Ink & Paper Smorgasbord

The Rock 'n Roll Craft Show is taking place this weekend (June 3 & 4) at the former Junk Junkie store at 6933 Hampton. Lots of great artists will have stuff for sale, some bands are playing, etc. Here are some items from the "Manly World of Dan Zettwoch" (quote by my pal Mardou: seek out her great comics, collages, and sculpted punk action figures at the show!) that will be available: 1) Missilefits Rocket Club Poster: 3-color Screenprint with metallic blue ink, 20" x 26".
2) Catastrophe Shop Poster: 2-color Screenprint, 10" x 20"
3) Redbird #1: 36 page mini-comic with 3-color screenprinted cover
4) Schematic Comics: 48 page comic with 2-color screenprinted cover and fold-out centerfold
5) IRONCLAD: 26 page comic with 3-color screenprinted cover, dual 34" x 11" gatefold civil war battle scenes. Back in print for a limited time!
6) VS: 24 page mini-comic with hand-colored cover.
7) Leadville Poster: 2-color screenprint, 18" x 10"
8) Ink About It! Poster: 3-color screenprint, 20" x 12"
9) Bowling pin I fished out a dumpster behind the historic Saratoga Lanes in Maplewood (not for sale)
I'll be working at the Show Sunday afternoon, maybe I'll see you there! PS: this post was an obvious excuse to make one of those silhouette key things.

Action is Fantastic

Last night at Drawing Club we all made Bigfoot drawings (again). Excited about an upcoming weekend of playoff action I drew mine playing basketball (above: White-out and ink on beige construction paper, 5.5" x 11"). Also, I recently came across a little suite of vector drawings I did depicting NBA superstars of the '82-'83 season:
And finally, here a couple of snapshots of the Zettwoch basketball club, Louisville Kentucky, circa 1985. The first shows me hustling to get a hand-in-the-face of my brother Jake as he prepares to launch a sweet J:
The second shows the custom basketball goal at the Zettwoch facilities. The backboard is mounted on a pivoting mechanism, which allows it to be lowered to various intervals lower than the regulation 10 feet. The reason for this: DUNK CONTEST. The chicken wire barrier behind the goal was designed to prevent errant shots from leaving the yard, and the long-handled fishing net is there in case a particularly errant shot missed the basket and the barrier altogether. Also note the homemade birdfeeder built out of a two-liter Big Red bottle, able to be refilled via a pulley system, and the plexiglass Red Baron weathervane sitting atop the goal.

The Gentleman of the Ring

Floyd Patterson, two-time Heavyweight Champion of the World, died last week at the age of 71. By all accounts he was a shy, sweet and complicated man, having remarked: "You can hit me and I won't think much of it, but you can say something and hurt me very much." He was one of my favorite fighters, and a few years ago I made a comic about his September 25, 1962 fight versus Sonny Liston in Chicago where he lost the belt (for the second time). Here are a few more pages from that strip:
He was knocked out in the first round, and reportedly snuck out of Comiskey Park in dark glasses and a fake beard. He lost again to Liston and year and half later, and was never the same fighter again. Rest In Peace, Floyd.

Hot Rod Drawings '05 - '06

All drawings ink and white-out on construction paper or Bristol Board. Much respect to Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. Top to Bottom: Self-portrait, my pal Anchovy, Bigfoot, pirates of Route 66 (published in the RFT), Viking, STL hardcore band Step on It!, video game character Q*bert, candidates in St. Louis' 3rd District congressional race (also from the RFT), Santa Claus.

VICE Magazine & MAD Fold-Ins

I've got a one-page comic in the new issue of VICE magazine, out this Friday, May 5th. It's the "comics issue", so be on the lookout for it (it's free!). Unfortunately, I don't think any place in St. Louis carries Vice, which is fitting because my strip is about the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, AKA The Arch. The drawing above in an excerpted panel.

The issue was guest-edited by Johnny Ryan and has a great cover (see above) done with the living legend Al Jaffee. Jaffee has always been one of my favorite artists, having created such classic humor contraptions as Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions and the Mad Magazine Fold-In. It's an honor to be even peripherally involved in the same publication (although the bone-in-the-vomit gag seen in my panel above is more an homage to fellow Mad artist Don Martin). To keep the Jaffee love flowing, here are a couple of Fold-In ripoffs I've drawn recently:

The first (now in the permanent collection of Dan Nadel) was published in the USS Catastrophe Election Treasury. The second was originally drawn for St. Louis hardcore zine Speak for Yourself but was most recently published in my odds and ends collection Schematic Comics. Click here if you want to see both Fold-Ins in action! Fun fact: I once got my mom to iron the back covers of my beat-up back issues of Mad to return them to "mint" condition!