Frank's Sketchbook Entry of the Day

Today is Bezmas Day! Unfortunately because of the 3 Year Plague, and other things, there was no official celebration scheduled. I was planning to drop off a Celebrant Card to the House of the Standing Poodle, but my plans were foiled by the flattening of a tire. Thus was I forced to transmit my greeting electronically. But since I've got it scanned in, and it is a doodle of sorts, I figured it would qualify here.

Truth be told (which given the day, I feel I should), it was kind of an evolving idea. I started with the notion of Bez wielding his wizardly power over computers. I used The Wizard of New Zealand as a sort of reference (of course New Zealand had an official Wizard—for 23 years, even!).

The only real Bez-ism I used was the mustache and mutton chops, and those are pretty hard to see. I was trying to figure out what I'd say, like "Happy Bezmas" or something and then realized maybe the Wizard should say something, and that got me to thinking What do Wizards say?, and of course the answer is "You shall not PASS!!!" And that got me to what a computer wizard would say.

Originally I was going to have some New Zealand government buildings in the background since they were in the reference photos (buildings with arches and columns and stuff), but then I realized he should be in a machine room when he said it. I figured I'd include a few bits of color here and there and just keep most of it with cross-hatched shading (since the robes were black).

In general, it worked out as a quick drawing. The higher resolution image is here.