Good-Bye to the Boobage

When I was 5 I drew my first picture of a woman. Now as you can imagine it wasn't an overly realistic depiction, the feet looked like they were broken at the ankle, hair like spaghetti dropped on the floor, two dimensional and she looked closer to a Rorschach ink blot than anyone you'd find in the Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition. But come on, I was five, I could probably still draw better at that age then most adults!

Over the years I drew a lot and with that, like anything, I got better at it. I was also an avid comic book collector and what I noticed after sifting through piles of comics I amassed throughout my childhood is that men had bulging muscles and women in comics had big boobs. That's just the way it was back then (and from what I see still is today). Not that there's anything wrong with that it's just how they represented power in comics. But what an effect it had on a young impressionable artist. Not only did my art communicate that I got this message loud and clear but when I drew pictures of women I began to subconsciously zero in on that part of the female anatomy like a sculptor honing his craft. It became a delicate ballet of sorts and as expected not all reactions were positive. My father, to this day asks me why I draw boobs so big!

After a while I got into drawing pin ups, kind of an homage to the pin up artists of World War II whose art I so admired. Of course my renderings had somewhat of an updated 21st Century appeal to them. I did oodles of them and had people writing me from all over the world in awe of my skill at drawing boobage. But the more I drew the more I felt I was backing myself further and further into a corner.

As we age we tend to become less focused on personal pleasures and more so onto what is truly important in our lives. I'm pushing 40 and have quickly come to realize that despite my above-average skills as an artist, I haven't really gotten anywhere with my craft. I've had a few small successes along the way, done some art for a couple of low-circulating magazines and a couple of books. You may have even seen some of my art in the background on various TV series such as "La Femme Nikita, "Mutant X", "Monk" and even "24", where I visited my friend Joel Surnow (show's creator) and ran around doodling on all the bulletin boards on the set in the hope that you could see it in an episode obscured in the background by Jack's small head. Anything to get noticed. But the point here is that I figured out that I needed to pick a project and stick with it instead of leap frogging from one unfinished work to another.

A few years ago I began a web comic strip about a couple of fraternal twins who drive their parents nuts with their antics. It was called "Acorn Place", named after the street on which my wife and I bought our first house together. It was a family strip that did very well on the Internet and yet failed to capture the attention of the syndicates I sent it to. Regardless it lived a decent life online and recently came to an end as I felt I needed to move on to a new idea. My next venture... a children's book. I've always wanted to write/illustrate a kid's book but said to myself one day, "My god, this book is going to be chock-full with large breasted women! What kind of pervert would read this to their kid?!" Even though I never drew full out nudity I knew that I needed to distance myself from my pin up girls so that there wouldn't come a day where I was involved in some nasty scandal that would have the headlines reading, "K. DOUGLAS MACRAE'S BUSTY BLUNDER" or "CHILDREN'S AUTHOR'S SECRET BOOB FETISH REVEALED" or "ALIENS MADE ME DRAW BIG BOOBS!!" Scandals really clash with my personality so I figured since I'm into comics, why not take a lesson from them and come up with a secret identity.

Through the years I had a few nom de plumes that I'd slap on my pin up art like, "Johnny Skye", "Skyeboy" and the effort-lacking "KDM". No one ever seemed to put 2 and 2 together to discover that this mild-mannered artist who loved drawing his family cartoon strip was in secret the drawer of such voluptuosity (yes it's a word, look it up!). I even designed and built another website just for my pin ups under the aptly named www.grottylittlewanker.com. I still can't believe I was able to nab that URL before anyone else! Anyhoo, it was where I would display all the art that I didn't want to associate with the kind, child-friendly artist K. Douglas MacRae. It was like having my own Bat Cave or Fortress of Solitude. A place where I could go to unwind without having to worry about anyone knocking on my door with a raised eyebrow and over-inflated sense of self satisfaction!

Well, here I am today, a father, a humble, moral upstanding member of my community wearing my modesty on my sleeve. It's time to throw in the towel and tell the world (or the three people that read this blog) that I'm no longer drawing boobage! Of course if clients still have a need I can't deny them my skills but for a liberal I must now show some restraint and allow certain urges to draw boobs to go gentle into that goodnight. Time to close the doors on GrottyLittleWanker.com forever.

Posted on GrottyLittleWanker.com are most of the pin ups I've done through the years. It's the only place you'll find it, short of the few you see here ."Right click and save" is what you might wanna do cuz when my first children's book hits the shelves (and hit the shelves it will) you won't find my pin ups anywhere! But wait! Suddenly there's an air of silence in my home studio. Maybe it's because I've brought to an end a part of who I am or perhaps it's because it's 5 o'clock in the morning as I write this and everyone's still in bed. Either way, if one listens intently they might hear "Taps" being played in the distance by a lonely trumpeter. At any rate this is my decision and I think it's what needs to be done. After all... it's for the children!