I have loved to draw as long as I can remember. Ask my mom about the masterpiece I left in the family Bible when I was three.

When I was a kid, if there wasn’t a pencil in my hand, it wasn’t too far away. A couple of years after I got married, I was asked by the editor of my weekly newspaper if I would contribute a comic strip. So I dug up a character I created back in high school, and started my trek to small-town fame (without fortune)…

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Captain Mohawk.

(Click here to see a larger view.)

This is not the original art; it’s from a copy of the Adobe Press, published in the wee li’l town of Stinnett, Texas.

After nearly twenty years, the first thing I think of when I see this is…it wasn’t really that good, was it?

Oh, I thought it was, back then…a kind-of goofy main character who thinks he’s a superhero but really isn’t. I didn’t know DC Comics had already done something like that with ‘Mazing Man (which, by the way, is very good). My tools were a pencil and fine-line markers for this first strip, which is why there really doesn’t seem to be any depth to it. It was drawn at actual size because the paper couldn’t reduce it. And, why, oh why, if Capt. Mohawk didn’t have any superpowers, does he seem to fly above the heads of the young couple?

So yeah, it was a lousy start, but I got better when I purchased some pens and brushes, and when Adobe Press got a better photocopier. During his two-and-a-half year run, CM defeated an evil scientist, saved a school bake sale, got lost in the biggest mall in Texas, and even dreamed about being his hero, movie private eye Steel Rockfist. I was now in radio and print…next, local access cable!
Then, the plug was pulled. I never got a real reason, but I think that the editor/publisher was falling on hard times, and couldn’t afford to pay me the pittance I got each week. I would have continued on for free if she’d asked. Then the original art was lost. All I have besides the first strip above is a copy of the second strip.

A while back, I wrote about how I got back the urge to draw again after a long dry spell. When I finally sat down to do something, guess what was the first thing I drew?

I’ve thought about giving my captain another try. I know I’m not the best cartoonist in the world, but there are far worse out on the web. Now I just need a 26-hour day to make it happen.