WELCOME TO THE ZONE: Out And About With Oot And Aboot

ootabootcans

In this week’s installment of Welcome To The Zone, my 1995 graphic novel revised and revamped for a new century and serialized on Patreon, we are introduced to Oot and Aboot, two homeless aliens from the Planet Borgon. Their nameless species graces the cover of the original edition:

David Chelsea is reading: Overweight Sensation: The Life and Comedy of Allan Sherman (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life)
by Mark Cohen

Screen-Shot-2018-02-26-at-8.26.29-PM

In my original rough version these two characters were African cannibals, but at my publisher’s urging they changed nationality. They do retain their taste for human meat:

ootaboot

For the alien design, I went back to a character I had drawn in old sketchbooks, “The Mutant From Mars.”

innocuoscomics

mutant02

mutant01

As an aid to drawing and lighting these characters I built a sculpy maquette, which served as reference for all the aliens in the story. Oot and Aboot are basically identical, except that Oot is half the size of Aboot:

Alien maquette
Alien maquette

Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!