Darvin and Zan spent a lot of time being in competition with each other, especially early on. Darvin was usually the one to win, if it was a strategy game. Actually, it’s very revealing of his character that in this off-duty scene (a con sketch from around 1998) Darvin is the only one who is still wearing his uniform.

And that’s it for another episode of Galaxion Retrospective! Next one is April 19th.

Since we are celebrating 15 years since Galaxion first appeared in print as a minicomic, here is the obligatory sample page from that first issue, the first appearance of Darvin (and also Zandarin). I redid this scene for the 1997 “full-size” version of Galaxion. I completely abandoned it for the 2006 webcomic version.

*bites tongue*

*clicks away from page very fast*

That person sitting next to Darvin is Cali, Zan’s sister. You may remember her from this picture I posted last Christmas. There was a time when we had her following her big brother into the service and in one story the Galaxion happened to encounter the ship on which she was employed. Cali had a huge crush on Darvin… well, that’s not the way it goes now. Don’t read too much into this picture.One of the things that makes this sketch interesting to me is that it comes from that time when I was in university, when I was producing very little Galaxion at all. What I did do was mostly prose. So finding art from that era is pretty neat. Also, I can’t believe the women’s uniforms still had skirts. For crying out loud, hadn’t I changed that yet?

Two more clicks!

From my watercolour phase (that last one wasn’t watercolour, by the way, it was watered-down acryllic). I did a lot of watercolour portraits, many of them far too big to scan in. I notice his stripes are red at last… By the time this picture was painted, I had a couple hundred pages of novel written, and you will not be surprised to learn that I started over at least four times. Darvin still had a bit of the class clown wisecracking tendencies left in him, but mainly he was the Ladies’ Man. We promoted him from his somewhat lowly job of Scanners Officer, but apparently even we had a hard time deciding what exactly it was he did on the Galaxion– at various times he was a Weapons Officer, Second Officer, Co-Advisor, and even Contact Team Commander. And then, eventually, we kicked him off the Galaxion altogether and left him to Interplanetary Patrol. Poor guy!

Getting near the end, now, but keep going!

This one is included by request. You’re welcome, Wendy. If Darvin had a predominent feature, other than his height, it was his eyes. (Hmm, I think I recently claimed the same thing for Alex. Oh, well, I guess we had a thing back then for dreamy eyes. Pfft, teenagers, what can you do?) Darvin had electric blue eyes. I was obsessed by the idea of eyes that colour. Yeah, it probably had to do with that ’80s song Electric Blue (there’s a little button in the link to hear a clip of the song) by Icehouse.

More!

I only include this because the whole ensemble is so disturbingly, unabashedly, a product of the ’80s. Being seen in public like this used to be cool! No, really. Man, it’s like Darvin stepped out of Miami Vice or something. Heeheehee! Ugh. More!

Evolution of a character! My influences are really showing here– 1983 Darvin head bears a suspicous resemblance to Star Blazers’s Mark Venture (or Shima, if you prefer), and by 1985 the Macross/Robotech similarities have kicked in. By 1986, Darvin’s hairstyle is pretty close to what it is today. Keep going!

This one even made me laugh (and cringe) when I found it in my files. Back in 1984, pirates were not the sexy pop sensation that they are now, so I have no explanation for why I drew this. My closest guess is there was some sort of Halloween party (an important part of life on a spaceship, ask anyone), and Darvin went dressed like this. Either that, or he just wanted to annoy someone. I mentioned he was a goof, right?

Keep going!

This one is probably the first colour picture of Darvin, also circa 1983. Sometime between the last picture and this one I must have resigned to his fate as non-Captain, because he appears a lot younger. After I drew this is when we must have decided he would be tall, which is what that arrow is doing there. Darvin’s stripes, strangely, are orange. I guess the Scanners department was orange? Early in his existence, one of Darvin’s main purposes in the story was to be a best friend for Zandarin. Now, when I was in grade school, and even in high school, this seemed like a perfectly natural relationship. But as I got older, I slowly began to realize how… odd it sounds. Once you’re an adult, having a best friend, evidently, just isn’t a guy thing (though I would be interested in hearing about exceptions to this rule). I’m willing to believe it still works for Darvin and Zan, though, because they’ve been friends since they were young.

Click to continue!

Here is the very first ever picture of Darvin, from 1983. If you happen to have the Galaxion Graphic Novel, you may remember seeing this printed in the Gallery in the back. When Wendy and I were first brainstorming about the science fiction story we wanted to tell, we came up with a basic premise, that it would be about the crew of a ship called the Galaxion. Then we went home and each drew a half dozen characters. Yes, we were planning to write a novel at the time, not do a comic (yes, I was reading comics at the time, but it was many years before I switched my goals from being a novelist to being a comic artist). No, this didn’t seem contradictory. But I guess we weren’t really all that many years out of reading those illustrated chapter books for kids, so it all makes sense.

Darvin was originally created to be the commander, which is why I tried to make him seem a little older than the others. But Wendy had also created a commander for the Galaxion, Scavina. I recall feeling a bit put out by this when we compared our drawings the next day, but in the interest of friendship and making sure our collaboration got off to a good start, I decided not to make a fuss and let Wendy’s character take top spot.

For some reason, Darvin didn’t even get to be second-in-command. According to my notes– because I never would have remembered this otherwise– he was in charge of the exciting world of scanners and “maintinence”. Well, at least that gave him a spot on the bridge.

Click to continue!