Predecessors: Bonker

Long before there was Pheyden, there was Bonker. You're not reading that wrong, I made a character named Bonker. When I was very young (Elementary School into Junior High) this little white furry alien starred in many of my earliest stories, flying around with his energy field zapping bad guys named after US cities. Why did he have a giant "B" on his chest? Did he come from a world where they used the English alphabet? Who the hell knows, but I have some strong memories of drawing Bonker.

Like any classic sci-fi tale concocted by a child's mind, Bonker had a special spaceship and even a hover bike to tool around in -even though he could fly on his own and didn't need those things. His ship was called the Polaris-1 and I spent hours thinking about how it would operate and what it was like inside. The old Japanese robot cutaway illustrations I would see at my Japanese neighbor's house seeped into my mind and made a permanent place to stay, making it mandatory that I draw the insides of everything. I drew the Polaris many times and was never satisfied with the internals. Maybe I should have just stuffed more vehicles in there!

The main bad guys who gave Bonker a hard time were the Bionic Trio, and a dude named Acron. Acron popped up in a few different forms (scientist/muscle bound beast) and always ended up getting blasted to cosmic bits. Then he would show up again with no explanation as to how he survived. No accountability, I love it. The Bionic Trio were my favorite guys to have Bonker fight, as they collectively filled the anti-hero role in the story. They were three brothers who lost different parts of their bodies when their spaceship exploded. That's it. Why did they want to waste Bonker so bad? Again, no real reason other than to cause chaos. Maybe I should have called them the Anarchy Trio. Either way, I loved drawing them.

For a modern take on Bonker, the Polaris-1 and the Bionic Trio I tried to imagine them in our current Glyos setting. Bonker evokes a bit of every half animal videogame character from the past 20 years. The Polaris-1 looks roughly the same, only now piloted by Pheyden (who also does not really need a ship-only Rigs-ha!) and the Bionic Trio remind me of the Galaxy Ranger's and Crusher Joe's love children.

Bonker will always hold a special place with me, so much so that he was the inspiration for the character Sarvo Halos, who has played a pivotal role in the Glyos System. Sarvo created Prototype Sincroid Exellis along with countless other Mechanoid based lifeforms throughout the history of Glyos and holds many secrets about what is really going on. He might even know what the Bionic Trio were up to. Nah, nobody knows that.

More old files will be explored when I get back from the upcoming overseas trip. Maybe we can take a look at another old series I used to draw called Hermit.