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!