Quirky and Fun!

I was at the video store with Molly last night, and I saw this:



It's a DVD cover for a new indie flick entitled "The Go-getter", and allow me to point out a few things.

1.) This movie is clearly aimed at the 24-40 year old This American Life-loving, Decemberists-listening, vegan-eating, guiltily-two-car-owning yupster set.

2.) The car apparently so prominently featured in the movie is an 80s Volvo 240DL, a car which I not only owned and loved for quite a while, but a car that speaks to a greater truth about the owner: that s/he has parents that bought the car, and gave it to them to it's waning years, which pretty promisingly puts the family into the East Coast/West Coast liberal leaning college- educated electoral demographic.

3.) Hollywood's decision to appeal to that (my - oh, god, so embarrassingly so - my) demographic has revealed a pretty steady formula. To wit:
























I'm kind of torn about this: as an illustrator that would love to do a movie poster, I'm encouraged to see comic-style drawings and hand lettering on a poster. But, for the love of Tom Brady, surely we're in a rut. It looks like there's a InDesign plug-in for this type of design now. So, it is with a heavy heart that I say:

You designers, STOP IT. STOP using blockhead font, stop using slightly sloppy hand drawn illustrations, stop using bearded motherfuckers to portray to the potential audience that this about people who read Sarah Vowell and wear tweed jackets. STOP IT.

Please, surely there's another way.

In other news, you can see why I'll be launching a new look for my website next week. I'm guilty of the same design crimes above, and someone's gotta say something. It might as well be me.

Finally Done

Robots and Monsters is finally done: above is the last one. Almost 200 drawings by myself, plus 35 by some fabulous contributors. Thanks to everyone who donated, devoted time to it, and helped out, be it blogging, drawing, helping mail or just looking. I, and more so, the people helped by the 12 K raised for AIDS support and research, very much appreciate it. Thanks.

So what's next? A bunch of stuff, most of which I'd rather not talk about for fear of jinxing it: let's just say this isn't the last you've heard of the project. One thing I can say is that the site will reopen soonish...as you or may not know, I am getting married in a few months, though, so if it takes a little longer to get back up to spped don't be surprised (note the lack of blogging for evidence of the awesome timesuck this seems to require.)

Thanks again, everyone!

Sketchblog: WInter Hook Logo

Above is the progress from initial sketch to final for Red Hook's new Winter Hook character, whom I've dubbed The Winter Dude, as well as a comp approximating where it will appear on the six pack boxes. I like how it turned out: I'm disappointed that they decided to move away from the "dudeish" aspect, because I think that this zen-like guy riding around on a winter-y cloud is a funny twist on a rather worn archetype, but I think it looks good regardless. Now go drink some Winter Hook!

Amos Goldbaum

I ran across this guy selling prints in the Embarcadero art faire: he was basically the only person that wasn't selling unbearably crappy and treacly stuff. I love his line work and the restrain it takes to allow the lines and negative space to speak for themselves. It reminds of Shel Silverstein. I always have trouble reigning it in: given the chance, I'll over ornamentalize something until it looks like an Italian-American wedding. Slowly, slowly, I'm learning. But Amos has it down.

Microfiche Poster

I'm pleased to announce I've done the new silkscreened poster for Microfiche's next show at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. Microfiche's bassist is Tim Lillis, contributing illustrator to MAKE and CRAFT Magazines, and also a wicked good friend of mine.

You can see the originally-conceived 4 color poster here, and then with the colors available to us from the silkscreener. It's interesting how a little palette change can completely alter the tone of a piece. I like 'em both, though.

An edition of 50 hand numbered posters will be available at the event, which is Friday, June 6th at 8:30 p.m.

My New Favorite Awesome

Sometimes, I feel pretty good about myself. You know, what I've done, the plans in my mind.

Then I see something like this, and I'm all the way back at the bottom again.

(Via Drawn!)

Sketchblog 3/18/08

The above is another poster in the series I've done for Blue Flavor, advertising some of their software and projects. I've got a huge response from these posters, which brings up a rather interesting idea that we're dabbling with here: album art for programs. I considered this at first just advertisement, but the BF guys have been great, as usual, and given me complete creative freedom. I'm basically allowed to do whatever the word makes me think of. Which brings up an interesting new venue for illustrators. In a world in which albums are released digitally, and software and video games sometimes have a big and feverent a following as music ( see Firefox!) who's to say that software packaging needs to be all boring swooping blue lines and staid san serif fonts? I hope this is the beginning of a big trend... in any event, thanks again to the BF guys for being on the side of the good guys...

Sketchblog 2/28/08

Above is another poster in the series I'm doing for Blue Flavor. You can see the first one here.

I like this one quite a bit: the palette reminds me of some late 60s children's books I used to pore over as a kid: heavy, red-influenced blues with some orange-reds, a seemingly popular color scheme at the time and one that I still can't get out of my head. I often wonder how much one's visual aesthetics is influenced by one's very early development window of colors and shapes. I love (and always use) that type of bright sky blue: did I have a crib that color at some point? I have to ask my parents...

Sketchblog

Kevin asked me to create a logo for his video company: Quoth Kevin:

"...something a little more baroque/russian futurist/steampunk - like a blueprint for a redesign of an alternate-future video camera with a lot of swoopy curves and stuff. Hell of a lot more work, I know."

It's cool, Kev. You're shooting my wedding.

Above is my first stab, and then out of boredom, I put it in an environment. I kinda like how it looks. And I want one.

Sausage Factory: Done Got Hitched, Part 2

Molly's out of town this week, so it's just me and the cats and the Mac, which leaves ample room for some real nerdly design work. I've got some great paying stuff coming up that I'm looking forward to, but right now I've got the looming project that is far more pressing: figuring out how our wedding in November is going to be graphically represented. This is the second part of a series. You can see how we got to this point here.

I don't have much to say except that this is harder than I initially thought, and I'm not sure whether it's because it actually is a challenging project, or that because it's so personally important to me, I'm hyper self-aware. In any event, I think I'm getting closer to where we want to be.

Diving right in to what I did tonight:



I like this, because it gives a nice feel of that beeeeautiful Haeckel etching that I've latched on to, and it also brings an element of art nouveau wallpaper in the background, as it feels like it's being pinned up on a wall. It's way too busy though, with too many colors.



I like this one more because it brings the elements together, but again, while I love the design, the pinks leaves me limp. Next.



This is the choice for the understated fan that likes to let the art speak for itself, and I can see that point of view, I really can. To me, it seems a little snoozely, but then, I'm also a guy who likes a lot going on in a design.



NOW we're cooking with gasoline,, baby. This sucker jumps right off the page, and seems to be modern while at the same time hewing very close to the design of yore. I like this one a lot. But I'm only half the deciding team, so who knows what The Boss will bring down.



I like this one a lot, too: with the addition of the red pitcher plant, it suddenly takes on a vaguely Spanish feel for some reason, which I'm not totally against, though neither Molly nor I have anything to do with Spain at all. I like that is starts to recall art nouveau moving into more stylized form, and is hence historically accurate for the time period we want to evoke. The drawbacks are that it's kinda vaginal, which might come off as weird. But, hey! Everyone loves vaginas!

Like I said, I'm alone all week, so there will be a ton more of these being cranked out. Stay tuned...

Coffee Poster

(Click to enlarge)

Above is a new poster I did for Blue Flavor: they're asking different artists to do posters that relate somehow to the work they've done for various clients, and I'm the first artist they asked, which is totally cool. The client for this poster is LiveMocha, a site that joins people together into a community for learning languages, via Web 2.0 (ugh) concepts, etc., usability, etc. The upshot is that I got to do this totally cool poster, and they loved it. Apologies to The Perrystag for totally stealing some of his thunder.

New work

Just quick note to update you of some of my most recent projects:



The first is the aforementioned skatedeck I worked on for a show at Space Gallery a few weeks ago. Tim Lillis of Narwhal Creative and I both created a deck, and they both rule: I think mine is about halfway there in terms of what was in my head versus what actually came out, but my next piece in this same scheme will be farther along, I think. Also, Jesse, of Subhead Grip provided some incredible griptape work that really took the piece to the next level, so thanks to him for all his help. More here.




The second is something I mentioned before, but I actually received the cardpack that I created for the Ignite agency, and they're great: nice printing, excellent stock, beautiful packaging. It's always nice to see your work in physical form, too.





And lastly, more damn Robots and Monsters. As usual.

*UPDATE*: We got blogged by Brainiac again. Sweet!

Sketchblog 1/19/08

(Click to enlarge)

Above is a last minute poster I did for my friend Scott, in support of a benefit show for the Tia Foundation. Knowing that I'm a total sucker for good causes, he knew I'd jump at the chance, the rat bastard. I ended up only having a small amount of time to do it in, so the above is actually a bit of recycling on my part; a few different pieces from sketch books, brought together in Photoshop and then layed out in InDesign. I'm pleased with the result. Reduce, reuse, redesign, my brothers and sisters.

Your Monster Is Leaking

The above is the debatable leaked concept art of the main antagonist monster in the new film Cloverfield, to be released in about 2 weeks. Filmed in the faux-verite style so popular with the kids in recent years, there's been internet chatter back and forth about whether this is just fan art, a ruse created to throw off the fanboys, or the actual good stuff, but regardless, I like the illo a lot. Look out! Walking whale!

Now, all we have to wait for is to see whether is actually going to be a cool movie that will live up to the hype, or yet another in a series of disappointing movies that could never replicate the excitement generated by their art direction and pricey ad campaigns. It may be that my advanced age of almost 30 has made a cynic out of me, but I ain't holding my breath.

*UPDATE!* Turns out it's not real, just some guy's stab at it. I still like the drawing, though.

Year's End

Above is some of my most recent advertising work that I've done for Golden Lasso, up in Seattle, which I'm happy with. Once again, it looks like I'm solidifying my rep as "that robot guy". Also, I'm pretty sure I worked with one of those robots at a temp job once.

As the year draws to close, I like to think about projects I did, weird events that occurred, and people I met that left an impression. In that vein, the run down:

This year I:

- Hooked up with Richard Salzman as my agent, which has been nothing but a great
experience.

- Got invited to Seoul to present at SICAF about mobile comics.

- Launched RobotsAndMonsters.org

- Ran my first marathon.

- Got a totally awesome new apartment.

- Got mugged at gunpoint.

- Saw 2 friends get married, and wished well 2 more from afar.

- Spent an awkward Christmas with both my parents at once, the first time in 12
years.

- Actually got most of my income by drawing for money, a first.

Which makes 2007 kind of a gorgeous year, in retrospect, besides the mugging part, and even that, once could argue, is informative in a Bukowski-would-have-dug-this-life-experience-kind-of-way. So I'm nothing but pleased.

Every single year, I write down things that I'm going to do in the next year on a piece of paper, and I keep it in my wallet. It's a constant barking reminder of all the stuff that I still want to get done, and there is no better sense of satisfaction than to cross one of those bad boys off the list. The problem is, I really have no one but me to keep me honest. So this year, I thought I'd post my list. That way, there's more incentive to not write a check my drawing hand can't cash. So, consider yourself witness, dear reader. You are now a part of this.


Next year I'm gonna:

- Get hitched to the greatest girl on the planet.

- Get a publisher for Robots And Monsters: The Book.

- Assemble the pieces for a solo art show.

- Get some comics in a few newspapers.

- Finally do something constructive with The Basic Virus.

- Fix my motorcycle.


Also, I'll be in a show next Friday at The Space Gallery in San Francisco, in which I did a custom skateboard , but I'll give more updates on that later. Stay tuned.

Happy New Year, y'all. Be good to one another out there.

Lurvely Spam

Back when The Internets was a mite fresher than it is these days, without the foetid stank of 2G1C mingling with the smoke of a billowing BMW Pain Olympics, my friends and I used to have a good time emailing back and forth some of the more poetic passages of text in the spam we received. Often culled from online sources, patched together in a completely random way, these little pieces of web wisdom would fall onto our collective plates and occasionally produce a real gem. We often bandied back and forth that someday someone (read: one of us) should do something with these things. Someone did.

Linzi Hunter illustrates spam subject lines in that beautiful, Ward Kimball mid-century style so popular these days, and they are, in a word, wonderful. Damn! One of us should have done this. Oh, well. Throw it on the pile with Apocalypse Insurance, Guerrilla Dogs, and Google.

(via the Hermenautic Circle)

Sketchblog 11/7/07

(Click image to enlarge)

Above is the wrap-around album cover art I did for the new Edisyn album. I think it turned out well, if I may be so immodest. I had another idea originally which was rejected that I think I may still ink and color anyway. I worked a little bigger this time on both of 'em - this is 15 inches long - so I think it'll make a good piece for my upcoming show, when I actually get around to planning it.

Back In The Saddle

I actually have a studio now! Swish!


It seems like a subconscious cycle I must perform every three months, much like how dogs unwittingly circle before they lie down: blog a lot for a spurt, stop blogging because something time-consuming happens, come back and apologize and resume. Well, I'm done apologizing. I moved, goddammit. And that takes a lot out of you. As you can see from the image above, we still have a lot to do before the house is fully functional, but we're getting there. I will apologize to everyone that's been trying to reach me, whether personal or professional: I have a huge backlog of unreplied-to emails and uncompleted projects, so bear with me over the next few weeks. Suffice to say, our new place is lovely, spacious, and waaay too expensive. C'est le vie.



Luckily, I haven't had any lack of huge projects to distract me, one of which of course is the constant sword over my head Robots and Monsters: there's new members up, with more coming (project of the day today), as well as the first of our Special Contributors submissions, which are all fantastic. Thanks to Lawrence Yang, D. Emory Allen, and Adam "Ape Lad" Koford for showing up so big and donating your immense talents. You all rule.




I also had the good fortune of being hired by Ignited LA to illustrate their set of holiday cards that goes out to all their clients and friends. The job took a long time, but I think the results are worth it: the images above is just one of many images I made for them, and I'm happy because it pushed me stylistically, and but still ended up looking great. I'll definitely be posted photos of the actual cards when I receive my set.

With album cover as well as snowboards on the to-do list, I'm gonna be plenty busy, but again, if you've contacted me and are waiting for a reply, be patient: I'll get to you all, I promise.

Just...as soon...as I can find...my mouse....

Silhouette Maker

I've discovered my new favorite comix artist: Tom Gould, of London. Check out his whole site, it's all very phenomenal work, as is his client list. He's like a unholy hybrid of Edward Gorey, Steven Beistey, and R. Crumb. Agh...I'm swooning because I love all of it so much. I'm gonna try and get him for Robots And Monsters. Fingers crossed!

Other Magazine Cover

I just did the cover for the next issue of Other Magazine, which is about Dead Magazines: those publications , that for some reason or another peter out, or never really made it in the first place. And with a failure rate of over 75% in the periodical industry, there's plenty to chose from. This cover was fun to do: thanks for everyone's help finding fave magazines and 'zines that are no longer with us. Keen eyed observers will find my short-lived 'zine, Manifesto, has a pretty good spot in the image. Well, hell, I gotta do SOMETHING to commemorate all that time and effort, right?