True Holiday Disasters

Here's my cover to this week's Riverfront Times. It's an opener to the annual holiday comix issue (read it here).

Sketch and alternate idea:

Happy Holidays! Stay safe out there!

Civic Duty

Tomorrow night (Friday, Nov. 16th 2012) I'm in this show opening at the Northside Workshop in St. Louis. It's called "St. Louis: A Collective Declaration" and is a show of banners / reimagined city flags by 18 locals printmakers.  It was my first attempt at screenprinting on clear acetate, and the results are interesting, I think. That is a white kitten fur static clung / embedded in that tentacle.

How Coffee Works!!!

!!! Here's an infographic (click above  to enlarge) I made about one of my favorite things for The University of Michigan's college of Literature, Science & The Arts magazine, the Spring 2012 "Food" issue.

I got to reuse a bunch of caffeine-addled research I did for last year's How Coffee Works / US Patent #597.7311.143 print.

The magazine's color palette:

2 possible graphic directions:

The blueprint sketch, which ended up being sort of a composite of the 2 ideas:

Lineart:

Final art in the magazine !!! Let's all go get some coffee.

 

Famous Fictional: Places & Things! Screenprint

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Famous Fictional: Places & Things opening last Friday night at Mad Art Gallery. It was really fun. Pic's of all the amazing art to come soon! Here's some nitty-gritty behind the poster. Sketches & Ink tests:

Final Digital Art:
Final three-color Print:

Detail:

Land Between the Lakes Sketchbook Nov. '12

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!