We made a new Infographic / illustrated timeline combining three of my most loved things: olde-tyme baseball, olde-tyme cardboard, and olde-tyme hatred for the Chicago Cubs! Here are some close-ups and snapshots from the last 100 years.
Be sure to read the whole thing! It was written and designed by my pal Will Horton at 600Series and I supplied all the goofy drawing and halftones and cardboard. Lots more juicy research, visual inspiration, and anti-Cubs info here and here.
I did the cover illustration for this new book published by the 826 Writing Center in Seattle. It's a book of short stories written by middle school students about triumphs over their worst fears -- real and imagined -- everything from monster fish to flying dogs to ripped jeans to peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.
The crazy maze cover idea was thought up by the awesome and talented Jacob Covey, who designed the whole book. Drawing it took me back to lying on the floor at my 1st grade best friend Jay's house, taping together pieces of graph paper end-to-end, making the most giant maze ever. I remember how excited we were the day we found out about hexagonal graph paper.
There is a release party & signing by the students this Saturday (May 23rd) at 826 Seattle and the book is available for purchase here.
This is a little painting I made for a baby friend-of-a-friend. Acrylic on panel, 12" x 12".
The nautical flags spell out ANDREW and 03-19-09.
Here's another soulful food post: the famous KING'S restaurant on West Broadway in Louisville, Kentucky. I painted this a long time ago, and doubt you can still get Buffalo Perch sandwiches 2 for $2.99.
I got asked to participate in the St. Louis AIGA chapter's 20th anniversary art show that is going on this Thursday. The idea of the show was to have 20 local artists design and make 20 of something, and I made this delicious screenprint featuring the famous St. Louis Slinger.
I had been wanting to continue my gross food series for a while, as well as my St. Louis icon series, so this idea pretty much came up with itself. I like the 'designer-ly' aspect of the Slinger's construction, and any good excuse to draw an exploded-style diagram. Plus I love to eat a Slinger. Here was my sketch:
They're big -- 20" x 28" -- 3-color prints (brown, white, yellow) on heavy burnt-orange Fabriano paper. The original edition of 20 will be given out Thursday at the free and open-to-the-public show, and could be yours! Maybe I'll see you there?! We'll hit Tiffany's or the Courtesy afterwards. 
(I'll probably have more prints for sale later. Perfect for any greasy spoon or classy kitchen.)
A while back I helped Act 3 design and build a videogame for the photographer Scott Smith's website. I did a bunch of "pixel" drawings of locations, characters, weapons, bikinis, etc. Here are some of 'em.
It was a neat project and pretty different from most of my other work. The idea was to emulate the look 'n feel of old adventure games and their EGA graphics, like the early Sierra Online games. My middle-school years included a lot of Space Quest, Police Quest, and (of course) Leisure Suit Larry:
It was fun turning real and semi-real people and places into pixelized versions of themselves:
More challenging was designing all the games-within-the-game. This was was sort of a Frogger-style deal:
For those interested in tech talk, all these drawings are 100% vector. I won't reveal any more of my secrets. Unless you ask me.
This is an interstitial loading screen:
This is the climactic photo-shoot, sketched then rendered:
This was the celebratory duck-hunt afterwards:
Anyway, if you've got a few minutes, you should go play the full game!
My friend Will over at 600series/infoshots and I have been doing these illustrated infograph charts for a blog called Manolith. This time around it's an epic 2400 vertical pixels describing BEER through the ages. My rough sketches: 
We shared research duties, Will did the heavy design work (be sure to check out the full timeline!), and I did all the little spot illustrations. Here are some of 'em:
Know when to say when!
I've got a drawing today on the COVERED BLOG, an awesome site where artists pay tribute to other comics covers. I "covered" one of my favorite books by one of my favorite cartoonists, Surviving Saskatoon by David Collier. The top one is mine, this one is Collier's:
The strip "Milgaard & Me" is a mix of biography, auto-biography, and true crime that really hits my narrative sweet spot. I thought of Collier's cover when I was painting the cover to my Drawn & Quarterly book, which treads similiar biography / graphic journalism territory.
(If you were curious how to pronounce the name of this blog, the first part rhymes with my grandpa's war-nickname "wet sock".)
These legends are in all town next week (on the same night) and this illustration for the RFT pretty much drew itself. "TOO MUCH PRESSURE 'n YOUR MIND IS BUSTIN'!"
Beezus & Ramona, March 28th 2009, drawn while Villanova beats Pittsburgh to reach the NCAA Final Four.
Redbird Comics, back in print and available here. Special collector covers, edition of 100, screenprinted on boxes I've eaten food and beer out of.
