Repo Man and The Cosmic Unconsciousness

This weekend, Friday September 30th and Saturday October 1st 2011, Melt bar & grilled will be offering the The Los Alamos Hot-Wire Tamale Melt:
Slow roasted skirt steak, braised in New Mexican chili paste and herbs
Sweet Plantain Tamale
Radioactive Red Cabbage Slaw
The Hottest-Chili-Pepper-Known-To-Man Sauce
Pepper-Jack Cheese

This sandwich is in honor of the screening of the cult classic (and possibly the greatest movie ever made), Repo Man, which will be playing at The Cedar Lee in Cleveland Heights at both 9:30pm and Midnight Saturday night, as part of their Late Shift series.

If you've never seen Repo Man, I assure you, it's an incredible movie. There's just an unbelievable amount of great dialogue, wacky characters, overall design and a completely ridiculous story that's so far out there, but at the same time kind of hits home, even now after 27 years. Goddamn, I love this movie.

Here's the quintessential scene that explains the "Repo Code", which is by no means the worst code to live your life by:




For my part, I was very tempted to try and do a collage/exploitationish type piece that had all the characters and all the crazy elements of the movie in it, but after thinking about it for a while I opted to go with representing one of the other essential scenes from the movie, where Miller talks to Otto about weirdness:



So, I also heard a rumor that Emilio Estevez was in town promoting his new movie, The Way, an that copies of this poster made it into his hands to get autographed. I have not seen them yet, but that's what I heard. Spread that rumor.

Hellboy Shenanigans

I did this sketch of Hellboy, Son, Hellboy!

I went down to rap about Mike Mignola's Hellboy with 2 of the 3 gentlemen from the podcast called Comics Are Go. You can find them on iTunes, or just go to THIS PAGE. The Hellboy episode was a "Special Edition", it's the one from 9/4/11. I had a total blast talking about the big picture of Hellboy über alles, but also focusing mostly on the last few main story arcs (Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, The Storm, and The Fury), which were all written by Mignola and drawn by Duncan Fegredo.

I also sat in on the "News" segment of Episode 85 with Cleveland comics luminary Mike Sangiacomo. He also recorded a "Special Edition" about the Avengers movie filming in Cleveland, but I haven't had the chance to listen to it yet. I did hear some stories in person a couple weeks ago and they were all pretty interesting and cool, so I'm guessing it's an awesome podcast.



I'm selling this bad boy for just ten measly bones: Check it out HERE, at the Shiner Comics Big Ass Cartel Store. I've also posted some more involved drawings, mostly from Melt jams over the past few months.

BUFF CHIX: Melt September 2011

This month at MELT bar and grilled, The wet Hot Buffalo Chicken Melt is back in action. Here's the description:

Super crispy breaded chicken breast, spicy authentic buffalo wing sauce, celery and blue cheese slaw, melty blue cheese, cool ranch dressing for dipping. Vegetarian version available with crispy fried buffalo tofu. Booyah!

Myself, my Ladybird, and our homie Kevin Czap checked in at the LKWD Melt last night and gripped the Buffalo Tofu “Wings” Appetizer, which is also available this month, and it was awesome! I wish I had taken a picture, they were a thing of beauty... and then they got smashed by the three of us.



As I was working on this I quickly took to referring to it as the Buff Chix, which, if I were King, is how everybody would refer to this sandwich. "Welcome to Melt! What are can I get you tonight?" "BUFF. CHIX.".




Tomorrow night ¡The Three Amigos! is playing at The Cedar Lee at both 9:30 and Midnight, as part of the Melt sponsored Late Shift series. So for today and tomorrow Melt has gone loco with ¡The Three Amigos Enchilada Melt!:

Authentic pressed corn tortillas stacked with a plethora of refried beans, cheese and El Guapo's famous Enchilada sauce. Pepper-Jack cheese, green tomatillo salsa verde and a creamy avocado ailoi. Served with Melt's red salsa and sour cream on the side.

I would love to try this sandwich, but I think perhaps we done overdid the Mexican eats up in Casa De Volcano this summer. Blame it on La Plaza.



Man, for some reason this poster was really hard to nail down. I drew something like seven or eight different variations for this one. I knew I wanted to include El Guapo, because I love his crazy 80s curly mop. The exploding church element developed when I was trying to make this more of an "exploitation" stylized poster and needed an explosion. The airplane is a no-brainer for a background element. I think I could have gone razier, but I was very interested in drawing their costumes and making them somewhat accurate and detailed. However, the more I draw celebrities and actors, the harder it gets to capture the likenesses. It should be simple. I think I did an okay job on this one, but goddamn. It's infuriating.



I think these colores came out pretty good. I dunno, by the time I was working on the colors, my eyes were bleeding a little bit. Not literally, but, y'know, in my mindgrapes. I really wanted El Guapo to look the jam. He's the best character in that entire movie. Just, the enjoyment he and his gang get out of being themselves, honestly, is such a wonderful element to that story. I think when they give him that sweater for his birthday, it's one of the funniest moments. Then there are the scenes when he's kinda bummed out and down and his sidekick, Jefe, is trying to cheer him up by actually kind of calling him on his bullshit... so so good. I LOVE THESE VILLAINS.



By the way, I drew this table card for September. Last night the Pumpkin Pecan Bread Pudding was GONE by the time we got there. I attribute that fact to how compelling and grimly happy the Magenta Bear is on this table card. But seriously, how good does that bread pudding sound???

Rich, spicy bread pudding baked with the pick of the season’s first crop of pumpkins, topped with traditional pecan pie filling, candied pecans, bourbon caramel and vanilla ice cream.

As with all the Melt Dessert table card art, I'll be putting this up in the Shiner Comics Big Cartel Store. So if you're interested in getting a unique piece of inexpensive art, maybe this piece in particular, that is where you can look. There is a bunch of other Melt piece listed right now.



Lastly, but never leastly, here is a Melt ad for Buzzbin Magazine out of Akron. I really wanted to include something anybody that's ever been by it at night would recognize as the "Emerald City", which is actually Crown Centre, on Rockside Road just off I-77, which is down the street from the new Independence Melt location, opening on October 7th. I like those green lights on the top of those buildings.

I know I have a backlog of three months of Melt posters, among many other things, I do need to post up here. Soon, faithful readers, soon.