Project Description

INKTOBER 52 2023 Day #18: DOCTOR.

As a comics nerd, it was hard to avoid the comic connection to this prompt. There’s a heck of a lot of highly educated folks in spandex trying either to save or take over the world. Dr. Banner, Dr. Strange, Dr. Fate, Dr. Doom, and of course, Dr. Octopus. I’ve already mentioned I’ve always been a Marvel Comics guy (I was even an early member of Wild Agents of Marvel, or WAM, back in the day), but I was pretty exclusively (or X-clusively…) an X-Men and anything mutants fan. I never read Spider-Man outside of the newspaper strip. I did, however, religiously watch and love the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon (which featured Fire Star and Ice Man, both mutants). In fact, it was the episode where the ol’ web-head teams up with the X-Men that turned me on to the merry mutants and kindled my desire to read and collect their comics, and particularly made me a big Wolverine fan. That said, I do love Spider-Man and his whole origin story and his importance in the history of superhero comics. Outside of that animated series, I’ve really enjoyed the various movies, as well. Doctor Octopus was always an intriguing villain to me because of his mechanical arms and how he would use them to walk, climb, fight, etc. He was just neat. Octopuses (octopi?) are cool, but so are squids, so of course PMD would be Dr. Squid.
Oh. Spider-Clam. Yeah, sometimes, out of the clear blue, my Brain says or shows me something weird. I’ve learned to write those things down, because sooner or later they work their way into the various things I draw. Several days before this prompt was released, my Brain said “Spider-Clam”. I wrote it down. Now here he is.