Famous Fictional ETA

Coming Soon!

Deep-Fried Cartography

Here's some important nutritional info for anyone living or travelling through the Dallas / Fort Worth area this week and are planning on stopping by the Texas State Fair. I made this map based on reviews and info provided by my fried friends at the Dallas Observer.

Eagle-eyed viewers will recognize the treasure-map paper behind the map as the same I used for Ol' Crapbeard a couple of weeks ago.

Vehicular Fan Slaughter: KE8

FanDoodle CarToons I did a few months ago while reading Kramers Ergot #8. Edited by Sammy Harkham.

ARTEFFECT, Monday 9/20/12 at CAM

SNEAK PEEK! Here's a sketch of a skateboard deck I painted for St. Louis Design Week's kickoff party ARTEFFECT. Hope to see many of you Monday night!

Search for Crapbeard's Treasure

WOOT-OFF TODAY & TOMORROW! I helped the bargain retail pirate Crapbeard render these treasure maps in Adobe illustrator, placed them digitally on sheets of old paper I burned the edges of in my backyard firepit and plundered with coffee rings in my studio, then uploaded them to the internet.  Here the sketch (obscured):

I can't wait to see if anybody can actually put these 2 maps together and score some awesome booty.

Unfestooned map:

You're welcome, Crapbeard! Here's some additional pirate clip art I drew for the festivities:
UPDATE: Here's how the 2 maps turned out:

Crapbeard will see you next time, on the high crappy seas!

Himalaya: An Appreciation

Here's an illustration I've got in this month's OXFORD AMERICAN, The "New South Journalism" Issue, for a story by Kevin Brockmeier. The 7th grade character in the story travels to the midway of his local state fair, eats fried pickles, and fantasizes about floating around the carnival rides. Sketch:

My favorite ride is and will always be the HIMALAYA. Something about the combination of an obnoxious carnie DJ blasting classic rock and the centrifugal simplicity of they physics makes it PERFECT. Then the DJ shatters your eardrums with air whistles and reverses the direction. WOOOO WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I love it aesthetically most of all though, especially at night. Its fluorescent neon glow, its arabesque lettering rendered in metal and light bulbs, its incongruous Bavarian sport-skier/Nepalese sherpa theme, its fluorescent glow, and shimmering metal-flake paint job on the cars make it outshine every other ride on the midway.

Here's another Himalaya drawing, from an unpublished comic strip:

And here's another, in the lower left-hand panel from another unpublished (state fair themed) comic:

C'mon people! The louder you scream the faster it goes!
ps. I also drew portraits of Dolly Parton & Bull Shannon for the Oxford American story. Check it out!

Bacon Library

Hey! There's a new t-shirt for sale at Shirt.Woot! featuring this pig-tographic design of mine. Buy it here!
Eagle-eyed/Bacon-hearted scrutinizers will recognize the design as one of the gazillions of pieces of custom vector clip-art I've been drawing for Woot as part of this icon library project (above). The initiative was partially sparked by this page in my sketchbook:

Keep your eyes peeled for more!

Feast Day of St. Louis IX

Here's a new poster I printed up for this year's FEAST DAY at my favorite local tavern & restaurant The Royale , feauring a new beer by my favorite local brewer The Civil Life. 4-colors (including metallic gold) on wheat paper, 24" x 18".

Inspiration for the poster was drawn from this book --

-- specifically these kind of gilded age engravings featuring bird's eye view renderings of breweries and flowery (and barley-y/hops-y) type:

Some early sketches:


More developed sketches:


Map reference for the area of South St. Louis generally transcribed on the print:

A color study:

A tight under-drawing:

Finished lineart:

Finished vector art:

Hope to see you at the Royale this Saturday, ready to celebrate the eponymous patron saint of our town in frothy fashion! Also, I heard there will be live accordion.

Keep America Weird Week

I sure hope you're keeping up with Keep America Weird Week at Woot! this week. Here are some banners I made to advertise and commemorate this great event.

Lots of great discussion of American Weirdness and Weirdos. I especially like this one about Baseball Oddities (literal ODDBALLS).

I was also proud of this 'WEIRD' font I drew, although now it looks more like 'GREEN BACON' font. Which I guess it still pretty weird.

Tonight! Reading/Signing/Party at Star Clipper!

7 - 10 pm! Party! Free* hand-printed BIRDSEYE BRISTOE bookmark containing an instructional diagram on how to build your own birdfeeder out of items you may have around the house. *just say the code words: "I want to learn how build my own birdfeeder out of items I may have around the house".