Natural Twenty

I'm pretty goddamn excited to see Black Black Black. You should go listen to some of their jams HERE, maybe it's for you?

This Moment in Black History is playing too, a rare occurrence.

MURDEREDMAN. MURDEREDMAN is fucking great. Here's a jam:

Show is at The Happy Dog. You should go.

Esqueleto de la Bruja 3: Fuck This

Been a minute since I posted, been a minute since I drew a poster for a show. Been a minute. Been a minute.

Skeletonwitch is really really awesome, so I wanted to do something really really awesome for this poster. I think I did a pretty good job. I like that dude, and the "FUCK THIS" mug. That skeleton faced soldier lady has been on two previous Skeletonwitch posters I'd done: HERE and HERE. Havoc is from Colorado (not to be confused with the Havoc from Mexico), Mutilation Rites are from Brooklyn, and The Blood Royale is from Austin.

Motorcycles could potentially be difficult to draw, unless you don't give a shit about representing an actual motorcycle that exists and works in the real world. Obviously there are time when ya gotta sell it, and ya can't just guess or fly by the seat of your wheelchair. When drawing something accurate and detailed is what makes the piece work in a way that convinces the viewer of the reality of your image, even on a subconscious level. Other times, especially when you're drawing things in motion, or things happening that are largely sold through memory anyway, you can dial back the fundamental accuracy of specifics. The weight of it all balances on the energy of how it looks rather than the details. I least, I think that's how it works.

OCTOBER 13th, 2012

MITCH

I drew this poster for my friends who are hurting, for the city of Cleveland that is mourning, and for a man I didn't really know, but I've had in my peripheral vision for a very long time.

To explain Mitch Andelmo, for now I'm going to point you towards your best friend, Bridget Callahan.

12" x 18" prints of this poster are available over at the Shiner Comics Store for $5. All the proceeds will go to the Andelmo Family. If you live in the Cleveland area, and would rather buy one in person- email me and I'll make sure you get one. I should have them in hand by the end of the week.

When I started this piece, it was really just supposed to be the art for this print I had already agreed to do as part of the band All Dinosaurs' Kickstarter campaign to raise money for pressing their incredible new record The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior. All the members of the band, and the majority of their fans and friends were really close to Mitch, so it felt right to do something like this for them. Still, I was pretty apprehensive about it maybe coming off wrong, or tactless... like I said, I didn't really know Mitch, just had a pretty strong sense of his presence.

Drawing a portrait of someone that you don't know well can be pretty tricky. Hell, drawing someone you DO know well can be pretty tricky. Luckily for me Mitch was two things that made this a much better piece than I could have ever done on my own. He was a goddamn gregarious person, and everybody who had ever even met him had many great stories and lovingly positive things to say about him. Secondly, he was the most photogenic dude to ever rock a pair of cut off jean short shorts and a wicked mustache. What this means is there was no lack of reference material to draw from, and I started to get a really good sense of him as I drew.

So, Mitch Andelmo. Like I said before, I had him in my periphery for a long time, years. The first time I ever saw him was at least six or seven years ago, I used to go to Cravings coffee shop in Rocky River to do work and exploit their free wifi for hours. I saw this angsty, young pup come in and chat up Lynn, the barista, chain smoke on the patio and drink almost as much coffee as I did... and sometimes more coffee than I did. Which, honestly, that's a lot of coffee. Sometimes he had his blazer on inside out, sometimes he was smoking these big ridiculous cigars, he almost always had on sun glasses and was almost always reading some beat up old book. Though I also chatted up Lynn, I never once spoke to this kid. I just kind of knowingly nodded and kept my eye on him. I felt this weird sense of... "Heh, I've been there. I was an angsty pup once too." Then, I'm not sure what happened. Lynn stopped working there, or I just stopped going there. I didn't see this fierce pup around anymore, and life kept moving, as it does.

The next time I saw this pup, he emerged from the crowd, probably at an All Dinosaurs show, probably at The Happy Dog. I can't really be certain. Even though I pay a lot of attention, all the time, I can't really place when I noticed this pup had become a full fledged, bearded or mustachioed, shirtless, short shorted, blazer rocking dude. It was around four or five years ago. All the sudden he was just around, which happens in Cleveland. People arrive without preamble, and just become ours. At any rate, he had shed the angst and really come out of his shell. I mean, more so than I've seen before or probably since. Which, again, I sat back, kept my eye on him and every other post-pup in the room, and thought "heh- look at that pup, all growed up".

I'll button this up with one last thought. Around the same time Mitch became this new fixture, I slowly backed out of the community. In fact, I took a big step back, stopped going to shows, stopped hanging out. In one capacity, I felt that as long as my work was out there, I didn't really need to be. As long as I kept a few close ties to this rather large group of people, a city of people, I could sit back in my Monastery, then Volcano, and tell them where and when to see good bands play and what sandwiches to eat. And I was wrong. I wish I had known Mitch in life, and not just through his incredible friends and the experience of drawing this poster. I've learned a lot in the past week, and one of those lessons I learned from him. This community of friends is really goddamn strong and loves really hard.

I'm here, so get at me.

Again, the poster is now available in the Shiner Comics Store. If you live in Cleveland and would rather not paypal, send me an email and we'll hash it out.

EDIT: I'd like to add that you can make a donation to the family at this Eventbrite page: HERE.

Civility and Decent Behavior

Just wanted to post up here about something that needs to be posted up here about. ALL DINOSAURS are releasing their second full length LP, Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior, and I assure you it is, indeed, an epic rock n' roll masterpiece. I wrote that on the poster, they didn't ask me to do that. I took the initiative, because I believe it, because it's true. I've been listening to this record for weeks now, and it's really really goddamn good. Oh, and I drew the back cover. I'll post about that later.

To celebrate the release of this record, All Dinosaurs is playing a show with Two Hand Fools, and Natural Disasters at The Beachland Tavern at 9pm on Saturday July 28th, 2012. I'm pretty proud of the poster for this one. It's another comic page layout and I think that works really well for these type of events. There's so much text and info to convey, and there's no better, no cooler way to convey info with text and images than comic book pages. Here's the line art:

Speaking of line art, to raise some of the money to cover the cost of putting out this record, All Dinosaurs has launched a Kickstarter campaign with some pretty bad ass incentive s. Though the campaign has already met it's goal of $1,500 and raised enough pledges to cover their butts on this- it would be really awesome to see them surpass that goal by a LOT and be able to do even better things beyond just pressing the record.

The way I see this kickstarter campaign in particular is more of a way to pre-order something you want, and were going to buy anyway, with the added bonus of being able to get even more cool stuff for your hard earned dollar. At the $20 level you will get the vinyl LP AND an all new print that I'm doing exclusively for the people that are buying in on this, limited to JUST THE PEOPLE THAT PLEDGE TO THIS KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN. That's right, that's it, that's the ONLY WAY to get this print. I will print only as many as are ordered and no more! It looks like more people are pledging at the $25 level, where you get the vinyl edition of this record, plus the vinyl edition of All Dinosaurs' first record, and this limited exclusive print. That's the jam right there, especially if you don't already have Paranoid Indigenous.

If your pockets run a little deeper than that, there's a couple other levels I'd like to draw your attention to. Firstly, at the $150 level there's the opportunity to acquire one of two of my original drawings (this is why I said "speaking of line art") and the record. The two drawings up for grabs are the artwork from the poster I drew for All Dinosaurs' first record release show, and the line art for the poster I did for the show where they premiered the music video for "Castle of Uncle Robert" by Turnstyle Films.

Here's a photo of the first original. Both originals are ink drawings on an 11" x 17" Bristol boards. Very easily frame-able.

Here's the second OG. This one, again, is in the style of a comic book page layout. It's got a drawing of an alpaca on it. Look at that alpaca!

There's also the $180 level, where you will get the original art from the exclusive limited edition print. I'm going to post about this again in the next couple days. I'll post the art and a little rant about All Dinosaurs and some other shit.

Either way, if you go for one of the limited print levels, or are interested in one of these originals, I think it's a pretty great opportunity to grab this incredible record and help out some really awesome, hardworking dudes. It's really really cool that the goal has been met, but I want to emphasize that you can still get in on this, and every dollar helps. I know there's a tendency to sleep on these kinds of things, or plan to pledge or think about doing it later... then it's the last day and then you miss out completely. Don't do that this time.

ALSO: This same night! At Blue Arrow Records right down the street! The Lake Erie Monster #2 release party! I know I barely have to really rap about this because every body reading this is already going to this. Head over to thelakeeriemonster.com for more details! And HYPE!

New Late Shift Poster

Here's the poster and postcard design for the second half of 2012's Cleveland Cinema's Late Shift sponsored by Melt Bar & Grilled. This was a follow up to the ad I did for some of the first half of the year's movies that I did for The Lake Erie Monster #1. You can see that one HERE

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the main feature movies of the 12 Hours of Terror, which is on October 20th, so it was suggested that the header art be from that movie, which was an incredible suggestion! So I drew this one image, based on a screen capture. I like it a lot, got really brushy and raw. It's kind of abstracted but still totally recognizable as what it is. I decided to do something I don't often do and offer this up over at the Shiner Comics Online Store. It's $80, but it's totally worth it. It's the original, there's only one. Suitable for framing! Here's a scan of the art:

Here's a higher rez bigger jpg of the full color version that's on the postcard and the poster:

Here's a photograph of the drawing board, and a DIRECT LINK TO THE DRAWING

If you're interested in this Late Shift midnight movies, and you're on the ol' book of faces, you should become a fan of it HERE! You'll be hip to all the news and updates. These movies are all great, but here's a list of highlights:

DARKMAN, I can not wait to see! I haven't seen it since I was a kid and it was new, but I very much remember loving it as a kid. I think I may have also actually had the comic book adaptation that Marvel published. I'm really loking forward to finding out why I loved it so much, or if it even holds up!

ROBOCOP. Duh. No-brainer. It's been a really long time since I've seen this, but I know that it's awesome. I kind of want someone to dress up in a Robocop costume and come to this shit. Again, some of the comics about Robocop are pretty great. I think there's a badass Robocop vs. Terminator comic. Track that down!

SPACEBALLS is crammed so full of the funniest jokes goofing on sci-fi, specifically Star Wars, movies and the cast just absoluely KILLS it. I hope Melt has a Pizza The Hut sandwich for this!

TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE. True Story: I've never seen this movie! Looking forward to this one too. I'm really really stoked that there's an animated movie on this list. I hope this isn't an isolated thing, and next round there's another... maybe even some jam like Ralph Bakshi's Wizards or that Fire & Ice fantasy epic thing Frank Frazetta did the art for. I don't know if there's an audience for those though, other than me. Me and a fistful of dudes that wold have to take the break from their current D & D campaign to go see them.

Well, this blog has officially gone off the rails. SO: Go see some movies. Buy yourself a drawing. Stay tuned. More art to come tomorrow!

Melt, The June That Was

There are very few days left to get yourself to Melt and get one of these amazing Banh Mi sandwiches. I gotta be honest, I've had a LOT of Melt specials over the last five years of grilled cheese madness, but this one might be my new favorite. It's so fresh and delicious, the flavor combinations are incredible. The sandwich has shaved roasted pork, pickled carrots and daikon, fresh cucumber, vegetable paté, ginger cilantro pesto, and Havarti cheese. I had the vegan version with the tofu instead of pork, and the vegan cheese, it really really hit the spot and made me feel so good. I guess it's pork season. I did not have this one, but I heard good things. Jolt Cola Braised Pork, Harrisa Spread, Red Leaf Lettuce, Cucumber Fennel Slaw with Orange Basil Dressing, and Pepper Jack Cheese. It sounds pretty awesome. Any time there's slaw on a sandwich is good time to be eating a sandwich. I just now got hit with some fierce deja vu as I typed that sentence. Weird. I really wanted to draw a crazy brutal Tyrannosaur for this poster, but ran out of time and had to just bunker down and accept being clever over being brutal. Sometimes being clever is good. Would have been awesome to draw a Tyrannosaur though. Maybe next year? Here's the table card with the dessert menu. Our heroes have their new summer haircuts. Also, I would like to point out to you all the Wookie's Revenge Bread Pudding: Rich chocolate and banana bread pudding chock full of hickory smoked bacon and chunks of Reese's peanut butter cups. Topped with a chocolate peanut butter glaze and toasted coconut and garnished with whipped cream, chocolate sauce, coconut flakes and crumbled bacon. That's a dessert. You can order. And EAT. I kind of want to order it just to SEE. Lastly, here's an ad I drew for Mentor Magazine. The Great Cheese Wave of the early 2000s continues, and hit's Mentor, Ohio in October! Again, this was a really quick jam and I felt like I wanted to do something else, but all said and done, I really like the final piece! I think it'll look awesome as a full page in the magazine. Now I just gotta find a way to get a copy!

A Dog on a Journey Past a Volcano

The Friends of The Cleveland Kennel is throwing their annual Art Fur Animals art show auction that raises money to keep cats and dogs alive long enough to find them homes. Pretty great event, pretty great organization. There is bound to be a LOT of great art at this show, and a multitude of other offerings are up for auction. One year I won a Spa Day, and that shit saved my life. This is the first actual painting I've done in a super long time. Just, whoa. I'm rusty, to say the least. It's just watercolors and ink. I like it though. It was fun, and this is something I want to get further and further into. Drawing is fucking fun. Painting is a challenge. You should go to Art Fur Animals, bid on this painting, take it home and hang it up!

Roll for Initiative

Getting back on the blog horse after a drastic fall. Here's a poster for this incredibly neardy doom metal show. Bring your d20s, son. We roll for initiative early- it's a Thursday after all. Witch Mountain is from Portland, Oregon. I maybe should have included that they're on Profound Lore Records... do people still pay attention to that? What label bands are on? As far as labels go, I feel like Profound Lore is pretty great. I think I screwed up the name Lord Dying but if there's anything better than one lord dying, it's plural lords dying, so... sorry dudes. Better luck next year! Mockingbird is from Akron. Should be a good show. I'll probably go to this one. I'll be the guy in the druid robes.

RACEBANNON, MURDEREDMAN

I didn't know anything about Racebannon until Zip hipped me to them, and assured me that it was one of the greatest live shows he's ever seen. So, I got stoked on this piece and felt like getting wild with the gasmask/helmet revival. There's something fun as shit about drawing a helmet with a bunch of pins, stickers and damage, plus sticking stuff in the band like smokes/lighters/bullets. It's a good time, I bet it's even more fun to do that to an actual helmet! I would love to try it out some day.

This is my new favorite band, MURDEREDMAN's first show. As you can see on their facebook page that it's David from Jerk, John from Cave Bear, Ron Kretsch and Rich Raponi from Self Destruct Button. I don't want to call it a "super group", but goddamn, what a crew.

I couldn't find a website for Vortex. I don't know anything about them. Dead Peasant Insurance is also playing, pretty great line-up. Great show.

Two Sixes X Nines

Here's a couple recent 6" x 9" drawings I'm shipping out with some copies of The Lake Erie Monster for some valued Shiner Comics customers. The first one, Fantasm Jones is a character from one of the Ten Imaginary Movies. The second, the minotaur, "heavy", is just another minotaur.

I haven't had as many orders for the ol' 6" x 9" commissions, but they're always a blast to draw. These were pieces where I was simply left to my own devices to come up with imagery, but I'm more than happy to take requests.

Beachland Ad

Just a quick post today. I've got some more posters and some things to post tomorrow, but I just wanted to get this up before I got lost in the work on my desk, or the hyper-fun that is cleaning the studio.

This is an ad for the Beachland Ballroom & Tavern I recently drew for The Lake Erie Monster comic book. I really liked drawing this. It's a cleaner, more simple style, with the limited palette: three tones of the same earthy brown color and that green.

There's a archive of all the ads Jake Kelly and I drew for The Lake Erie Monster over at the site, HERE.

Rusty Saddle Bike Night to Now That's Class

The Rusty Saddle Bike Night to Now That's Class is tomorrow night! The Big Ride starts at 7pm at Blazing Saddle Cycle, 7427 Detroit Ave, and ends with a raffle at Now That's Class 11213 Detroit. This is co-sponsored by Blazing Saddle and Rust Belt Welding. Even though I do not ride a bicycle, and it would be insanely frustrating to be driving a car on that street at the time, I would still love to see Detroit flooded with bicyclists riding westbound. There's something awesome to me about seeing a huge group of people on bikes traveling in a pack. I blame AKIRA.



I did this black and white version because it was taking me a long time to get this finished and Paul at Now That's Class really really needed it to get the word out about the first one, which as I mentioned above is TOMORROW, April 5th, 2012! So I blasted this version out and I hope it made it to the hands of the people that need it! I saw some up at Gypsy so I know it's at least out in the hood.

Here's what Paul sent me when he hired me for this one:

The idea the Blazing Saddles guys wanted was something like was like

"Zeus on top of a mountain or something crushing a scorpion or some type of animal in one hand and either stepping on or crushing a bike or a pile of bikes. Maybe with lava and fire in the background"

If you've seen any of my previous work, you should know that this is a completely ridiculous, but right in the center of my wheelhouse, request! It's funny, sometimes I really like when a client has a pretty specific idea in mind, but on the whole, clients have pretty odd ideas about what's even possible to do in a drawing. Paul is always a total blast to work with and the Blazing Saddle/Rust Belt dudes are all rad so I would bend over backwards to make sure this work is as ape-shit-bonkers as I can make it, and it visually represents the event and vibe of what they're doing here. I hope I did that!



Which brings me to my next point. Even though I like the b/w version fine and it get's the info out as well as it needs to, I really really wanted this to be in full color that burned off the page. I could almost see it on the page as I was drawing this, how it needed to be to really set it off. So, I took the extra time and really went bananas on the colors on this one. Also note that under the text is a very rough, crusty version of Blazing Saddles on the bottom left and a very rough, sketchy version of Now That's Class on the bottom right, with a much much windier version of a path between the two. I don't really mind that this got covered with text at all, but I like to think that it plays out pretty well even with the text.

So, hey, if you ride a bike in Cleveland and want to get involved in this, DO IT. It's probably going to be a ton of fun, and hey- you get a free beer if you ride your bike to the bar!

The Lake Erie Monster #1 Available NOW!

Just a quick note to all those that haven't yet seen this posted over on thelakeeriemonster.com, the first issue of The Lake Erie Monster is now available for order online in the Shiner Comics Store! Also available is The Lake Erie Monster Movie Poster, and a smattering of other gems. There's only one copy left of Jake Kelly's Spacefighter Z comic UPDATE: Spacefighter Z is SOLD OUT!, but there are plenty of Stormbringer Preview Mini-Comics.

Another note, I only have 3 Skeletonwitch posters left, but I do have more All Dinosaurs posters from the video premier show. I also dropped the prices of the two 6 x 9 drawings I have available, FUR and BUDS are each now only 20 bones. Get them while they're still LUKEWARM.

UPDATE: I added Jake Kelly's KING KONG Poster to the store, we got 5 of them left!

April: Your Beast is Corny!

It's APRIL. That means it's the return of The Corny Beast at Melt bar & grilled! Here's the description from the Specials Menu:

The Corny Beast

Our wicked version of the almighty corndog! An ultra jumbo all beef dog char-grilled then stuffed inside the sandwich with double American cheese. Slathered with our special cornbread batter then deep fried. The result is pure carnival goodness! Chipotle ketchup on the side for dipping.

The initial idea for this was to somehow incorporate a corn maze into the poster art, which, I had never heard of corn mazes before, or if I had I don't remember- anyway, at first I thought it was pretty clever of the originator of this phenomenon because corn is also known as maize, I thought it was a play on words or... something... but, I don't know if that was the case. A corn maze is corn grown in the shape of a maze, sometimes with bonkers images or words incorporated into the pattern.

I tried this idea and it was confusing and looked like it was going to difficult to understand that that's what the image was, plus I wanted to make the maze actually possible to get through, and that was super hard to do while making it also look like corn. SO, I decided to just draw a maze for the poster.



Here's the rough draft, which I draw these at 50%, 5.5" x 8.5", so it's kind of small. I just drew a grid of 1/8th inch squares and got started to lay out the maze. I also knew I wanted to draw a cartoon dog. Drawing dogs is super fun after you get past the awkward stage of them looking wrong. They're pretty hard to draw, because even though you can include the stuff that makes up a dog- it still sometimes just looks not right, but once you do that enough times, something just clicks and you figure it out and BAM, you're a dog drawing machine. Also, there are a billion types of dogs.



So, after I did the rough, and got approval from Our Great Cheese Überlord, Matt Fish, I redrew the thing at 11" x 17" in ink on a piece of Bristol drawing board. I really like the way the dog looks, I wanted him to be ultra cartoony. This may be the cleanest, most streamlined and straight forward thing I've drawn in ages. I didn't even splatter this with ink.



The maze does work, I think there are even multiple paths to get from the top left to the bottom right, but I had to cover some of it up with text, obviously. Maybe I'll offer a limited print run of the poster with no banners? I dunno, that just occurred to me as I was typing this.

Color-wise, I think this came out pretty good. Nice and corny, following through on the simplified cartoon dog.



This coming weekend, April 6th and 7th, is The Parmageddonator, in honor of The Terminator midnight screening at The Cedar Lee on Saturday the 7th. The sandwich is 2 Potato and Cheese Pierogi, Smoked Kielbasa, Potato Pancake, Barrel Aged Sauerkraut, Horseradish Mustard and Sharp Cheddar, vegetarian option available. Yes, it's for real, a 2 potato and cheese pierogi AND potato pancake. On sandwich. That also has Smoked Kielbasa on it.

I actually had to draw this one twice, and I still feel like it's less Arnold-ish than I wanted it to be. He's a hard nut to crack, that Termintor. I like the final version tough. Simplified it again, which took just as much time as doing a more complex poster, if not more.



Saturday Night Fever is screening at the Capitol Theatre on April 21 at Midnight. Melt is going disco with The Tight Trousered Travolta; Ohio City Pasta Cheese Ravioli, One Big Spicy Italian Sausage, Marinara, Provolone, vegetarian option available. As ridiculous as that name is, I bet this sandwich will be freaking delicious.

This one, oh man, this was a mess in the coloring stage! This took a really long time to color and layer in all that texture. It was challenging for sure. I had never seen Saturday Night Fever before, but it's way better than I had imagined. I'm not a huge disco fan, but I gotta admit- it's pretty infectious.



Lastly, but not leastly, here's the dessert card. I kind of wonder if anybody pays any attention to these drawings at all. Have Melt regulars notice I keep up with these characters every month? This time we get to meet their pets. I have no idea why I did that, other than I thought it would be fun, especially for the bear to have a fish. At any rate, these desserts all sound dope!

The Lake Erie Mosnter #1 Release Party TONIGHT!

Firstly, Jake Kelly and I have a new website, thelakeeriemonster.com! Which is the main site for our new ongoing quarterly horror anthology comic book, oddly enough, titled The Lake Erie Monster. The first issue is finally ready to hit the streets, so we're throwing a release party. Here's the announcement, as it was posted over on thelakeeriemonster.com:

Announcement for the Release of The Lake Erie Monster #1, the new comic book by John G and Jake Kelly

A little over a year ago, local artists John G and Jake Kelly collaborated on an art show called TEN IMAGINARY MOVIES. For the show Jake created ten full size posters for made up films: z-grade horror flicks, 70's sci-fi trash and giant monster movies. John was responsible for creating the phony ephemera that heightened the illusion of reality: movie stills, VHS boxes, action figures and comic book adaptations.

The fake comic book adaptations were for the Cleveland-set THE LAKE ERIE MONSTER, and once the show was over the pair decided to continue their collaboration and turn this imaginary comic book adaptation, of an imaginary film, into a reality. Jake scripted a toxic waste monster story set in 1970's era Cleveland and John created appropriately dark and compelling artwork. They are serializing the epic tale over the fist five issues of the ongoing series, each also containing brand new supplemental horror stories by the artists. The result is a Rust-Belt horror anthology, complete with a cackling host (a zombified Commodore Perry) and presented in full, eye-gouging color.

To celebrate the release of the first issue, the duo are having a party at BLUE ARROW RECORDS (16001 Waterloo Rd.) on Saturday, March 31st from 6-9pm. There will be a limited edition art print for the first 30 who buy the book. John Neely (of "the BIG O" radio show, as heard on 89.3 WCSB) will be spinning Cleveland and greater Ohio punk rock records.

The Lake Erie Monster #1 will be available in area stores and for mail order online at the Shiner Comics Store in April.

For further information or preview pages contact:
John G: jgritty@gmail.com
Jake Kelly: coloredcondor@yahoo.com
Website: thelakeeriemonster.com

Those are the details. If you're in Cleveland TONIGHT, please come out, hang with us, buy a copy of the comic, a poster, listen to some jams, shop for records and old magazines and paperbacks. Maybe mosey over to the boutique and check out some fancy vintage clothes and jewelry. We'll be getting some pizzas, some punches (spiked and un-spiked)(it's first come first serve so get there early).



This is the cover. We did release a black and white version of this comic in November at the last Genghis Con. However, there were only 50, and they were gone that day.

The version we're releasing this evening is the "official", full color, version. It features a bit more content than that Genghis Con version, including a bunch of original ads we created specifically for the book (which you can check out over at our Advertiser Archive on thelakeeriemonster.com. We're also offering a free poster for the first 30 people that buy the book tonight, as well as stickers and buttons and all kinds of other stuff!

I've got a couple other updates to post soon, so stay tuned. Tomorrow is April 1, so all new Melt specials for you and all your fancy friends!

Full Melt Pager

This is the Melt ad for the Best Of issue of Scene Magazine, which appeared all over the Cleveland area this week. This is kind of a departure from our usual bigger full page ads that have traditionally been one big image. However, I think this still has the same feel and unique qualities of the overall Melt visual style, and it pushes what we've been doing in a new direction without completely abandoning the way we've done things in the past.

This was something I never would have done had I not just spent a good part of the last few months putting together ads for The Lake Erie Monster #1. I just recently created an Advertiser Archive for the ads Jake Kelly and I designed for the first issue over on our website, thelakeeriemonster.com.

Here's the ad I drew for Melt featured in the comic:



As you can see, it's a riff on the old Hostess ads from older comics. The Lake Erie Monster is an ongoing quarterly comic, so you can expect many more adventures from The L'il Big Cheese Club!

MELT, Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Well, I kind of botched it getting these posters up on the blog later than is probably reasonable. I have a good excuse: I was making more posters and other awesome things for you! More about that later.

THIS MONTH, at MELT bar & grilled, the special is The Reuben Melt! It's a very delicious sandwich. What makes it so delicious? Is it the Fresh Lean Corned Beef? The Barrel Aged Sour Kraut? The Zippy Russian Dressing? The Swiss Cheese? Is it the wonderful combination of all those things to create a flavor sensation? Pick one, you will not be wrong. I actually really love this sandwich, and have had two of them so far this month. I'll be going back for my third before the month is out!

I drew this poster as an homage to the opening sequence from CHEERS. I recently finished watching ALL 11 seasons on Netflix, and I gotta say, that was an amazing show. It's a really astounding thing, to watch it all. I remember when it was on, and I had definitely watched reruns, but I never understood just how great it was until I watched season 1, episode 10, "Endless Slumper". If you've never seen that show, or don't remember that episode- that's the one.



Back at the beginning of the month, Fletch screened at The Cedar Lee as part of The Late Shift series. Melt offered up The Underhill's Chicken Fried Steak Sandwich and Steak Sandwich Melt. I like Fletch, but I didn't get out to see the movie. Also, I watched it a on of times before working on this poster. This movie coincidentally screened on Grilled Cheeze Czar Matt Fish's birthday, so I included him with a birthday party hat on in the bottom right panel of our Fletch Panel Grid.



Lastly for March 2012 at Melt bar & grilled was A London Style Fish & Chips Melt In America, to celebrate the screening on An American Werewolf in London as part of The Late Shift. This one was tricky to approach. The movie is great, but there seemed to be very little to grasp onto visually for me. I really really wanted to use the sign for The Slaughtered Lamb, the tavern the two American travelers stumble upon right before getting attacked on the moors. I just couldn't figure out a way to do it and make it look as compelling as I wanted to. The other images I felt could work well, on of which is exemplified in Jake Kelly's poster for this screening, is the protagonist's red parka, the other is the actual drawn out transformation sequence where he changes into the werewolf. I decided to mash the two together and run with that, also including The Slaughtered Lamb into the background.

Of course while watching the movie in the theater I thought of maybe another 1000 ideas for visuals that could have been awesome as posters. At the very least there was the scene where the main character looks in the mirror, and another scene where there's a guy running from the werewolf in a train station with all kinds of colorful posters covering the walls.

I can't believe how long it's taken to get this blog post up. I've really let me blogging chops get rusty again. I've got another couple posters to post, and some more stuff soon. I'll be posting at least one other thing today, announcing the launch of the new comic I've been cooking up with Jake Kelly, The Lake Erie Monster!

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON by Jake Kelly

This Saturday, the 1980 cult classic horror masterpiece An American Werewolf in London is screening at Midnight at The Capitol Theatre in Cleveland (corner of W. 65th and Detroit) as part of the Melt bar & grilled Late Shift.

As with the poster he drew for King Kong, Jake Kelly did a poster for this screening. Beautifully printed on a nice heavy matte card stock at 12" x 18", it will be available at the showing for a mere $5.

We know it's St. Patrick's Day, and a Saturday, and people are going to act a fool. However, the screening is at midnight and by then all the fools will have fallen over into the sleepytime drunk tanks of the City of Cleveland's Division of Police. So come on out and watch a killer scary movie with some other people that aren't foolish. Eat some popcorn, drink a soda, and buy a poster!

I should also mention, and I will post the poster separately, that Melt is offering a special sandwich, A London Style Fish & Chips Melt in America, this weekend only!

Alpaca Buddy 6x9

This is a drawing of an alpaca, one of the 6" x 9" commission pieces. It's a gift for someone from someone else. I'm pretty sure the recipient received it, so I'm not spoiling it if they read this blog.

At any rate, this came about from the tiny drawing of an alpaca from that All Dinosaurs poster. So, I owe this one to them.

If you're interested in a small drawing, as a gift or for yourself, there's some more info on the 6" x 9" commissions, HERE. Feel free to email me, if you have any questions at all.

Esqueleto de la Bruja 2: The King of Fires

Skeletonwitch is playing another show with All Dinosaurs and this time the Mighty Megachurch fills out the bill.

Here's the facebook event page, for y'all social networkers.

For this one, I reached back and brought out the character I used for the last time Skeletonwitch played, la Esqueleto de la Bruja. I think I did a MUCH better job this time. Much better. Especially on the colors. I've been kind of obsessing over the colors lately, and I think it's been paying off. At any rate, I've added 12 x 18 prints of this one to the Shiner Comics store, only $5. There's not many of them though, so... get 'em while they're hot! I don't think I'll have any at the show.

To further illustrate how insanely awesome this show is going to be, I'm posting this video parade for these bands. Starting with something I meant to post sooner, but haven't had the chance or time. This is the video for All Dinosaurs' Castle of Uncle Robert. You may remember the poster I drew for the premier show, of which I still have a few available. Turnstyle Films really killed it on this.

All Dinosaurs - Castle of Uncle Robert from TurnStyle Films on Vimeo.

This is kind of an older Megachurch video, but I fucking love it. Here's another piece of genius. And another.

Megachurch - More Mormon Than Mormon from Keitj T. Alin on Vimeo.

Lastly, is this amazing video for Skeletonwitch's Bringers of Death. This thing is bananacakes. Just... just watch it:

Skeletonwitch "Bringers of Death" Music Video from Authority Films on Vimeo.

And, here's a b/w version of the poster for all y'all color blind peoples- and you thought I didn't love you....



See you at the show!

KING KONG by Jake Kelly

Jake Kelly's hand painted poster for one of the greatest movies ever made, King Kong, screening at The Capitol Theatre this Sunday, February 26th at 10:00 AM as part of the Sunday Classics Brunch and Movie Series.

A limited number of 12" x 18" prints will be available at the movie for only $5. I know it's early for a Sunday morning, but seriously, it's one of the greatest movies ever made! Get yourself up early, hit Gypsy for coffee, saunter across the street and start your Sunday on Skull Island. ALSO: After the film you can present your ticket stub at one of their partner restaurants (LUXE, Latitude 41˚n, Reddstone, Stone Mad) and enjoy a discount on brunch.

If you can't make it to the screening but are still interested in a poster, feel free to email me, I'll do my best to make it happen!

Electric Eel Shock + Hot Cha Cha

Recently had the opportunity to do this non-specific tour poster for the shows Electric Eel Shock and Hot Cha Cha are playing together this March. I'm not a super huge fan of going the visual pun or literal graphic translation route, but in this case I think it works better than if I had tried to marry the two band's styles in some other, less overt way. Somehow, I think this image even is a graphic marriage of the two band's styles.

This being a non-specific poster, there's the huge empty space at the bottom for the different venues to fill in the date, and supporting bands. I found out this is called "Admat", short for Advertising Material. I've been doing posters for YEARS, and this is news to me.

Question: Where have I been? Answer: Cleveland.



Here's a black and white version I did just to do, and since it is less expensive to print black and white, I figured I'd give the promoters the option. If you have booked this tour and would like pdfs of either the color or black and white versions of this tour poster for printing and posting, please email me. Obviously, these are not for resale. I don't know if it's necessary to actually say that, but... maybe it is?

Here are the tour dates for Electric Eel Shock and Hot Cha Cha:

3/19 - somewhere in Baytown TX w/TBA
3/20 - Hi Ho Lounge , New Orleans, LA, w/TBA
3/21 - The Hi Tone Cafe, Memphis, TN, w/TBA
3/22 - Sluggo's North, w/TBA
3/23 - Strange Matter, Richmond, VA. w/TBA
3/24 - The Black Cat, Washington DC. w/TBA
3/25 - The Cake Shop, New York, New York, w/Hard Nips, Eric Davidson (DJing)