"Hocus"

I like knowing that I have a “grab bag” full of characters that I can use any time I sit down to work. Everything from pirates and ninjas to mummies and presidential candidates but, my favorites that I always fall back on are the monk, the angel, the snowman and finally, the wizard who I named “Hocus.”

​When I started drawing these guys 6 years ago, they were little more than globs of black ink and my original idea was to color them in different robes. Over the course of the next month, while I kept the fact that there are several of them, I chose to keep them black and white and just add patches to their robes to show rank or individuality, it was easier that way.

As with the rest of Doodleton, there is an army of one kind of characters. These are the original first drawings of magicians.

Hocus was designed specifically to be a counterpoint to, Barney the Monk. Hocus represents many different things but in the comics he represents “the mindless crowd” or people who are not as informed or are mislead by wrong information. He can be mean and spiteful sometimes but I see him as just uninformed, walking blindly. While Barney is the one that seems to be doing all the learning or standing on principle, Hocus normally is the one who is going in the wrong direction. Make no mistake though, if you study some of my work, he makes his OWN statement sometimes.

The first idea for Hocus's "familiar" was a butterfly, but was later changed to a snake.

He reminds me of myself when I was younger as well as a lot of people I know now. He’s not mean spirited, he’s just … lost. That’s where the fun begins. He may have the power of magic on his side, but as I once heard said; “You just can’t fix dumb!” I do like him and his posse, so I’ll keep using him; I like the way he is literally the opposite of Barney.


Go Be Different!