Mister Mxyzptlk

 I've said it before, I seem to have a thing for offbeat interdimensional characters. You've already seen me draw two of my favorites from DC Comics, Bizarro & Bat-Mite. Another one of my favorite DC troublemakers is Mister Mxyzptlk (pronounced mix-yez-pittle-ick). He's had a few different incarnations/interpretations over the years, so the first question was, which version to go with. There's the original "Earth-Two" version, who's a little bulbous-headed imp-ish smart alec in a purple suit. Then there's the more modern version who looks part Looney Tunes/part Willy Wonka, with wild white hair and a Jetsons space suit. 

 I couldn't decide, so I went with BOTH. I started with my favorite elements.I like the white hair, and I really like what Bruce Timm's crew did with him in the 1990s Superman animated series. It's a cartoonier version of the Earth-Two design. He just looks like a funny little guy who's up to no good. As opposed to the modern comic book version, who looks like a creepy little old man from outer space. So I went somewhere in-between. I kept the white hair, but tried not to make him look too much like an old man. I gave him a bowling pin-shaped body and weird head shape that's almost that makes him look alien-like. I wanted him to look like he's from the same world as my version of Bat-Mite. (For those who don't know, Mxy & Bat-Mite are both from the same dimension). One thing that both new & versions of Mxy share is the little purple bowler, so I kept it. Kameron Gates did this creepy version of Mxy that had his hat floating over his head, and I really like that idea, so I used it here (thank you, Kameron!). And I like him smoking a cigar. Why a magical creature from another dimension would be interested in smoking a stogie, I have no idea. but I like it. So finally, this is what I came up with:

 In the clean-up version, I extended his name in the smoke so that it arced over his head a little better:

 And finally, the color version. All-in-all I'm pretty happy with him, though I'm aching to learn how to ink & color these digitally. Hopefully soon. But for now, voilà!

 Feel free to comment, critique, or make suggestions for my next character. Actually, looking now at my old drawing of Bat-Mite, it looks amateur-ish and not as polished as this drawing of Mxy. (The perfectionist in me has a tendency to think that about ALL my old drawings). So I might take another stab at the lil' bat guy...