Here are some old sketches from my college sketchbooks for Phin and Sara. This was all prepping for what would eventually be “Dismember Me When You’re Gone”, the official first Phineus comic.
There was a lot of playing with looks and poses. As well as a lot of sloppy texture. It’s a fun look back at where I was way back in 1990-1991.
The Contessa is (barring Howie from Teen Wizard) my oldest existing character. I’ve been drawing her ever since I saw Tobe Hooper’s “Lifeforce”.
The Contessa was ported into my comic as a major villain, however, aside from a cameo in “Wake the Dead” she didn’t show up until 2012’s, “Have a Drink on Me”.
I am missing the first picture I made of her, which was confiscated in Middle school, due to nudity. In the class where I fleshed out Phineus, a pre-college art class at CMU, using an early Photoshop like program called Pandavision, I traced a pencil drawing into the program to digitally draw and color it (you can see it below). Keep in mind this was in 1987.
There’s lot’s of boobs involved with her.
I updated the strip I had of this from 2015 to include the newest stuff.
A very early pic of Phin and Sara from a high school sketchbook. Phin was still the extra-dimentional hero, Sara the damsel in distress. Way too Highlander meets Mage, at this point.
This picture is SO 80’s I can smell hairspray. It was the start of piecing the characters I’d doodled into a fleshed out story. It was still a ways off til I found our Phineus, though.
I kept starting different stories until in 1991 during a comic drawing class, I forced myself to take, just so I could get this book started.
The idea of “Magician for Hire” started long , long ago as “Phineus 2036”.
I had the idea as far back as 2005. Cole has evolved many times, in look, name and character since then. As has the story.
I really like the curly haired version, and she may be a future, older version of Cole.
Possibly the very first Phineus story from 1989.
I remember drawing this while working overnight in a dorm at Edinboro University. Still not my Phineus, yet. Also, way too many panels per page.
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Its a major anniversay! Now, I do celebrate two, there’s the one of the creation of my first issue (1991- we’re at 32 for that), but this is for the start of it all and the creation of Phineus and Sara, themselves. And the creation of my studio, Piffle Productions, my own personal studio moniker.
The characters were created my senior year of high school. Little did i know that these two would still be kicking around 36 years later. Ill be posting more sketches from my old sketchbooks and posting the original first takes on the characters in story form on my Patreon page.
I meant to be doing all this much earlier this year, but better late than never.
BL
1988. Well, late 1987 to 1988. I created these two characters in a computer graphics class I took in high school at Carnegie Mellon University on Saturdays. Yes. I CHOSE to go to school 6 days a week.
The original story was way too much Highlander meets Matt Wagner’s Mage, at this point. Phineus was some sort of extra-dimensional being sent to Earth for fight demons. Sara was the stereotypical damsel in distress. I clearly moved to a different path. I had a few different incarnations through out college, until I settled on the paranormal investigators we all know and love.
I’ve known these characters a good, long time. I’ll see if I can dig up any more old drawings of them.
Barry
Phineus + Magician for Hire 
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