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:
