Orioles

Pitchers and catchers before you know it. Which means nothing to we Pirate fans, but still...

How 'Bout Them Cowboys?

1998 Penguins

This commission even made me blush a tiny bit!

1993 Maple Leafs

Robot Fighter

Or robot ass-kicker maybe...take your pick.

This was a concept sketch for a client who ultimately went in another direction...still like it though.

Yoga Redux

Awhile back, I mentioned that an illo I'd done for Seattle Met had been changed a bit, the original being a little too spicy for publication. Here's how the piece appeared in print, along with a link to the ridiculous story.

Holidays in Alberta

Ah, Christmas in Edmonton...and all the comforts of home!

It Came From Outer Space!

Print Shop

I added four new prints to the shop ...and everything is still 20% off when you use the code HOLIDAY10 at checkout!

More to come, including the Cavs, Indians, and much more hockey...keep your eyes peeled!

Santa in Animal Land, Again

NOTE: I originally posted this entry last December, but as I've gained a bunch of new readers in the last year, I figured it was worth posting again, so as not to rob anyone of any, uh...enjoyment!

There are all kinds of Christmas specials. Sappy ones. Earnest ones. Classic ones.

But I guarantee you'll never see one as creepy as Santa In Animal Land.

Let me back up. Years ago, my good friend Bill used to host a Christmas Film Festival every December...we'd get together and watch a few of the classic animated specials (The Grinch, A Charlie Brown Christmas), but the real fun was always in seeing what obscure nugget Bill had unearthed from the depths of history (or more specifically, from cheap VHS collections of public-domain Christmas cartoons). One memorable year, Bill presented 1948's Santa in Animal Land, which he described as a "Felliniesque nightmare of epic proportions disguised as a puppet show". The film was as bizarre and freakish as advertised, and became a staple of the yearly event.

In later years, I'd host my own version of the Film Festival...and Santa in Animal Land (now on cheap, public-domain DVD) was always a big part of it. So much so, in fact, that I created this illo of the awful, awful characters for the invitation to the 2001 edition.

I'm always a little worried that I'm overselling this thing when I tell people about how weird it is...but time after time, folks are genuinely, fabulously creeped out by it. And thanks to the magic of the internets I can share it with you now, thankfully without having to actually invite you jackals into my home. Enjoy?

The Red Menace

SOMEBODY had better be very excited to receive this for Xmas, 'cause I wanted to gouge my eyes out the entire time I was working on it!

Lions

Big winners today...Go Detroit!

Christmas Cards!

Now in the shop!

2011 Winter Classic - Pittsburgh Penguins

The team is as hot as this game is gonna be cool.

It's a great time to be a Pens fan!

2011 Winter Classic - Washington Capitals

All in the interest of fairness. Trust me, fellow Pens fans, I'm just as disgusted as you are.

Holiday Sale!

Folks, everything in the webshop (with the exception of the sports commissions) and at my Etsy Store is on sale all week for 20% off! Please, skate on over and enter the code "holiday10" to save some bucks!

Also, all orders will receive a special Atom-Bomb Bikini Christmas card!

Swann on Sale

As post-Thanksgiving sales go, you could do a lot worse than Mitchell and Ness's 40% off deal all weekend. You can even pick up Swannie's Super Bowl X jersey! He was unquestionably my favorite Steeler growing up (though I still probably wouldn't'a voted for him in 2006!).

Devil Yoga!

This piece was for a new client...kind of. Supremely talented art director Benjamen Purvis hired me to do a few of my all-time favorite illos while he was at the helm of Las Vegas Weekly a few years back. Ben has moved to Seattle and begun working for a beautiful magazine called Seattle Met, and recently got in touch with me to provide some art for his new book.

The story was a light piece poking fun at a local pastor who'd made some kind of dull-witted equation between practicing yoga and practicing satanism. His idea was for an over-the-top devil yoga instructor lasciviously hovering over an unsuspecting young student. Always nice to know I'm the first guy folks think of when they need something seedy drawn!

Anyway, as it turns out, it was too lascivious, and had to be toned down just a smidge for print. I received a copy of the issue in the mail today, and even with the changes, the whole production looked pretty fantastic. Here's hoping I get another chance to provide more art sometime soon!

Wednesday Night

Soon to be colored, and made into a print. (and just in time for the holidays! What a coinkydink!)

Special Edition

Back when the Atom-Bomb Bikini hardcover came out, I was toying with the idea of including an original 6"x6" pencilled pin-up in a limited number of copies. Didn't really have much time to sink into the idea, so I scrapped it, but not before I worked up a couple of examples.

How the Cavs Got Their Colors

This illustration from the latest issue of UVa Magazine helps tell the story of an orange and blue scarf that led the University of Virginia to choose their school colors back in the late 1800's. The actual scarf still exists!

Weekly Sketch 11/11

Gator Bait

This piece is running in the current issue of Virginia Living, accompanying the humorous tale of a southside Richmond man who was stunned to discover an alligator under his neighbor's porch early one morning in 1910.

Post-script: Clemson

This goes out to Tom, who posted in the comments section of the previous post. As it happened, the Clemson book I mentioned never materialized beyond the thumbnail stage, but for this single image that I created as an example. I wish it had; that Tiger mascot was pretty fun to draw!

From the Vaults: High Point University

I found the original art for this job as I was rifling through my archives last night, trying to locate some reference for another project I'm currently working on. I had almost completely forgotten all about it!

Just to back up and explain a bit- Back in the early 00's I worked with my pal Chip on a couple of kid's storybooks about college sports mascots. Such things are pretty standard fare at university bookstores and the like, and of wildly varying quality. Anyway, we'd done one for Wake Forest and one for NC State, and had begun working on one for Clemson when this book for Chip's alma mater, High Point University, came up and needed to be completed tout de suite. I finished the whole thing, 14 full-page color illustrations, in a little over two weeks, including one marathon session of inking and coloring over the long, rainy Labor Day weekend of 2005.  

The results? Eh, not bad. My coloring is a bit garish, but it's supposed to be for kids after all. One thing that was weird was that the story seemed more aimed toward older kids who are about to choose a college, in more of a "here are all the cool things about High Point University"vein. But who am I to say, I'm just the drawing monkey!

Dumb

The Hawk and the Whale

When life gives you lemons...

Weekly Sketch 10/27

Haven't posted any sketches in awhile...

Big Baby

This here was a recent piece for The Stranger, an article about the Seattle PD fighting tooth and nail against new measures which will actually help the department.

Cleve Brownies

Despite the extreme unlikelihood of it happening, I nonetheless decided not to risk jinxing another Pittsburgh sports team, and to hold off on posting this until after last weekend's game.

Reverend Zip

Wouldja believe that the basic concept for the Zip Codes used by the USPS since 1963 were originally proposed in the early 1950's by a professor of church music from Richmond’s Presbyterian School of Christian Education? It's true! Though James Rawlings Sydnor was never given official credit for it's invention, the Postal Museum “tends to support his claim”. In addition to writing several still-respected books on the subject church music, he contributed to every revision of the Presbyterian hymnal between 1940 and his death in 1999. Interesting guy. From Virginia Living.

Venus Throw CD...on sale now!

Just a little FYI, 'cause some'a youse has been askin'...the Venus Throw CD is now up for sale on my webshop, if you'd like to snag yourself a copy, along with a few other new items like women's shirts and note cards. Yes, I'm Wal-Mart.

Phantom Lady

This is a character who's really spoken to me ever since I first laid eyes on her years ago in an early issue of All-Star Squadron. Can't imagine why that might be!

Penguins Christen the CEC

It's all my fault!

My sincerest apologies, fellow Pens fans...I've ascertained the reason for the disappointing results of the team's first couple games at the new Consol Energy Center. Turns out, the blame lies with me.

I began this illustration the middle of last week, fully intending to put it up here on the blog to celebrate last Thursday's opener vs. the Flyers. But I got super-busy early that day, and it ended up being all I could do to even watch the game, much less finish the drawing. Pens lose.

Then on Saturday, I selfishly elected to go to the Richmond Music Festival with the family instead of taking care of business with the illo. Pens blow a lead in the last three minutes, and lose to the Habs.

Well, that's all over now. I knew I had to man up and finish this piece if the Hockey Gods were ever gonna allow the Pens a win on their new home ice! Down two defensemen or no, this befrecktacled beauty and I are guaranteeing our first win in the CEC tonight over the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I'm sorry for what I did. It won't happen again.

Saturn Girl

Saturn Girl, along with Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad, was one of the three founding members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and has always kind of served as a mother figure to the other legionnaires. Except of course for the period in the mid-70s when she sported this Mike Grell Kim Metzger-designed and porn star-inspired uniform, making her more of a MILF figure to the other legionnaires.

I like this drawing, but I don't love it. I have another in the works, so keep your eyes peeled.

Venus Throw

About a decade back, my friend Bruce Smith was recording a record with his noir-a-billy band The Venus Throw, and kindly asked me to create the art and design the CD package. I jumped in with both feet and came up with the following image. Not bad, but kinda pedestrian, I'll admit. Frankly, this is where my skills were at the time.

Now fast forward a bit to early 2007...Bruce had a new Venus Throw album in the works, and again asked me to make it all pretty. Instead of a jewel case, he'd be going with a cardboard digipak this time....which meant if I wanted, I could design and illustrate nearly every inch of the thing. Running with the title, "Raised Right, Gone Wrong", my idea for the cover was a girl in a school uniform, sitting in the backseat of a car with her blouse unbuttoned and drinking a tallboy. To make it a little less creepy, though, I thought I'd have a centerspread on the inside of the CD where she's getting ready for a "date", and several "costumes", including the schoolgirl outfit, are hanging in the closet.  I took a few reference photos of my friend Catherine's 1963 Ford Falcon, and did a bunch of sketches right away:

As sometimes happens, life got in the way and the project ended up geting shelved until earlier this year...Bruce finished recording back in the spring, and I didn't end up finishing the art until a few weeks back, over three years since I began! I got my copies of the CD yesterday, and I must say, the package looks pretty great. I have some quibbles about the job I did, as always, but it's great to have such a complete piece of work...and the music's pretty goddamn great too!