"House of Ideas"...call me!

(click for larger view if you like)

this was a a ton of fun doing per my nephew's request (and birthday), as if i was pretty much waiting for an excuse to draw an all time favorite character: the Silver Surfer (although, Mr Fantastic was a blast to work with too)

Layout

so in addition to getting to do a lot of illustration, it's also a lot of fun to work with other people's artwork and ideas. Paper+Plastick is always releasing great records by great bands, and sometimes they already have great art that just needs some layout work. it's excellent exercise for me to stretch my design muscles and reconfigure pieces of a puzzle into a cool looking record that is unique to each band, and especially because design is a rather weak area of mine that i would really like to have a better understanding of

here's the fantastic full length from Boston's Have Nots, who are super awesome to work with. i'm actually very fond of this, even though another great designer pretty much did all of this already for their CD, i got to bring a tiny percent of myself to the table :

this is an EP for Let Me Run, featuring stellar artwork by Dave Quiggle!

and in the following, The Swellers had their new album's layout (on Fueled By Ramen) all ready to go, but for the vinyl release, P+P wanted to give them that extra bit of awesome, and i was kindly asked to do some hand written type! always a labor of love, and always, in my opinion, worth the extra work and attention

it starts of course with the band sending me the lyrics in a live text document:
i take their words as they've written them, and lay it out in the LP's insert template to make sure it all fits nicely. once i know where the pieces are approximately going, i start writing it out. it ends up like this (feel free to click for a larger view if you like):

phew! the goal was for the writing to look like someone carved it into the wood with a knife. i kept a mean hand and a tough wrist and a day later i inversed the colors and voila!

MVD Man!

My good pal Clint and MVD Entertainment Group needed a simple mascot, and this was a fun quick job in a fun clean style

the sketch:



some primary colors:

back in the Toy biz...

my good friend Clint at Aggronautix has been paying tribute and causing mayhem with his Throbblehead collectibles, and recently i got to work on the Andrew WK Throbblehead, on sale now on his tour and through Aggronautix! check out an article about it HERE on Limewire (with my illustration)! Andrew is a super sweet dude, was stoked with the work everyone did, and even signs his e-mails "love Andrew".

i even get my sketch on the packaging, with an artist credit, Thanks Clint & Andrew!

keep your eyes peeled for other fun projects in the works!

Clowntastrophe!

well i never thought i would do, or get to do, a Circus Punk, but here it is!

recently the indomitable Paul Palcko asked me and a whole lot of other talented artists to be part of his annual Clowntastrophe art show at the absolutely dynamite Delicious Corsets Boutique in Philadelphia! it's going to be a carnival blast, complete with sideshow, performances, great artwork by Paul + 30 other local and national artists, and even discounts on all Delicious products. Read all about it in the paper HERE!

although Paul's paintings themselves often have layers of commentary or references to them, i like his quote that "I see life as a circus, and all of us performers"

My "Circus Punk", traditionally a hand painted doll used by in carnival "knock down games", definitely shows the fun frivolity of life. the flame in his mouth is laughter, as no subject is beyond its overwhelming power of perspective. he is making a squeaky balloon skull, because i think about death not out of morbidity, but with the same affection i have for life, not merely as the other side of the coin, but the weight in the scales that makes life's lofty balance an exhilarating thing. i think that life, laughter, and death, have very close correlations, and in no way undermines the seriousness of the subjects.

if you can't make the show this Saturday June 26th to see them in person, check out the group blog HERE. below are some details, please feel free to click on them for some major close-ups

The Unkissable Pile Of Intestines

hello! several moons ago i was an animation minor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Animation was always my first love and i long to get back into it someday, and wouldn't dare rule it out for future outlets of ideas.

Well the kick in the pants to that dream was my friend and old neighbor Kristoffe Brodeur rediscovered an old film of mine, dusted the file off, and uploaded it to the internet! Kristoffe is a renaissance man himself in dance, electronics, film, multimedia and beyond, and you can see more of that HERE. he literally had an open door policy where we lived, and though i had actually made 2 "unkissable pile of intestines" shorts prior, he offered to go over the new one with me and completely upgrade it into something special. editing, sound, special effects, and more were given his thorough, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and profoundly generous time and touch. Thank you Kristoffe!

"The Unkissable Pile Of Intestines" first showed up on a wall me and some fellow tenants and Spiderbiters once marred, and he became my everyman mascot of the unrequited. his previous appearances, though a decade old, and future adventures, will see more light here in the future. until then, enjoy:

Homebase Skateshop

wow, where to begin? Homebase Skateshop in Bethlehem PA contacted me a few months ago to help them come up with a few graphics that would help raise money to build the Bethlehem Skateplaza. Having spent a some wonderful times (sneaking in the middle of the night) at Philly's FDR skate park long ago, i know first hand what a great thing this could be for a community. Andy Po who runs Homebase is doing a lot of incredible things at his shop and for his town, and all for the right reasons.

first up (besides the above logo/patch), is the commemorative skate deck sponsored by 5boro, red bull, and Dan Pensyl (who has a "real talk" tattoo, which makes him double awesome in my book), and the board was used to raise money to continue and complete the skate plaza. the bottom of the board was meant to reference Dan's first famous skate deck for 5Boro (with existing Bethlehem landmarks, and soon-to-be-monument Skate Plaza, in place of the original Manhattan graphic). the bottom of the board, though eventually covered in grip tape for shredding the park, would tell a little about the collaboration between everyone and the good cause in purchasing the board (click to enlarge if you like!)

if that wasn't monumental enough of an occasion, Homebase just celebrated their 8th anniversary! they were kind enough to ask me to do up a few t-shirt designs to keep helping raise money (feel free to click to enlarge)
though the following design didn't get used exactly, i was kind of proud of the clever playing around i did with the 8 and their logo (although only Andy knows that originally, i got the roman numeral completely wrong to the point of fictitious)

here are some photos from this weekends epic extravaganza:

check out them shirts!

Andy works the crowd during the skate deck's unveiling:

Andy Po and Dan Pensyl

Congrats Homebase!

also, special thanks to Bethlehemite and friend Marty Desilets for pointing me to these photos. Marty is one of the kindest, most generous people you will ever meet (and congrats to him and Dee on their recent engagement!), but if you never meet him, then you should know he is also one of the best photographers i have ever seen. you should check out his work HERE

folks like Marty, Homebase, and Vegan Treats are arguably greater monuments to Bethlehem than the steel factory or the Bethlehem Star.

there must be something in the water there

and happy June 1st everybody! hope you're all off to a great summer