Art for 360i's BrandLand SXSW page

Here’s some fun web-specific stuff I drew last month for the award-winning digital marketing agency 360i.

360i’s marketing manager Katie Perry was looking for some art to serve as a backdrop for their SXSW Tumblr page, as well as a logo for a promo bag to be given out at the event. My solution was to draw a whole bunch of Austin-themed icons, which could then be rearranged into various formats.

The image with the red silhouette of Texas is what’s being used for the bag, and the image with the icons scattered over a light blue map of Austin and the surrounding environs is the Tumblr page backdrop. I’ve also included a logo design that ultimately didn’t get used, but one that I think turned out nicely.

Oh, The Jobs That Get Killed, Part Two

Here’s the second batch of illos from last Summer’s killed Dr Seuss parody book project, the saga of which can be read here. 

Cartoonist Darren Gendron brought my attention to a successful legal action by the Geisel estate against Penguin Books in 1997. It seems that, at the height of the OJ Simpson trial, the folks at Penguin were moving forward with a Dr Seuss-style parody of the OJ case, written in anapestic tetrameter, with Seuss-style illos and the divinely inspired title, “The Cat NOT In The Hat.” 

After reading about the case, I find it hard to decide whose side I’m on. It’s pretty obvious that “The Cat NOT In The Hat” was going to be a TERRIBLE book, and the world is probably an infinitesimally better place thanks to the swift action of the Geisel estate’s attorneys. That said, I can’t see how a book featuring drawings of OJ Simpson wearing a red & white striped hat could ever be confused with the genuine works of Dr Seuss.

As far as I can tell, Penguin wasn’t appropriating Seuss’ trademarked characters for profit, (as Dan O’Neill and the infamous Air Pirates did with Disney’s characters in 1971), and I can’t imagine anyone stupid enough to accidentally hand their child Penguin’s OJ parody book in place of the actual “The Cat In The Hat.”  So, why did the judge side with the Geisel estate?

The Plaintiff’s complaint cites an interesting opinion by SCOTUS justice David Souter in Acuff v. Rose: “For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist’s claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that authors works…. If, on the contrary, the commentary has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringe merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh, the claim to fairness in borrowing from another’s work diminishes accordingly (if it does not vanish), and other factors, like the extent of its commerciality, loom larger.”

In other words, it’s not parody, (i.e. protected speech) if you’re merely borrowing elements of the original work to get attention and save yourself the drudgery of coming up with something new. But then, doesn’t the use of Seuss’s gimmicks, (the striped hat, the drawing style, the rhyming pattern) juxtaposed with the horror of the Simpson case add up to some kind of commentary on Seuss’s work, and beyond that, is it even possible to create new work that doesn’t draw on existing material? Isn’t new art always, (to some degree) a synthesis of what came before?

My verdict: bad book shut down by worse decision.

More info about the Seuss v. Penguin action here.

Oh, The Jobs That Get Killed, Part One

I spent the Summer of 2011 working on a heap of illos for a satirical book project about how terrible job prospects are for recent grads in this shitty economy. The publisher, (who for their own protection will go unnamed here) had the tragically brilliant idea of massaging the written text into the format of a Dr Seuss book, and I was tapped to provide the illustrations.

This assignment was a bit of a stretch for me, not only because I’m not the illustration world’s most adept style mimic, (R. Sikoryak comes to mind), but also because Dr Seuss’ wildly loose approach to drawing is pretty much the polar opposite of my own unforgivingly precise, tight-assed style. Nevertheless, I’m a big Seuss fan, and I welcome the occasional modest challenge, so I dove into a stack of Seuss books and got to work. 

A few months into the project, (after I’d turned in about half of the book’s 80 or so illos) the publisher sent promo materials for the book  out to retailers. Apparently, some wicked, Grinch-like person felt compelled to pass these materials along to attorneys who work for the Ted Geisel estate, at which point this flock of legal carrion birds descended on my publisher much as the Onceler clan does on a newly-discovered forest of virgin Truffula trees.

Okay, enough of the Seuss metaphors. Suffice to say that my publisher was hit with a Cease & Desist letter, and the project was killed, in spite of our well-established First Amendment right to commit parody.

Sometimes it’s actually a relief when jobs get killed, but more often it comes as a bit of a heartbreak, (at least in my experience), and this episode definitely falls into the second category. In spite of the generous kill fee I was paid, I was disappointed that these drawings would never be seen. Now that some time has passed, I’ve picked twelve of my favorites, which I’ll post in two batches. I hope you like them!

Four LOVE & SEX spots for LV Weekly

Four illos for the February 9th, 2012 issue of LAS VEGAS WEEKLY, 

the “Love & Sex Issue,” art direction by Ryan Olbrysh.

ABE LINCOLN ILLOS

For Presidents Day, here’s some Abraham Lincoln illos. “Four Lincolns” was for Chicago Magazine, December 2005, art direction by Todd Urban. “Lincoln Pardon” was for New York Press, March 2001, art direction by Michael Gentile. Enjoy your day off!

Four new skateboards featuring art by Danny Hellman

HORROR SIRENS: a series of four new skateboards featuring art by Danny Hellman, 

now available from BROKEN SKATEBOARDS: http://brokenskateboards.nl/products/

Four Romneys

FOUR ROMNEYS: with Mitt Romney looking ever more like the Republican front runner, I thought I’d post a few of my Romney illos, (some very recent, some not-at-all recent).

First is a cover illo for Boston Phoenix in February 2010, art direction by Kristen Goodfriend. (while looking through my files, I came across another Romney-themed Boston Phoenix cover illo from 2007, but that one has a Romney likeness that’s so far from the mark, it’s making me cringe. Sorry, Kristen!).

The second one features Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, Hillary and Romney from the 2008 Presidential election. This was for The Stranger in September of 2007, art direction by Aaron Huffman.

Third up: a Toho Studios-themed illo showing the GOP’s 2012 Presidential candidates as giant radioactive beast trampling a landscape of foreclosed homes. This ran in an issue of Las Vegas Weekly, October 2011, art direction by Ryan Olbrysh

The last and most recent of the four illos features the GOP’s 2012 Presidential candidates getting a snootful of pepper spray on the cover of the SF BAY GUARDIAN, January 2012, art direction by Mirissa Neff.

Is Joe Lieberman...The Devil???

Here's a fun one I just drew for the New Haven Advocate. Editor John Stoehr phoned me during the week between Christmas and New Year's to ask if I could draw a cover illo featuring Connecticut's Senator Joe Lieberman. I was happy to oblige, since I've already drawn Lieberman a bunch of times over the years, and I'm typically much more relaxed sketching a craggy politician than I am struggling with likenesses of pretty television actors, (the AMC show "Mad Men" comes to mind for some reason).

The cover story would explain how Lieberman's efforts to stall the Senate Health Care bill weren't quite as self-serving as they'd seemed. This initially struck me as a tricky subject to communicate clearly in an illo. However, when John told me that the headline would be "The Devil In The Details," I was immediately struck with this "diabolical reflection in the mirror" concept, (or perhaps I should say "re-struck," since this mirror gimmick is as old as dirt). I threw together a quick sketch, which the New Haven Advocate folks rapidly approved, and I got cracking on the final art.

Once upon a time, I maintained a four drawer file cabinet stuffed with reference photos I'd clipped from countless magazines. Now, after nearly fifteen years of continuous internet use, my swipe file is entirely digital, and I turn reflexively to Google and Yahoo for an image search at the start of every job. While tooling around the web for fresh Lieberman photos, I noticed more than a few side-by-side comparisons of Connecticut's Senator with another Senator, Star Wars' arch villain Palpatine, (who was, as far as I'm concerned, the only interesting element in the last four Star Wars movies). As I perused various JPEGs of Lieberman juxtaposed with actor Ian McDiarmid, I thought, "nah, they don't look that much alike." In spite of that thought, after a few hours spent scratching away with my leaky rapidographs under a hot lamp, I started to get a little fuzzy on whose likeness I'd just drawn.

At any rate, while I haven't yet had a chance to read the New Haven Advocate's cover story, I suspect it fails to make the case that Lieberman is either a Devil or a hooded, latex-caked Sith Lord.

Christmasy Illos of 2009 (Part Two): The Boston Phoenix Meets "Mad Men"

I'm hopelessly addicted to Matthew Weiner's wonderful AMC series Mad Men, so when Boston Phoenix Art Director Kristen Goodfriend asked in early November if I'd like to draw a Mad Men-themed cover, I felt the familiar rush of nervous excitement that accompanies every dream assignment. I can't speak for other illustrators, but when I'm asked to draw something that I love, the stakes are somehow higher. I suppose that's because in these rare instances, I'm working not just to please the art director, but also myself as a fan.

At first, Kristen said that the Mad Men cover would be part of the Phoenix's Ski Guide, although neither of us knew how they'd manage to connect the show to skiing. Fortunately, the editors soon decided that their Christmas Gift Guide cover would be more appropriate for the Mad Men treatment, and I agreed that this was a much better fit.

The series' third season finale, ("Shut The Door, Have a Seat") had just aired, bringing big changes to the show's storyline. I suggested that an impromptu Christmas party scene in the newly-reformed ad agency's hotel suite office might make a nice Gift Guide cover illo. Here's Sketch #1, (drawn in the midst of feverish coughs and sneezes, owing to a nasty flu):


Upon seeing the first sketch, Kristen's suggestions were (thankfully) both sensible and few in number. She felt the mood needed to be somewhat cheerier, (it's a Christmas party, after all). She also asked that Christina Hendricks, ("Joan Holloway") get central placement in the composition. With these changes in mind, and in a somewhat improved position in my battle with the flu bug, I drew Sketch #2, (which I think is noticeably better than Sketch #1):


Sketch #2 got the thumbs-up, and here's how the final art turned out:


And there was more.

While the group illo would run on the cover of the Gift Guide insert, Kristen also wanted some Mad Men art to run on the paper's front cover. Specifically, she asked for two standing figures that she could use to frame her cover lines. We quickly decided that Jon Hamm, ("Don Draper") and Christina Hendricks, ("Joan Holloway") were the show's most cover-worthy cast members, and here are the results:


But wait, there's still more!

Just when I thought I'd finished this job, Kristen asked if I could squeeze out one more quick illo for a short prose piece that would serve as the Gift Guide's intro. The story featured Sterling Cooper's creatives banging heads in Don Draper's office, deliberating over the best way to conjure the holiday spirit in a campaign. By this point, we had just a couple of days before this issue went to press, and I needed to keep this illo fairly simple in order to turn it around by deadline. Here's Sketch #1:


Kristen's response was: "If you can work in Peggy, (maybe on the right side?), it's a go!" I drew up a quick Peggy and pasted her in on the right, (don't let anyone tell you that I can't follow direction). Sketch #2:


And here's the final art for the intro illo:

Caricature-heavy assignments like this one usually leave me dazed and full of self-doubt. I found Jon Hamm particularly tough to draw, mainly because the guy is so god-damned handsome! Only in the last of the three illos did I arrive at a Don Draper likeness with which I was fully satisfied. I'll leave it to you folks to tell me how well I nailed down these likenesses, (please be gentle but firm).

Happy holidays!

Christmasy Illos of 2009 (Part One): Village Voice Gift Guide Cover

Santa came across with some tasty illustration assignments this season, and here's the first of them.

The Village Voice's Justin Reynolds got in touch with me in early October about cover art for their yearly gift guide. He had a charming concept in mind: a sequence of four illos following the journey of a cheesy holiday sweater as it is gifted and re-gifted, finally landing right back where it started.

For me, the fun part of this assignment was coming up with the four re-gifters, all disparate urban types, none of whom would be caught dead wearing the sad snowman sweater.

Illustrations for The Onion AV Club's new book INVENTORY

In early Summer of 2008, I got an email from Keith Phipps, (editor at The Onion's AV Club) describing a book project they had in the works. It would be a book of lists, titled "INVENTORY: Sixteen Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, Ten Great Songs Ruined By Saxophone, And One Hundred More Obsessively Specific Pop Culture Lists." Undaunted's Jon Resh was designing the book, and they were hoping I could add ten spot illos to the mix. Always eager to get some more book work under my belt, I enthusiastically signed on.

Keith sent me a heap of text in the Fall, I quickly realized that I was being handed a dream job. INVENTORY's lists covered horror films, punk rock bands, comic books, cheezy films, and pretty much every other subject that gets me drooling. The Onion folks and I haggled a bit over which ten of their 100-plus lists would get illustrated, (I still get misty eyed, remembering how my bid to draw Kirk & Spock in their "Patterns of Force" Nazi drag got nixed), but ultimately, it didn't matter. There were no duds in the bunch, and however the final picks settled out, it was all good.

Having made our choices, I got started on the roughs, and I'm pleased to say that working with Keith & Jon was smooth sailing all the way. I turned in what I thought was final art on the ten B&W illos in December 2008, only to be asked for a surprise eleventh illo. The subject of this one was the Ramones and their love of recreational drugs, (again, illustration doesn't get better than this). Another last minute surprise was the revelation that the book would be printed in Cyan as well as Black. As a longtime fan of the duotone palette, I jumped at the chance to add a second color to the illos. After a day or two of Photoshop tweaks, I turned in the final (two color) art in February of 2009, and since then, I've been perched on the edge of my seat in anticipation of seeing the finished book.

It's now October of 2009. I've finally seen a freshly-printed copy of INVENTORY, and I think everyone involved with the book should be proud. My illos printed beautifully, Jon Resh's design job is spectacular, and above all, it's just a fun, FUN book! After tearing open the package and hurriedly flipping the pages to check out my illos, I found myself immediately sucked into the book's compelling contents. After spending an hour or so just enjoying the Hell out of INVENTORY, it dawned on me that this is the first book I've been involved with that I've actually wanted to read! If you're a pop culture junkie, I'm confident you'll get a kick out of it as well.

Here are four of the eleven illos I drew for INVENTORY:

My Take On Captain America #2 (for Robert Goodin's COVERED Blog)

In January 2009, talented cartoonist, (and TYPHON contributor) Robert Goodin invited me via email to take part in his Covered project. As he put it, "I've just launched a blog called Covered that will feature artists redrawing comic covers in their own style. Participating artists will come from the fields of comics, animation, graphic design, and galleries from all over the world. Some will be well known, and some not so well known."

Needless to say, many months have passed since that invite went out, and the Covered Blog is now loaded with fun stuff. Comics fans owe it to themselves to check it out.

The Summer of 2009 brought the usual Summertime lull in illo assignments. I took advantage of the downtime by tackling a pile of fun freebie projects, including this one. It's my take on a classic wartime Captain America comic book cover, which shows the star-spangled super soldier busting in on Onkel Dolf, seconds before the fiend takes a dagger to Cap's trusty sidekick Bucky.

Here's what my Covered contribution looks like. Click on this link if you want to compare it to Joe Simon's original 1941 version.

BEDBUGS ATTACK!!!!

Here's a fun cover illo I just drew for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, (one that's not too far off from the Hartford Advocate cover I posted last week).

It seems that scenic San Francisco is the latest stop for bedbugs on their nationwide comeback tour. SFBG art director Ben Hopfer wanted to give this cover feature illo the full horror movie treatment, and I was more than happy to oblige.

My first sketch shows a pair of oversized, overstuffed crawlies creeping towards a wide-eyed, screaming gal:



After seeing the first sketch, Ben asked that we see our victim asleep, since the bloodsuckers typically strike while we're snoozing. I think it's a good call, since it makes the illo even creepier. Ben also asked to see more bedbugs, so I generously piled on one additional critter, for a whopping total of three. By now, the editors had supplied their headline, so I broke out one of my trusty horror poster books for lettering reference.



Ben approved the second sketch with one last request, (more blood!), and it was time to go to final art:



Dear readers, will the next stop on the bedbugs' nationwide tour be our very own bedrooms? Let's hope not! As a bonus, here's a G-rated bedbug illo I drew for Michael Gentile at Habitat back in November of 2006:

Weasels Ripped My Flesh: Cover Art for Hartford Advocate

Hartford Advocate managing editor John Adamian emailed me in early August with a fun cover assignment. They were doing a feature on Fishers, (a kind of large weasel that's native to Connecticut). Apparently, some folks are concerned about these Fishers, and John thought a take-off on Neon Park's classic cover art for "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" would be appropriate.

As many of you already know, the title for The Mothers of Invention's 1970 album "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" is lifted from the September 1956 issue of Man's Life. Supposedly, Frank Zappa handed the issue of Man's Life to artist Neon Park and asked him, "what can you do that's worse than this?" (Isn't that a great quote? I'm considering having it chiseled on my headstone).

So, here's my take on Neon Park's classic "Weasels" album art, with blood-crazed Fishers standing in for the electric shaving weasel:



And here's a JPEG juxtaposing the Neon Park cover with the Man's Life cover. As great as the Neon Park cover is, I feel chastened to stand in the presence of Will Hulsey, the illustrator who painted the Man's Life cover, (what phenomenal chops those guys had).

Maxim: How Grapes Become Wine

MAXIM art director Billy Sorrentino emailed me on August 3rd with an interesting job: they needed six spots illustrating the winemaking process, and they wanted them drawn in the style of the Schoolhouse Rocks educational cartoon shorts. This assignment came my way thanks to cartoondom's preeminent style mimic, the singularly gifted R. Sikoryak, (who was too busy to take the assignment himself, and was kind enough to recommend me).

After accepting the job, I poked around on the web a little bit for some Schoolhouse Rock pix and background info. As a child of the Seventies who'd spent way too much time planted in front of the tube, I was entirely familiar with the cartoons, yet I had no clue who'd made them. I was fascinated to learn that veteran cartoon talents like Arnold Roth and Rowland Wilson did design work on Schoolhouse Rock, while the series' core style was established by the phenomenally talented advertising artist Tom Yohe, Sr., (his son, Tom Yohe Jr. would lend his talents to some of the later cartoons). Yohe, Sr. originated the long-running series in 1973 with fellow ad guys George Newell & David McCall, (along with an assist from Michael Eisner, in his capacity as VP of Childrens' Programming at ABC).

I'm sure I speak for many Americans in my demographic when I confess that whatever meager math skills I have owe directly to those delightful cartoons, (whose catchy jingles are still bouncing around inside of my skull thirty years later). I'm presently showing Schoolhouse Rocks to our three year old daughter who, in spite of being a bit young for multiplication and American history, is enjoying the cartoons thoroughly.

I've never been much good as a style mimic, so any resemblance between these illos and the source material is largely luck. I shudder to think how much closer to Tom Yohe, Sr.'s style these illos would be if R. Sikoryak had taken the assignment, but I'm sure that my shuddering will cease a few seconds after I deposit MAXIM's check.

(Masterpiece Comics, the long-overdue collection of R. Sikoryak's spectacular cartoon revisions of literary classics, is now available at Amazon ).

R.I.P. Ted Kennedy: Two Moldy Oldies from New York Press

At the risk of seeing this blog lurch even further in the direction of "Which Dead Celebrity Caricature Can I Post This Week?", here's a couple of old Ted Kennedy illos from the heyday of New York Press.

I was a regular contributor to NYPress from the early 1990's through the mid-2000's. My drawings often accompanied columns by Alexander Cockburn, John Strausbaugh and J.R. Taylor, but for the entirety of 1999, I provided the art for NYPress Publisher Russ Smith's notoriously Right-leaning MUGGER column.

Typically, these MUGGER illos started off with Smith phoning me on a Friday to describe whatever concept he had in mind. In one or two instances, I may have massaged Smith's concepts slightly, but generally I drew exactly what he asked for. There were dozens of illos slagging the Clintons, Al Gore, & other Democrats, while others were aimed at NYC media figures like Tina Brown, Kurt Andersen, etc.

Here's a MUGGER illo from May 1999, showing a tuxedo-clad Ted Kennedy handing the "Profiles In Courage" award to John McCain, (dressed as an extra from one of the "Rambo" films). Revisiting this one, I cringe just a bit at my McCain likeness, (my McCains would improve over the subsequent decade), but I like to think the Ted Kennedy likeness still holds up.



Next we have a cover illo for New York Press from April 2001. This was an especially fun one for me, because I got to switch into horror movie mode, (always a happy place for me). Here we see mad scientist Ted Kennedy unleashing a new generation of toothy Kennedy offspring upon the political scene, while the ghostly head of JFK looks on approvingly. Art direction by my pal, longtime NYPress art baron Michael Gentile, of course.