I was honored to draw this for my good pal Adam and his new band MAGICIANS of KNOWLEDGE. I haven't been this excited about a band's first show in a long time. If past performance is any indication of future results (Adam was in two of my favorite area hardcore bands, Infestation of Ass and Step on It), it will be a good time. And ENLIGHTENING. I got a lot of visual and spiritual inspiration from this great book:
The show is at the FUBAR, Monday night March 30th. See you there?!
I just finished printing a new edition of my beloved chestnut of autobiographical stories, Schematic Comics. The central strip in the book is called WOODWORKIN' and I always wanted to print the covers on some kind of wood grained paper. I tried wood grain contact paper, but its ultra-slick surface proved difficult to screenprint on, not to mention staple and fold. And scrap-bookers have driven the price of specialty pre-printed wood grain paper through the roof (there must be a lot of families vacationing in lodges these days, or babies being born in log cabins). I decided to try and make my own. Here's how:
I found a good board in my house - the one sealing the entrance to my attic - and painstakingly scanned it in. After tiling it together in Photoshop, and cranking up the contrast enough to tranlate to silk, I made my transparencies and burned the screen:
I was going for the look of cheap plywood, the kind most prevalent in my house growing up, and I luckily had a bunch of beige paper from a previous project laying around. I experimented with some pinkish/brown inks and eventually my entire basement was covered in wood grain.
I'd lost a lot of the subtle tonal shifts from the original attic board, but since I'd be printing two more colors on top of it, I figured it'd look okay. I sprayed all the finished prints with a matte-coat glaze that that softened the edges and made the top inks melt a bit into the wood grain.
Now that these comics are done, I'm excited to try printing wood grain on stuff on all kinds of stuff around my house: washer/dryer, bed clothes, my car, underwear, etc.
Basically, here's how it works:
That would one work if your special friend is into basketball, soft metals, or is a dentist. Or it could be a sneaky way of tricking them into cleaning the bathroom!!! If your special friend is a dog we could make him magically find a MilkBone in the toilet.
Or, you could just treat YOURSELF and order one for YOU! No topic is too boring or too exciting. Leon will use the magic of trivia to make your boring topic appropriately exciting, or vice versa. If you have questions feel free to write: danzettwoch (at) gmail (dot) com .
Thanks for reading!
Dear Friends! I just finished putting lots of new work up at danzettwoch.com. In addition to fresh illustration, prints and comics, there's a new section called HOW THAT WORKS! that contains lots of my never-before-seen informational & educational (nutritious AND delicious) work.
Please go look at it and tell how me how much of a mess I made.
Hey! I've got a new Civil War comic up on the Vice Magazine website. Be sure to read both parts I and II. Mom: if you're reading this, don't click on that link. I'll show you my comic in person when Spring Break rolls around.
My strip was inspired and partially based on accounts from this book:
Leon has a new Amazing Facts & Beyond comic in this week's Riverfront Times. Go read it!
Leon told me he has been obsessed lately with meteorites, especially the Peekskill (NY) and Benld (IL) events.
I managed to not lose my homemade beads yesterday in Soulard, although some eyeballs appear to have (human?) teeth marks on them. Thanks to my pals for a good time and to God for the Turkey Lunchables.
I've written my long, stupid name (and even longer, stupider e-mail address) on the backs of enough hands and White Castle receipts to finally force me to make some business cards. These are them. If you want one, come up to me at the bowling alley or fish fry and pretend you don't know me.
This is a big painting (acrylic and enamel on board, 32" x 48") I did for a show that opens this Saturday / Valentine's Day at the FUBAR (3108 Locust) in downtown St. Louis. The show, called CONGESTIVE ART FAILURE, is being put on by Evermore Gallery and is billed as a show of "medical illustration". It should be really cool:
Here was my sketch. I wanted to focus on the gross anatomy of things found under the my recliner:
I've been painting on heavy-weight masonite for a while and the two major archival challenges are long-term warping and how to hang the thing. Here's how I decided to combat them this time around:
It makes for a nice sturdy thing that hangs in a 'floating' fashion a couple of inches off the wall. Anyway, maybe I'll see you at the show! Bring your sweetheart! What is more romantic than a flourescent hot-pink portrayal of my insides?
Here are some drawings from the forthcoming HOLD ON zine, the hottest new art/recipe/word-puzzle magazine on the streets. Be on the lookout for biweekly issues on the newstands soon. 
Staying in on a Saturday night, listening to punk rock records, drinking Big Red soda, doing weird/gross drawings, makes me feel 15 again. Why does life ever have to be more complicated than this??
While I'm being nostalgic it seems like a good time to post this recent painting I made for an art show commemorating the local comics shoppe Star Clipper's 20th anniversary. My idea was to recreate the cover to a comic I made 20 years ago. (My pals The Hurtt Locker and Ron DMC did a similar deal.) Here was the original cover to "The Origin of the Society of Super Robot Forces" (© 1988).
And here's the new version, ©2008:
