Monday, October 30, 2006

Trick or Treat?


Top 5 Pumpkin-Flavored things I've had this month:

5: Pumpkin Cheesecake Cappucino from 7-11
4: Pumpkin Spice candles I bought from Big Lots
3: Jack's Pumpkin Ale made by Anheuser-Busch
2: Pumpkin Muffies from St. Louis BreadCo.
1: The Great Pumpkin from Ted Drewe's custard stand

Dishonorable mention goes to the Reese's "Pumpkin Peanut Butter Cup" which isn't pumpkin flavored at all, just a normal peanut butter cup shaped like a pumpkin. Booooooo!

Have a safe Halloween everyone!

Friday, October 27, 2006

Let's Go You Redbirds!

Above is the first page of a new comic strip I drew about the magical 2004 National League Championship Series, when the Cardinals played the Houston Astros. It will appear in the next edition of the long-running comix anthology Not My Small Diary. As special as that playoff run was, it can't compare to this season's run, which will hopefully end tonight, with the Birds-on-the-Bat taking care of the Tigers in a way that the beloved '68 squad (pictured below) couldn't. This is for you fellas!

Edited to add more info on my pal Will's playoff beard. Apparently he's gonna be on the radio tomorrow talking about it. UPDATE! Will was on the radio. Listen to the little story here.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Pissed Jeans at the Slaughterhouse

Show tonight! (100% analog flyer made with a Motec Japanese Brush Pen, White-Out pen, home-made Zip-a-Tone, and xeroxes lifted from a book of old carnival typefaces):If you haven't heard the Pissed Jeans LP put out last year on Parts Unknown Records you are missing out. Plus it also has a swell cover drawn by the great cartoonist Ron Rege, Jr.:
I'm sure there will be a radio at the show to listen to the game. I'll also have a few of those 'Pond Scum' shirts (see below) with me. See you there!

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

NLCS Game 1 TONIGHT

I've got a few of these shirts left if anybody wants one. Holler at me in the next 24 hours or so. GO CARDS.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Haunted Urinals of the Midwest

Here's an illustration I drew for this week's RFT for a story about the investigative work of Missouri Paranormal Research. It's based on a particular incident at Route 66 landmark the Tri-County Restaurant, out in Villa Ridge. Here's a snapshot taken later in the very same bathroom. Note the misty apparition hovering to left of the urinals.

A few years ago my pal Ted turned me on to the greatness of old Harvey Comics Casper covers, especially the ones where he shows up and freaks people out. For a while I was into doing doodles of that cute little spook popping out of weird places, despite the fact that a) I had no idea how to draw Casper and b) could never really figure out how to spell his name. Please keep in mind I usually drew these in bowling alleys or lame punk clubs.



And clearly, this idea had been something on my mind, even years ago - an ancient archetypal image if I ever saw one:I've used the same device for a bunch of drawings. Usually it doesn't make sense, but sometimes it does, like in this illustration about Wilco's album A Ghost is Born getting "leaked":
The only thing better than a good ghost is a good urinal. Here's the one my brother and I bought for my Dad for Father's Day a few years ago, in our basement in Louisville. He'd been angling for a facility in the basement (closer to his workshop/studio) for a long time, and the only way we could get our Mom to go for it was to hide it behind a curtain or door or something. Dad more than obliged her, as seen in this before and after shot:

A couple of things about that picture:
1) The word 'Toots' (as in 'Tootsie Roll'), sculpted in classy gold wire above the door, is my Dad's nickname.
2) That crazy bell overhead is for pulling a prank on first time urinators. I'm not sure who the prank is on, since we are the ones who'd have to clean up.
In a final bit of chilling convergence, here's the album I was listening to while doing that original ghost-hunting drawing - The Repo's new LP, "Hearts and Heads Explode", on Youth Attack Records:

Monday, October 02, 2006