Here is some further exploration into the bruce Timm style. Tumansky has become further streamlined, losing most of the curve on his neck ruff. Next to him is Richard bartrop's Ilse. Also on the page is the Soviet race pilot, Irina, and a random character, someone's surly mechanic. I must say, the style is making me thing, but also, with the drawing simplified, I don't feel i have to do /as much/ research as before, so the project is seeming a lot less intimidating. Brush inks on paper. Scott A. H. Ruggels 7 2000

[Originally posted to Yerf, June 30, 2000. More complete explanation after 18 years. This project was originally planned for Spontoon Island, back when it was a B/W 'zine, which were a common fan project back then, before the internet provided free color artwork to everyone, like it does now. However after a few years doing comics as a team player, doing them "alone" was a bit intimidating, so I explored a radical simplification of my style, as inspired by batman: The Animated Series, which took a very Streamline Moderne / Mid Century approach to the art, which to me fit the subject matter. However, the art was only part of the project. I had to do the plotting/ writing as well. Now I can write reasonably well, but I am a terrible plotter/ Storyteller, so even after a lot of massaging, the elements were not gelling properly so I gave up on it, So we would not see Tumansky in the 1934 (or was it 1936?) Spontoon Island Air races. Similar story and plotting problems stalled and eventually choked off Asheru's Journey as well. So, I dropped doing any further comics and went back to illustration. Hope this explains things.]