Leo in 2009

Hello, everyone, DAMC here.

Yesterday i left a bit of a cliffhanger regarding the current whereabouts of Herr Leo, but since my random ass haven´t finished the number 17, im gonna have to play dumb and instead talk about the other big promise i did on yesterday's post just so i don´t get ahead of the webcomic itself. Afer all, this is supposed to be a support blog for  Der Kaiser ist kaputt (kind of, i will eventually find myself ranting about random things on here too, i know myself).

On my last post i shared the idea behind what, for a long time, was the potential number one for the fabled webcomic about Leo. I don´t know if i said it before, but the actual idea of starting a webcomic, or a comic, or even a strip on a gay paper publication has been around since, i think, 2002. Back then i used to write horror stories and i had some presence in the dark underground México city's scene. My stories were well recieved and Leo almost became a horror host back in the day.
But it wasn´t until 2009 that i drafted the first real idea to make a strip focusing on Leo happen. I was living between Victoria and Vancouver in B.C., Canada, and the time seemed right.

But before i actually show you the early sketch i found for that number 1 that never came to be, there's something else you have to see first. Before the webcomic started in kaiserkaputt.blogspot.mx in 2011, Leo had already experienced a taste of the real world in 2009 while i was living in Victoria, B.C.
Back then, people who knew me, knew Leo aswell, and they like him. I used to include Leo on cards for friends. Halloween, valentine´s, xmas, they all displayed Leo in some way or another.
It was actually in those cards that the concept of Leo accesing different worlds got materialized, and one of the most emblematic pictures of Leo was born.
Here, lay sight upon this

"Im sorry, darling, i was in my own little world."

This one i kept and i still have it with me, it's i think one of my favorite pictures of Leo, even though is not "perfect"

Now let me show you the other two cards that survived thanks to photobucket.com 

"Valentines"

I know, i know, i know... The perspective is horrible! I actually think i was really horny drawing this one. Overall i like it, and is nice to see that Leo was a happy slut.

"zombies"

I remember what videogame had consumed my brain when i made this one. Did you ever played left 4 dead? It was a PC/xbox game. A shooter in first person, so incredibly awesome! I spent so many hours playing online that one, That year i was everything zombie. Fun fact about me: i'm actually really sincerely scared of zombies. The whole idea freaks me out so bad i have been facing that dumb fear since i was a teen. Proud owner of the zombie survival guide and a katana here. But back to Leo, do you noticed he has some chest hair? Yeah, that was a fetish inclusion to boost up the picture's testosterone. Leo is actually smooth on his chest. 

Anyways, moving on. Thanks to the cards and the constant exposure of my doodles and drawings, i got some comissions from friends. One in particular was really cool. This cute couple were all about pirats, so they wanted a picture of him as a pirate and i was the guy they choose to do it. Here's what they got. 

Can you see the guy holding the pirate's flag? Does he look familiar? He should, his name is Leo and he complained every second he had to hold that flag on that Costa Rica's beach. 

If they really valued this drawing, and it didnt become a blunt weapon during a fight, this framed piece still hangs on some wall in Canada, and that really is awesome, specially since i havent thought about it since then. 

I remember now that the girl actually printed a Leo´s face on  a red t shirt. I wish i had it still, that one was lost a long long long time. Oh well, eventually Leo will find his way to T-shirts again im sure. 

But what do you think of Leo's brief period of fame? Should he continue this modeling career? I think he should, but right now is time to show the first attempt to create a webcomic with Leo. 

Done in Vancouver in late 2009, sometime in August, this sketch was one of the closest to the final piece if it had been an actual final version of it. 

To be honest, i hadn't look at this one since maybe 2011, and it made me laugh how bad my anatomy dominion was. My idea of Mike steel was not really well executed, he looks just exagerated, the basics are there just not well arranged. But the real surprise was the name i had intended for the webcomic, "i was here". Isn´t that what we all strive for, to leave a mark? To let the world that will be know that in this time there was a person who felt and thought and dreamt about the time when someone whould rediscover their mark and aknowledge our eternal statement: I WAS HERE! The kind of sentence that challenge the gods and their thrones: I WAS HERE! That´s what Leo wanted, and still wants, to be remember ( however people chooses to do so).
I like it, was a cute idea... Just like that last Leo walking away resolved to get booze money posing as a homeless. Though, im glad i went back to draw Leo with long messy hair, somehow the short hair version seems incomplete, doesn´t it? At least to me. Leo always had longer hair and at some point he had long sideburns aswell.
But what do you think? I would like to hear from everyone reading this words, you know, for a couple of reasons. First, to get some needed feedback on this project, and second, well... Just so i know im not simply talking alone in the dark.

But for now, i say auf wiedersehen and until the next time.

DAMC out.