting ribbons around the “May-Pole”. So silly and simple, but the wordplay made me laugh and considering the gruesome demise aspect of it, I couldn’t ignore doing it

Whether the purpose behind the ritual was to appease some god or was done for their own sick and twisted traditions…well, I felt best I’d leave that to the imaginations of the readers. I honestly only cared about executing the wordplay silliness of it in the form of a mini comic and illustration

Well, I hope you enjoyed this small glimpse into my thought process for this. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!