Unknown artist
Silver Age of Comic Books? (1956-1970)
Pencil on paper
Recently recovered art dating from around the Silver Age of Comics, these sketches show concept art of a previously unseen and unused superhero: The Book-Stellar and their sidekick/bookstore cat Cat-a-Log (following page). From the notes gathered, this was to be a superhero bookseller who gained superpowers when a bookshelf collapsed on them while they were reshelving a book on clichés. The artist’s margin notes transcribed below from top left to bottom right:
Pointing to book on face, which served as superhero’s mask: Too heavy! Hardcover paperback
Pointing to hyphen in The Book-Stellar: hyphen – important!
Noted near The Book-Stellar’s mind waves: More squigles? [sic] & Can read minds! [Ed. Note: This power was meant for information-gathering purposes, such as guessing what book a customer was incorrectly describing.]
Middle-left: Muscles! [Ed. Note: Muscles were important during the Silver Age of Comics, even for a bookseller-based hero.]
Pointing to cape: Cape made from mass market pages. [Ed. Note: In the script, since lost to a fire, the Book-Stellar created their cape from the pages of books that had fallen out from reading them so much.]
Far-right: Reaches overstock with ease! [Ed. Note: Able to stretch limbs to reach the highest shelves.
Bottom-left: hands – later [Ed. Note: hands are hard to draw.]
Unknown artist
Silver Age of Comic Books? (1956-1970)
Pencil on paper
Unused concept art of Cat-a-Log (or CaL), the Book-Stellar’s bookstore cat turned into a plant-animal hybrid through unknown means. (No surviving script or marginalia described exactly how a cat and a log became one, but readers probably wouldn’t have cared to know anyways.) CaL’s powers would include an encyclopedic knowledge (which would be shared with the reader through sarcastic thought bubbles, a la Garfield) and the ability to shed pages when it scratched itself. The artist’s margin notes transcribed below from top left to bottom right:
Note on CaL’s body: Insert log texture here [Ed. Note: the log texture (bottom-right) was to be used on top of C-a-L’s body before sending the final art to print.]
Near CaL’s tail: fur? wood?
Top-right: Rings = age referring to rings of a tree indicating the tree’s age.
Pointing to CaL’s asterisk butthole: Very important
Middle-left: DogWood? [Ed. Note: Scrapped name for CaL, if it was a dog instead of a cat.]
Bottom-middle: How sit? [Ed. Note: The writer never wrote a scene where CaL would be sitting for this very reason.]
Bottom-right: [Ed. Note: What if CaL had a monocle?]
Mickey rights wrongs. Mickey wrongs rites. Mickey writes words, sometimes wrong words but he tries to get it write.