These are the first sketches I ever drew of the Night Owls. As you can see, I knew what I thought they should look like, and they haven't changed much since, except for Roscoe.
Here Roscoe is shown with big Popeye arms and smokin' a stogie. I ditched the stogie, because I decided my characters wouldn't smoke, even though it'd be entirely period appropriate for them to do so. Besides, Buster Keaton died of lung cancer. There's reason enough to give Tobacco the high hat, if you ask me.
As for the Popeye arms, I'm not sure why I decided not to do that. Looking back, I kinda wish I'd kept them. Oh well.
There's also a sketch for my original logo idea, "the postage stamp logo".
It ended up looking like this, but I ended up not liking it very much.
And finally, here's the first actual comics page to ever feature the Night Owls:
