This week Leon Beyond discusses the Secret History of Disposable Coffeenalia. The strip is a continuation of my ongoing fascination with the design of plastic coffee cup lids, seen in this appendix to my history comic Redbird (coming soon!?):
I've since figured out that the mysterious code on the Grub 'n Go cup stands for Decaf, Black, Cream, & Sugar.
I drew this shirt that is currently on sale at Shirt.Woot!
The design is a riff on Isaac Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics, and was suggested as part of a T-shirt contest I was involved with in Las Vegas with my pals at shirt.Woot!
"USBacon (suggested by Leslie Townley)" & "My Mom Says I'm Special" (I added the 5.25" floppy disk, even though I couldn't quite remember what one looks like):
"Just Brains" & "Lonely Apocalypse / Escort Pamphleteer (suggested by Matthew Shultz)":
"The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth" & "Sushi Revenge":
"State-of-the-Art Catapult / CES 1010" & the winning design "Overcoming Asimov's Laws (suggested by Jonathan Knell)":
Thanks to my Woot! for a good time and everybody who submitted ideas! It was fun, and I still have silver fabric paint under my fingernails.
Also: Be sure to check out this week's Amazing Facts & Beyond, also inspired by our trip to Vegas and the Consumer Electronics Show.
Just in time for your explosive New Year's Eve festivities, Leon teaches more valuable lessons involving safety, anvils, pickles and testicles. See the whole strip here!
Last year the Riverfront Times printed a bunch of my weird drawings to accompany the Unreal Year-End News Quiz and by Gosh, they did it again this year. Be sure to check out a copy of the paper or look at the online version, but in the meantime, here are my sketches & illustrations (watercolor & ink on typing paper). Click on them for larger views.
George Clooney sightings during the filming of Up in the Air swirled.
So did genitalia-shaped Mardi Gras beads.
This wasn't your Grandma's Easter service.
This wasn't her funeral.
If you ever throw the first pitch out at a professional baseball game you are guaranteed to get made fun of for something.
I'm kinda shocked this guy never got me.
One of these guys probably will.
This week, Leon debriefs us on the REAL War on Christmas.
Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Luetze, 1851.
Tomorrow I'll be setting up on Cherokee Street, hawking lots of printed goods along with many other great printmakers, as part of the Cherokee Print League. I'll be stationed at Fort Gondo. It goes from 10 am - 7pm. Poster by Firecracker Press:
In related news, this week's Amazing Facts & Beyond tells the story of the early advances in printmaking, use of Fine Print, and the first Cherokee Print League:
Come see me! Dress warm! I hear there will be cookies somewhere along Cherokee Street, too.
I drew the cover to this week's Riverfront Times, and it features beloved local radio mascot, KSHE's Sweet Meat. 
And if there's anything I love more than cute/weird corporate mascots it's REAL ROCK RADIO. KSHE just published a coffee table book documenting classic St. Louis rock history and this drawing is documenting that. Here was my idea:
And a tighter sketch:
And the final drawing, after simplifying the scene a bit. That is an autographed picture of Sammy Hagar on the mantle.
Here's how I colored the drawing initially, sticking to a muted nostalgic scrabook vibe: 
I like the more festive final colors better, but I don't like that Sweet Meat's white ear-hairs somehow got lost along the way. SIGH. If anybody was curious about that little drawing inside the scrabook, it's this legendary piece of St. Louis-related Classic Rock Memorabilia:
Thanks, Sweet Meat!
I just finished a new screenprint, which will debut this weekend at the Rock ' n Roll Craft Show at 3rd Degree Glass Factory here in St. Louis. The print combines a couple of my inspiration/obsessions (gross food, local lore, the St. Louis skyline) and is guaranteed to look good any kitchen. Here were some sketches: 
You'll notice that I eventually ditched the Arch-as-Giant-Belly, as well as the Dirt Cheap Chicken's inclusion in the pantheon.
Here were the results of some color tests after mixing up inks. I thought that I could create a T-Rav / Brain Sandwich-ish orange by laying a Provel yellow over the St. Paul brown ...
... but I also made the happy discovery that laying the Gooey Butter / Ted Drewe's yellow overtop of the brown yielded enough of a Vess green to keep me from adding a fourth ink. Huzzah for semi-translucency!
Working on the print reminded me of this illustration I did a couple of years ago, showing just how many times I can regurgitate the same local landmarks. 
Anyway, the new print is a 3-color, hand-pulled screenprint on wheat-colored Canson Edition paper, edition of 100, 30" x 11 1/4". I'm sellin' 'em for $25 apiece.
Thanks for reading! Hope to see some of you at the Craft Show. I'll be working all day Sunday, if anybody wants to bring me any reference for future prints.
