DMV

Ahhh . . . The good times. FYI, the line was about four times as long as this drawing.

PC World! New Client! Yippee!

Some new spots for Beth Kamoroff at PCWorld about Google's semi-web-monopoly, and a recall of Sony laptops that were literally melting (!?) Aren't you glad you're a Mac person, reader? All this confirms one of my worst fears: apparently, computers are the future.

Doodle Dog

My Sketchbook . . . in a book . . . The world has turned itself inside out!

I was delighted to be a part of UK illustrator and designer Phillip Knight's new book "GARP: Sketchbook Process" which includes some really great illustrators and designers. It totally gives you the voyeuristic pleasure of picking someone's brain along with peeking in their sketchbooks. One of the other people featured and a new favorite is Iain Macarthur - I love his mix of obsessive tightness and pattern, coupled with his pure draughtsmanship and dynamism.

New Freddie!

A new Freddie Mercury portrait for the archives!

For Michelle

Happy Birthday!

Aahh . . . Brooklyn

Got to spend last night on Kiersten Essenpreis' and Wes Cox roof in Bushwick with our friends Jen and Jed Heuer to eat some lobster and celebrate my beloved Michelle's blank-ty something birthday with lobsters and cupcakes. (Hard to phrase that so it doesn't sound awkward but I want to link to everyone's site - they're all so damn good!) It was a lovely evening emotionally and physically with the great sunset and breeze coming in. Jen and Jed are headed off to Portland for the year next year, and there's the looming possibility of Kiersten and Wes eventually moving to Chicago, and I had the feeling I've had a couple times in the past ten years - things are going to change. Roof time with great people in the Borough of Kings seems just a little too nice to last.

The THING

Was up last night watchin' some netflix and got a-doodlin' on one of my favorite Jack Kirby characters, the Thing. Man made out of orange rock. Brilliant.

I hate to say I told you so . . .

Hate to repost, but since the oil is still flowing, I thought I'd throw up my 30Reasons.org poster from 2008. The week this got poster to the 30Reasons site (Nov 08), Obama drastically weakened his stance on offshore drilling which was quite a disappointment. I was really excited when he initially planned to put a hold on drilling new areas and reassess the current leases held government's incredibly corrupt Materials Management Office. Would it have stopped the current crisis? Probably not. Preemptive tactics may have disastrous results in foreign policy, but as far as environmental policy goes, it's a pretty good idea. It also made me realize what a theme it's been in my own work and especially the "Pink Gold" book I made in 2005.

No, it's Captain Crazy4Cult!

Tomorrow night in LA at Gallery1988 the Crazy4Cult show opens hosted by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier. Here's a peek at some of my contributions inspired my me beloved Goonies.

GO BEARS!!

If your softball team seems to be mired in mediocrity and nursing a 2 and 8 record, there really is only one solution to be had - new uniforms. In between jobs last week and general paying gigs, I put together a new t-shirt design in hopes of a more productive finish to the season and a play-off berth. Thanks to a design by cousin James last season, we led the league in fashionable t-shirts, and I'm hoping with my contribution this year we can at least be a reigning dynasty in well-outfitted-ness.

P.S. - If you're in the Williamsburg/Bushwick area, go check out the Archive! It's great place runs by great people.

More Nevada Politics!

Another one for Rachel Perkins at the LV Sun. Jim Gibbons, the current governor of Nevada and political maverick/constitutionally confused whackjob has just become the fist incumbent governor to lose the primary in the state's history. Thus not being allowed to even run for his office against his democratic counterpart, he is now a stupendously lame duck - thus the overly large duck transport vehicle. I had a lot of fun on this one. Gibbons has a perfectly square head that's really fun to draw, and since I rode an overly large hollowed out water fowl to school for six years of roughest years of my life, I was happy to rock one here. I'll leave you with this quote - “Racial profiling should be for terrorism. If you look like and act like a terrorist, if you’re coming across as a bad person, you’re going to do harm to our citizens, whether it’s deal drugs, commit crime or commit a terrorist act. Absolutely we ought to profile everybody that looks like a terrorist. I don’t have a problem with that. But if they want to have a racial profile of Irishmen, then I’m going to question that.” - Soon to be former governor, Jim Gibbons (R).

Extra! Extra! REID all about it!

Had a fun job for the super nice Rachel Perkins at the Las Vegas Sun last week about the Senate race Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is struggling in. Basically, all of Reid's attacks have been aimed at Sue Lowden, while Sharron Angle has toiling away in relative safety and is now surging in the Republican Primary polls. This one actually made the Newseum Top Ten Front Pages of the day which was pretty cool. If you're a news nerd like me, the Newseum in D.C. is a pretty interesting concept.

California Draw'rin!

Michelle and I just finished up a wonderful vacation out in California and here's the little sketchbook I was keeping.

Dead Pets Society

For some reason we started a tradition in my fam of pet names starting with the letter "S". Why? Well, my brother and I, in our infinite childhood wisdom and creativity decided to name our first cat Scott - after the dog next door . . . As per why Sophie is faceless, she's not actually dead. Yet. But she's getting up there and I wanted to get a head start on the whole set.

Matchbooks! America's Design Library!

Michelle picked me up a sweet matchbook collection at the Brimfield (MA) Antique Show for 5$! This is but a taste. I hate to be one of those illustrators who moons over when overthing was illustrated but uh . . . I'll draw Mister Pancake! I love the processed color palettes too and the hand drawn type - especially the PROX logo.

Cleaning up the Gulf

Reports are not good. I saw a short video on the NYTimes site about how folks are just waiting around to start the clean up but are being told to hold off. That's gotta be a terrible sense of foreboding.

Dinobot!

I know a dinobot when I see one, and Autobot "Sludge" was outside my house all weekend. He had been tearing up the street on Vanderbilt using his foot-stomping earthquake thing disguised as a loud metallic chewing up of the concrete. He would have been tired, which is why he didn't try to contact me. I did not, nor should any one ever, attempt to feed a Dinobot luring them with hand held energon cubes! Their primitive minds will not distinguish your hand from the cube!

Swedish Torture

Pineapple Face!

Manuel Noriega has been in the news of late, and I recently listened to the This American Life episode "My Pen Pal" in which he figures prominently. It must be a strange life to be bounced around from prison to prison - Miami, to France, to . . . perhaps back to Panama. You can say a lot of bad things about Sr. Noriega, but he did facilitate one of the great nicknames in history - Pineapple Face. Brilliant.

Valeriya Volkova

If you haven't seen her work, you're in for a real treat. Part of what I like about her work is that we seem to be interested in the same things, especially buildings, squares, and rectangles (to be broad about it:)). In fact, there's a really fun overlap with her pool piece (above), and a little watercolor doodle I did a few years ago! She totally kicked my ass on this one.

Captain Phil Harris - RIP

I've probably spent more time than I should watching Deadliest Catch marathons. It's a pretty great show, partly because of the beauty of the tossing seas, partly the amazing bounty of crab, but mostly because of the guys who man the boats, and Captain Phil in particular who passed away from a stroke at 53.

Mini-illos!

It's fun to work small scale, especially with some "for fun" editorial pieces. This top one about the Icelandic volcano eruption and the flight rerouting all over Europe, and the bottom one about a fire at a local pizza place.

Blues Highway!

Piece for the April issue of GO Magazine for the great Shane Luitjens depicting a combination of a few stops along the Blues Highway including the birthplace of James Cotton, the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul (which is actually just a legend attributed to Johnson, but which probably was really about Tommy Johnson), a farm where Pinetop Perkins worked, and the venue run by Hardface Clanton who helped launch many blues careers.

Another little spot for the same ish - this one portraying the Friendship Oak, which if you stand under will you stay friends forever.

Snappah!

I've been working on a short comic based on some music fables written by a friend. The characters are all animals, and my character was "the Critic". I chose to portray him as a snapping turtle. Of course the week I finished, I went down to see some of my fam in Virginia and ran into this 18 inch snapper sunning herself on the grass. A perfect opportunity to get some reference immediately after I could have used it. Ah well. It was still a pretty awesome sight.

Congrats, Mr. President!

There is a classic sense of American obstinacy. Usually, we end up unlawfully invading another state, maintaining discriminatory legislation, or doggedly adhering to a plea of innocence to a charge of infidelity. Rarely is it displayed in the cause of half-assed reform. It's not glamorous. It's not sexy. But, by gum, we got ourselves some honest to goodness health care reform. Half-assed reform, but reform nonetheless. Six months ago with the Tea Party screaming at town halls, death panels around every corner, and more caricatures of the President as Hitler than was tasteful under any circumstance, I thought health care was as dead as your neighbor who couldn't afford health care. And yet, President Obama stuck with it, bored the entire country, and got it through. Kudos, Mr. President. It's a big W. Have yourself a beer summit.

Doc Jingle!

Need something for that hard to please nephew? How 'bout a Gap Kids shirt drawn by me! (You can buy it here) I had a lot of fun doing this tee, and it strangely coincided with a piece for GO Magazine where I also did a one man band as a spot for part of a larger piece. No joke - same two week span. It was nice to have the smaller GO piece done to help out with the bigger GAP piece. Weird how that happens, huh? (One-man-band pieces are also nice for having an excuse to listen to some Hasil Adkins!)