Hi-rez image link [2160px tall]
TrUz's Mumblings
MUMBLINGS about whatever happens to trip-my-trigger this week. This might cover books, horror movies, new music I have discovered, photo edits, tweaking panel art from a graphic novel, technical tips for your PC/mobile devices, or any other random topic.
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Mad Cave's Ferocious #1 (The Feral Chasing Boy Variant Remix Cover by TrUzApalOOza)
Friday, December 12, 2025
ComicBase Splash Loader Screen: The Four-Color Rift
Beneath the water-stained plaster of a Midwestern ceiling, a quiet transformation begins. As the boy cracks the spine of U.F.O. & Outer Space, the room’s dull tungsten glow is shattered. A radiant spiral of cosmic energy erupts from the pulp pages—rainbow lightning laced with stardust and memory.
The swirl ascends, turning the ceiling fan into a spinning vortex. On the walls, silent guardians—Zorro, Conan, Tron—begin to shimmer, their eyes flickering with sudden awareness. The floorboards hum. The globe spins on an invisible axis. The boy is no longer just reading; he is summoning. In the static charge of the air, the line between paper and reality dissolves.
I created another variant splash loading page for the new ComicBase 2026 that features a focused few from my previous The Four-Color Rift post, plus another alternate zoomed view to be used as a mobile phone wallpaper.
Hi-rez image link [2160px tall]
Thursday, December 11, 2025
The Four-Color Rift
Beneath the water-stained plaster of a Midwestern ceiling, a quiet transformation begins. As the boy cracks the spine of U.F.O. & Outer Space, the room’s dull tungsten glow is shattered. A radiant spiral of cosmic energy erupts from the pulp pages—rainbow lightning laced with stardust and memory.
The swirl ascends, turning the ceiling fan into a spinning vortex. On the walls, silent guardians—Zorro, Conan, Tron—begin to shimmer, their eyes flickering with sudden awareness. The floorboards hum. The globe spins on an invisible axis. The boy is no longer just reading; he is summoning. In the static charge of the air, the line between paper and reality dissolves.
[workflow: a bunch of nanobanana prompts to create various components. Image searches to retrieve magazine and poster images. I took my 20+ items into Affinity Photo for composition, including multiple layers and mask work. A bunch of pixel brush experiments to get the magic swirl.]
- UFO & Outer Space no.19 from 1978 (USA) artwork by Luis Dominguez
- Conan der Barbar no.8 from 1982 (Germany) artwork by Bob Larkin
- Alien Worlds no.8 from 1984 (USA) artwork by John Pound
- [Zorro] Four Color no.425 from 1952 (USA)
- Ripley's Believe It or Not! True Ghost Stories no.11401-2 from 1979 (USA)
- Schoolhouse Rock! poster from 1975
- The Explorers movie poster from 1985 (USA)
- Tron movie poster from 1982 (USA)
- The Karate Kid from 1984 (USA)

Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Crossover no.1 (The Four-Color Rift Variant Cover by TrUzApalOOza)
My variant cover version of Crossover #1 (Image Comics 2020), story by Geoff Shaw & Donny Cates.
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
ComicBase Splash Loader Screen: Christmas Book Store
I created another variant splash loading page for the new ComicBase 2026 that features two teenage boys reading a comic book outside the B.Dalton bookstore located downtown next to Ace Hardware and Hot Topic.
Hi-rez image link [2160px tall]
Saturday, December 6, 2025
The Terminator no.1 (1930s Cartoon Style Variant Cover by TrUzApalOOza)
Hi-rez image link [2160px tall]
Saturday, November 8, 2025
Brrrroccoli
I took Cilia's original broccoli image and played around to make things look a bit colder with some ice fog appearing and condensation in the air.
[Workflow: Affinity layers for fog, condensation, and some brush work to add more icicles after stretching the Brrrroccoli vertically a bit so I had more room to play.]
Hi-rez image link [2160px tall]
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Fallback for Daylight Savings Time
[Workflow: Prompt experimentation using Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (Nano Banana) to create the basic illustrations, then merged left/right together inside Affinity Photo. Added lighting Fx, some texture overlays, and then hand-crafted the fonts and wording.]
Hi-rez image link [2160px tall]
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
That's an un-BRIE-lievable amount (1.4 billion pounds) of cheese!
Snapple Real Facts Illustrated #2088 - The statement about 1.4 billion pounds of government cheese being stored in caves in Missouri is an outdated claim; while a large surplus of cheese did exist in the past and was stored in underground facilities like those in Springfield, the government has since distributed this cheese. The idea of a 1.4 billion-pound stockpile has become an urban myth that is no longer accurate, though the caves are still used for commercial cold storage.
[Workflow: Prompt experimentation using Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (Nano Banana) to create the basic illustration. Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer were used last month to create the magazine layout, adjusted every time I make a new illustrated fact.]
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
A Knight of the Green Lantern Corps
A simple Green Lantern action figure styled in a medieval knight's gear.
[Workflow: Prompt experimentation using Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (Nano Banana) to create the basic illustration. Affinity Photo to clean up, and added Fx.]
Monday, October 27, 2025
Mercury and Venus Have No Moons (and Here Is Why)
Snapple Real Facts Illustrated #1260 - Mercury and Venus are the only planets in our solar system that have no moons. This is because their proximity to the Sun makes it difficult to hold onto a moon, as the Sun's strong gravitational pull could either capture a moon from them or pull it away from their orbits.
[Workflow: Prompt experimentation using Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (Nano Banana) to create the basic illustration. Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer actions to finalize the magazine layout I previously had created (logo, date/issue masthead Fx, designed beaker wallpaper, the future is fruity emblem, etc.) Fixed up some image errors by AI, then added in additional text elements.]














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