Uni-Man

Uni-Man showed up at a try out to join Axe Cop’s team. He is a man who got so smart a unicorn horn grew out of his head. He came to Earth to fight crime but aliens kidnapped his baby, Uni-baby. He later found her safe with the Snowards and returned to his home until a rather unpleasant visit from a disguised Dr. Stinky Head. Momentarily losing his horn, he got his revenge when he regained it, wishing for an unbelievable amount of intelligence and strength, which he used to defeat the evil doctor. He now resides in an invisible lab where he makes weapons for Axe Cop and his team.

powers: unicorn magic, intensely smart, incredibly strong

Appearances

Axe Cop #5: the Notes

I’m taking a break from my Making Axe Cop blogs this week. Instead, as a continuation in the history of Axe Cop, I am going to share with you the raw notes I took on my phone called with Malachai to write Axe Cop #5. Axe Cop #0-4 were written in person, so I didn’t have notes for those. This was the first time I tried writing with Malachai over the phone. I was amazed how well this went. I was afraif it wouldn’t have the same feel. In some ways it was different. It was a lot more information, less action. But it was actually a great way to work. I found this old text file in my Axe Cop folder.

I have a folder on my computer I started called “Malachai” when he was three. It includes a few drawings I let him do on my Wacom tablet, and a few drawings he dictated to me as I drew, then one day I added a folder called “Axe Cop”, because I drew a few Axe Cop comics with him. To this day, my “Axe Cop” folder is still inside the “Malachai” folder, and it is freaking massive. As you read, if you know the comic well, you will see how I organized this and did some editing.

Click here to read the original Axe Cop #5 Comic

Axe Cop #5 Notes
axe cop 5

malachai:
important mission
we need to save leaf man.
leaf man has powers but the bad guys stole his leaf powers
bad santa stole them (he steals the presents from santa)
bad guy gang… with an evil flying book that bites people and eats people
the book’s name: “evil flying book”
the book is actually a robot

(Malachai speaks as Axe Cop in first person)
at the sign up place someone was yelling for us, so we quit the mission
what’s your name? sockarang (boomerang socks) .. socks for arms
bad santa has christmas magic and the power to hurt ears (hurting ear power)
sockarang gets the blood of evil Santa and becomes super villain santa that is good

avocado cop touches the blood and becomes evil santa too

Follow up questions:
Q: Does avocado soldier use his horn for any magic? (maybe to change back into flute cop with a horn?)
A: He wishes to give leaf man’s powers back
Q: what does Ralph do?
A: he just watches and sings a loud song “tick tock the mouse ran up the clock”

Q: Does anyone die in the fight?
A: Good santa stole bad santa’s guitar
They go back to a try out: baby man.
“Shake what your baby gave ya.”
A baby that can fly when he gasses
A man who has a baby suit
The flying book is the hardest one
Uni man and a wrestler
Wrestler throws uniman at book

Q: Where are the bad guys? do they get leaf man’s powers back?
how do they get the blood out of bad santa?

(no answers recorded)

Random things axe cop says in a fight:

I think I’m gona chop your head off soon

I think I’m gonna go home and get something for dinner so I think I’m done with my job

My job is being an axe cop

I had a lot of work to do

I’m tired and hungry, so I am going to eat stuffed eggs with mayonnaise and yolk and mustard and then you put it in where the yolk was and paprika on top.

stuffed eggs with power potion

whenever I eat I get powers

one of the potions is called “transform”

turns into a gun pail buffalo and shoots out of his horns

____________________________________________________________________
reworked/organized:
Ralph Wrinkles’s important mission is this:
A guy named Leaf Man has had his powers stolen by a gang of bad guys
the gang of bad guys is Bad Santa (who steals presents from good Santa, he also has the power of Christmas and the power to hurt ears)
and also “evil flying book” which flies around and bites people.

in order to fight these guys they must have another tryout.
At the tryout, Sockarang joins the team. His arms are socks and they shoot off and return like boomerangs.
So Sockarang, Leaf Man, Axe Cop, Ralph, and Avocado soldier go to fight bad santa.

At the fight, ralph just sings “tick tock the mouse ran up the clock”.
Bad Santa hurts their ears with his guitar.
Evil flying book keeps biting them.
They retreat to hold more tryouts.

At the tryouts they recruit Baby Man, Wrestler, and Uni-man.
Uni-man says he took up crime fighting when his child was stolen.
Baby man’s motto is “shake what your baby gave ya.” and he can fly when he gasses.

In the fight they realize that the book is actually a robot.

The wrestler throws uni-man into the book and it explodes.
they defeat bad santa by taking his guitar… sockarang gets bad santa blood on him and gains his powers.

They win, but leaf man never got his powers back, so avocado soldier gives them back using his unicorn horn.

Page 226 – Coffee Party

So, that’s it. This concludes AXE COP: REVENGE ON RAINBOW GIRL.

Thanks to Ethan and Malachai for letting us take a shot at our own AXE COP story. Thank you for reading. If you commented, thanks extra for that. This has been a long slog- I’ve been working on this comic for almost a year now, in between other projects. Getting feedback was the return on my investment and I appreciated all of it. …That was a lie. I didn’t appreciate the guy that said “I don’t like this artwork” a couple of weeks back. That guy can get eaten by sharks. The rest of you, though, you’re nice.

Now that my docket’s wide open, I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. I’ll be needing new art projects. Got one? Hit me up at my FB page. Don’t mind the zombie and skull art, I do metal album covers and that stuff is all over the place over there.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go treat the kids to a coffee party.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

We’re playing pretend.
“Okay, you be Spider-Man and I’ll be the King of Ostriches.”
-Charlotte, 3 years old

“Mommy! Mommy! …Mommy, listen!
Mommy, listen to this! Ready?
Are you ready?? Fish skipple.”
-Amelia, 4 years old

Page 218 – Fresh And Yummy

Today’s page is entirely Amelia’s writing.

…

…having nothing else to say today, I’ll just leave you with that.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

Singing:
“If you want to be with a girl like me, like me, like me,
You can’t be like that, like that, like that.
You have to be cool, be cool, be cool.
You have to be a werewolf.”
-Charlotte, 6 years old

Amelia’s still in diapers. She’s got a distant look
on her face and that tends to mean only one thing.
Me: “Mia, are you pooping?”
Amelia: “No. …Are you pooping?”
-Amelia, 2 years old

Ask Axe Cop #98 – Insane, Evil, Comatose or Dead

The idea of Axe Cop going insane is terrifying, but not altogether unbelievable. He is already constantly walking the thin fine line of sanity as it is. One of my favorite things about Axe Cop is his many contingency plans for any and all situations. This is one of my favorites.

Reminder that Axe Cop Vol. 5 is out now! This is possibly my favorite collection. It is very dense and has a lot of good stuff in it.

Ethan

Page 215 – The Fight Begins!

UPDATE: the splash image is no longer found by clicking the image, but you can CLICK HERE for it.

Let the violence commence!

Today’s page is what’s known as a double-page splash, so it’s technically two pages. When I started plotting out the comic I did it based on how I wanted it to look in print. Ethan says that’s the way to go, but because I wasn’t paying attention to how to leave off for each page, sometimes the pages for the site will leave off on a boring panel. Keeping two media in mind when drawing these things is not easy. As a double page splash it doesn’t really fit in the page format for the site, so handy Axe Cop site-guy Doug worked up a way to have it work out. Click above for the full-sized page.

The only dialogue here wasn’t written for the comic. In the telling, Charlotte merely started describing the fight. For the beginning of the battle, though, I wanted a big double-page dealie with an introduction to the action. I took the dialogue from something Charlotte said when she was four. We were on the couch and she attacked me, and we started wrestling. She yelled “THE FIGHT BEGINS!” I always liked it as a line that one combatant would yell as a battle kicks off, and it seems very appropriate to Axe Cop. So here we go.

Interestingly- or not- Axe Cop’s “get out of my way!” on Page 3 was likewise based on something Amelia said when she was three. I probably couldn’t communicate what was funny about it, but she was grinning and barreling at me at the time.

First (non-child) blood next week, as we learn how to kill bad guys Dinosaur Soldier and Army Chihuahua style.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

The following was a playful insult:
“You’re a baby. You’re a baby that
was just born out of a belly.”
-Charlotte, 5 years old

This was a song:
“i only had a sissy if you only had a sissy
with a gun, with a gun, with a gun”
-Amelia, 3 years old

Page 212 – Showdown

Well, all right, all that art-talk over the last two blogs was a complete dud and no one cared. Sorry ’bout that.

I don’t have the time to write up much of a blog this week, I’m under the gun on an art deadline and am cranking out pages. I wouldn’t leave you with nothing, though, so here’s the audio of Amelia telling an Axe Cop story. I requested it be in a smoothie shop because I was trying to tie it in to the comic story, and didn’t wind up using this at all. I definitely don’t have the time to draw it these days, but if anyone has the time, this’d make a good guest strip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBiZBu5nkCw

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

Me: “I need to take a shower.”
Charlotte: “Why?”
Me: “I need one, I’m stinky.”
She gives me a hug.
Charlotte: “You’re not stinky.”
Me: “Aww, thanks!”
I sneeze.
Charlotte: “But you ARE gross.”
-Charlotte, 6 years old

Amelia is going to get her room painted.
She says she’s going to have pictures painted
of “blocks and tigers and people and butts and people.”
-Amelia, 4 years old

Next week, the first act of aggression in this street fight is about to go down, and it’s a doozy.

Page 190 – Parenting

Hey look a new page! I don’t have a lot to say right now, it’s been a hectic day. But you could go check out friend of Axe Cop Michael Regina’s new project on Kickstarter, Adamsville.

Ethan

Page 189 – Wedding Crashers

Sorry for no post on Thursday. I went out of town for a few days and did not leave prepared. Happily, I have a bunch of Axe Cop comics done so you should get pretty regular posts for a while now. Beyond the rest of this story, I have Ask Axe Cops all the way to #100 to post! All in due time.

Have you kept up on Rugburn’s Axe Cop series? They take the actual comics and animate the art and add audio. It’s a nice enhanced viewing experience for Axe Cop purists. The latest episode is the finale of the Moon Warriors story:

Thanks for reading. Thursday, the adventure continues.
Ethan

Page 185 – Wedding Day

I can’t believe we have finally reached the wedding day in the comic. I completely forgot to post today because I had some meetings and was not home all day. Here is your page, better late than never. I brought my new Windows Surface with me today, and every time I ended up sitting and waiting, I worked, and I managed to get 3/4 of the final page of this story completed! I am in love with my Surface with Manga Studio installed. It is the portable drawing tablet I always dreamed of.

The 5th episode of Axe Cop aired on Saturday. Originally I wrote the first draft of the outline for this one. A good amount changed, but this is a great episode. It definitely brings out the darker, weirder side of Axe Cop which is creepy and hilarious. There were a couple little details in this episode I was not crazy about, but in general I loved it.

I like this episode especially because it is not a story taken directly from the comics. It just takes elements and makes a new episode, and that is fun to see come together. I like the take on Bad Santa too. Cobras on his sleigh, I am proud to say, was my idea. We called Malachai to ask him what Bad Santa’s plan is and Malachai said without skipping a beat “to kill God and become Jesus.” He said it like it was so obvious we shouldn’t even have had to ask. Also, the ending is from an unused answer to an Ask Axe Cop question. Someone asked what the best day, and worst day of Axe Cop’s life was. Malachai said the day his parents died. He was sad they died, but happy he didn’t have to eat candy canes any more. Then he said he was just medium, but it was the happiest he has ever been… in my notes was the line “medium is the happiest I’ll ever be.” I never made it into a comic, but it worked so well in this episode I’m glad we got to use it. It was such a dark, weird answer. It fit here nicely.

Oh yeah, and some of you guessed it last week, I did the voice of the Chubby doll in the babysitting episode. In the Bad Santa episode, I was the voice of the upset merman.

Next Saturday is the last episode of the first set of 6! It’s the summer finale. I’m excited to see this episode, starring the rabbit who walks and eats coconuts. Don’t worry, another 6 are already being produced, but as of now I have no clue when they will air.

Oh yeah! And the first appearances of some of my Axe Cop Wedding contributors are appearing here. Above we have Adam Juda (aka Dr. Googleman) and Garth Matthams on the left. Also, Thor the Bassett Hound.

Ethan

Page 184 – Bridal Party

I decided to use some of Malachai’s mispronunciations of bridal party terms, like “Bride’s Mates” and “Ring Berrier”. Hopefully it is funny and not simply confusing. Malachai is a seasoned Ring Berrier, he bore the ring at our brothers Noah’s and Isaiah’s weddings, and then he was ring berrier coach to my step son, Ezra at my wedding.

And yes, Tom Nicolle is our dad. The 72 year old father of kids ranging from me to Malachai. If you have ever met my Dad he loves to talk about spiritual things, and so he will be officiating at Axe Cop’s wedding.

Well I am trying to get a lot done today, because tonight I am going to see Riff Trax Live: Starship Troopers! Should be fun.

Ethan