It’s all Jason’s fault, really.

First, some background.

My friend Jason Porath was a special effects animator at DreamWorks (perhaps everygeek’s dream job), until he quit to pursue his own projects. One of those projects went public on a Wednesday, had HUGE Internet buzz on Thursday, and is now being prepared for publication as a book. (You would cry if you knew how soon agents were flocking to him.)

What, you may well ask, is this Internet phenomenon (if you haven’t heard about it already). It’s called Rejected Princesses (subtitle: Women too awesome, awful, or offbeat for kids’ movies). Every Wednesday he posts an animated movie-heroine style illustration (think Ariel or Cinderella) and an astoundingly thoroughly researched biography, written in, let’s say, distinctive, memorable, and colorful language, complete with opinions on which sources were probably biased, a list of the sources used, and art notes on the period costumes and settings.

It’s also a riot.

So where do the Amazons and Martians come in, you may ask?

One week recently, Jason discovered an article about a Greek vase that was decorated with pictures of Amazon warriors and recently deciphered captions giving their battle names – such as Battle-Cry, Worthy of Armor, and (interestingly) Hot Flanks.

Occupied with the book project, Jason opened up rejectedprincesses.com to followers’ submissions of their own suggested Amazon names and illustrations. Here’s what he said: No restrictions. Do whatever art style you want. Genderbend. I don’t care if your personal Amazon is a pony or a piece of bread or a 7th-dimensional math equation.

Well, says I, I could probably draw a piece of bread. If I had to. And I like thinking up warrior names. So I sent a submission, along with this note:

I can’t draw worth crap (obviously). And my hands shake, so that makes my drawing even worse. I also can’t download a stock Amazon warrior and paste my face on it (less obviously, but I tried it). But I wanted to play too, mostly so I could think up names. So here is a drawing of me in some sort of helmet. You’re allowed to laugh at it because we’re friends, but I would really rather you didn’t post it on the site unless you have to. I guess if you do, the credit should be by “Word, Not Art, Person (Obviously)” or “Portrait of the Artist as an Amazon, in the style of a Third-Grader, or Maybe James Thurber.”

And here it is:

Later on I figured out that the helmet was actually Marvin the Martian’s.

So that’s the story, and now you’ve had a good laugh.

But watch out. I really am Mean as 2 Snakes.