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.

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!

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!

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!

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)

Pac Man vs. Ghosts

This poster actually evolved fairly organically, it started off as a totally different poster for something else I had on my desk at the same time. I was in the middle of trying to do something more surreal and weird, and had this idea of this skinny oddly swirling dude with an iguana head falling into these ghosts, but then I was having a hard time with the actual iguana head... at one point I starting thinking about what else would fit in there, and roughed in a slightly too large circle where the head is, then everything clicked- "BLAMMO", Pac Man appeared and I realized this was the perfect for for The Ataris.

I had actually never heard The Ataris, but when I checked them out, it seemed pretty wide open, thematically, like they didn't really have a focal point to draw from and nail down an image for. Rock and Roll bands are often strange like that- there's bands that have a sound that is so visceral, so visually inspiring, like when I hear it I can see what that sound looks like in my mind's eye, but then on the other hand there are bands that have just a wide open space, a vacuum that literally anything could fit into, and fill, visually. It's not really a value judgement, I'm not saying those band's aren't as good though I guess I do prefer bands that roll with a heavy theme or focus. Anyway, though I never owned an actual Atari system, I played a lot of Pac Man in my day. It's a wonderful game. I really dropped the ball by not including any fruit on this poster. Goddamn, at least some cherries or something?

I tried to look up the opening bands and could not find anything about We Were Kids. Originally, the first results for looking up Beat Kids were just videos from Wondershowzen's Beat Kids segments that are all pretty funny. It took me a bit of digging to find Beat Kids, after deciding that the Beat Kids from Vancouver that evidently broke up on New Year's Eve was not the band playing this show. After doing hundreds and hundreds of fliers and posters for shows, I gotta confess- I pretty much hate all band names. It's not you, Band Names, it's me.

UPDATE: I've been informed We Were Kids has a bandcamp site: http://wewerekids.bandcamp.com!

The show is at Now That's Class, March 2nd!

Corrosion of Conformity

Corrosion of Conformity is the band that I think best cultivated a fan base by way of that insane logo with the radiation symbol in place of the eyes and nose of a skull with pointed spikes popping out all over it's dome, back when that was a move a band could make. It's very much an thing of the 1980s, that move, especially the specifics of incorporating the radiation symbol, which at the time, I feel like the fear of a Cold War nuclear missile attack had lessened it's grip a little and the overall paranoia had moved on to fear of just... radiation poisoning from any number of sources. I could be wrong, I mean, Red Dawn was made in 1984, and that was basically a propaganda film. Anyway, Pushead designed that logo, and I probably saw it on at least a million jean jackets and Trans Am bumpers when I was a teenager. It just seemed like it was everywhere, and I had never once heard the band, or knew anyone that had heard the band.

Valient Thorr was probably one the best live bands I have ever seen in my life, the last time they were here. It was seriously the most fun I've had at a show in years, and the crowd was amazing. I think Valient Himself said some of the funniest, most insightful, and entertaining things I've heard someone say into a microphone in a long ass time. In stark contrast to the vibe at a lot of metal shows, there was just an overwhelmingly positive vibe during their set at this show. If the Cleveland Winter Demons got you down, I highly recommend you get to The Grog Shop on Monday, March 5th for this, because it will make you super duper happy to have seen Valient Thorr.

A side note: Valient Himself writes a pretty great blog about bad movies that he somehow updates pretty frequently. It's a straight up "What's What" of awesomely terrible movies.

I did a poster for the show the last time Torche played, but I think I missed them at the show. Or, maybe they've been back since, but I missed them then too. I dunno, I know I've done multiple Torche posters and probably never actually seen them play. Maybe this time I'll hang out and pay more attention! I don't really know anything about A Storm of Light.

I liked drawing this poster. It was fun. Though, it kind of feels like I'm cheating, playing to my strengths and basically repeating something I did for the Red 7 New Year's Eve poster: A Cavelady with Lots of Weapons in Front of A Shadowy Large Thing. Still, it's fun to draw that stuff, and someday I'm going to do that as a comic. Just pages and pages of Caveladies and Shadowy Largeness.

EDIT: I forgot to mention this initially, so I'm adding it. That bag of skulls this blue Cavelady is carrying was meant to be the same Bag of Heads that Frankenstein had in the Goathwhore poster I drew recently. Continuity, these posters are all CANON.

Go to this show, it's going to be super fun. Wear your jean jacket. Under your winter coat.

Blacksun

Converge is playing again at The Grog Shop, April 9th. Another show with RINGWORM! Plus Loma Prieta and some band called Git Some, which is just about the worst name for a band this side of The Lottery League.

The inspiration for this poster came from a clip in a Converge video reminding me of specific pages and panels from Katsuhiro Otomo's AKIRA books. The video is for the song Wretched World, and right about 1:50 there's just these scenes of cities being blown up. The video takes a pretty sharp turn right after that, but it stuck with me and just made me think of AKIRA. I actually really love thinking about AKIRA, so I was stoked to run with that imagery. There's a scene where all of Tokyo gets destroyed, it's in ruins, and this one character that was right at the center of it all, The Colonel, somehow survived and is standing on the edge of a building's roof that is now knocked over looking out at the devastation (vol. 3, pg 275 of the Dark Horse printings). I'm not really sure where I got the idea of the black sun.

I've got some more bonkers things to post, some housekeeping, some updates and hopefully announcements. Go to this show, it's going to be pretty awesome.

The Castle of Uncle Robert

All Dinosaurs are playing this Friday, February 17th, 2012, at The Happy Dog with other local stalwarts Ultra Ultra and Vince Roy. There's a facebook event page for it HERE.

This show is actually also the World Premier of the All Dinosaurs video for "The Castle of Uncle Robert", by Turnstyle Films. The few stills they made available for this video was largely the inspiration for the art for this poster.



Having seen these, I drew up this rough, and laid it out pretty quickly. I actually had in mind the way I wanted this to look, and I knew I what I wanted to get across. The idea that this was not just a regular show, but the Premier of this video really got the visual narrative/comics part of my brains going into overdrive. I've been working those muscles a lot lately. I'm always pretty stoked to be able to incorporate graphic elements or techniques commonly attributed to the language of comics into other projects. It still kind of feels like I'm getting away with something, like it somehow subverts the established standard of expectations and/or what's acceptable. I'm sure that's all just in my head, though. Culturally, I think we're sinking deeper and deeper into the visual narrative comics pool.



At any rate, here's the rough I did, and sent to All Dinosaurs for feedback and approval. I mostly wanted to make sure is jibed with the content of the video. I also wanted it to be as awesome as it could possibly be. Back to the comics front, breaking up the page like that gave me the space to ad the extra information about the video and make it pretty clear without having to worry about it.

Along with the feedback, Dave from All Dinosaurs also sent me this:



So, I knew I wanted to change the idea of the tree stump with the bird to an alpaca. I knew they filmed the video on a farm, but didn't realize it was an alpaca farm. Pretty great. I immediately changed that and we were off to the races.



Here's the final inked lie art. I drew it mostly with a brush and ink, then went in for the details, cross hatching, and texture with a 01 Micron and a crusty old toothbrush.



Here's the final again, I was going to go through the coloring process, but I changed my mind. At any rate, I did that in Photoshop, pretty straight forward on this one.

We went the extra mile and did an extra print run of these posters over at Jak Prints, and they look incredible. The poster is 12" x 18" on this really nice heavy matte card stock. If you're interested in getting one, we'll have them at the show and they'll only be $5. I wish I had a better photo of it, but this should give you an idea of the size and what it looks like.



For those of you not in Cleveland, or able to get to the show on Friday, I added this one to the Shiner Comics Store, still only $5 but there is a $2 shipping charge. I usually don't list specific posters, but this time I wanted to make it available online too. I think I'm going to update the store soon and list a bunch of other original art, so if that's something you're into, stay tuned!

This show is going to be great. If you are in Cleveland on Friday, you should definitely get over to the Happy Dog! Witness "The Castle of Uncle Robert", see Vince Roy, Ultra Ultra, and ALL DINOSAURS.

Mike Doughty

This poster is for the free reading Mike Doughty (former front-man of Soul Coughing) is doing of/for his new book The Book of Drugs at B Side Liquor Lounge, sponsored by Mac's Backs. The Ol' Cleveland Bachelor commissioned this one. I liked working on this, it was a lot of fun. About halfway through this I realized I had drawn something slightly similar before- for a charity Bingo event. But I think the two are different and distinct enough that I'm cool with the comparison. The sheet of paper in the typewriter looked screamingly blank to me, so I had Susanne over at Mac's Backs choose a piece from the book to place on the page. I'm super glad we did that, I think it makes the poster better by a huge margin. It's probably impossible to read on this jpg, so here it is:

"Beer, I thought is the ANSWER.

The next day I awoke with my first hangover, and swore off liquor. If you hang around twelve-step types you'll hear tales wherein an alcoholic wakes up with a hangover, swears off booze forever, and then is drunk later the same day; a bleak joke repeating itself throughout her or his drinking life."
-Mike Doughty, The Book of Drugs

I hope it's okay that I'm posting that, as you can see, it's a passage from the book Doughty will be reading from. I haven't read it yet, but The book sounds pretty interesting. Here's the paragraph I grabbed from Amazon:

Mike Doughty first came to prominence as the leader of the band Soul Coughing then did an abrupt sonic left turn, much to the surprise of his audience, transforming into a solo performer of stark, dusky, but strangely hopeful tunes. He battled addiction, gave up fame when his old band was at the height of its popularity, drove thousands of miles, alone, across America, with just an acoustic guitar. His candid, hilarious, self-lacerating memoir, The Book of Drugs—featuring cameos by Redman, Ani DiFranco, the late Jeff Buckley, and others—is the story of his band’s rise and bitter col-lapse, the haunted and darkly comical life of addiction, and the perhaps even weirder world of recovery.

I'm especially curious about how Redman fits into it all. I fucking love Redman! Actually, it all sounds pretty interesting. I bet this dude's got some incredible stories. In general, I really like when someone just up and drops something at the height of popularity. I mean, not necessarily when they do it if it's because of a drug addiction or personal problems that heights of popularity can amplify or exacerbate, but just overall. I think getting to a certain point, then getting out before the pendulum swings the other way is a move that is definitely challenging to make, and hard to understand in the moment. This reading should be pretty great.

Mike Doughty is also playing a show at The Beachland Tavern after this event, and will be doing more reading, and a Q & A.

Doughboys Redux

Bringing back the Doughboys poster from a couple posts ago. Finally got a show for this oe,a nd it's oddly totally appropriate! The Casualties, Toxic Holocaust, Power Trip, Night Siege!



My homie Jake Kelly totally ripped me off, too. Man, he stole my original idea and used it for flier for a show in Cleveland, as if nobody would notice. Well I NOTICED. Because he asked permission first. Then gave me credit in the lower right corner. What a jerk! Actually, if anybody other than Jake had done this, I would hunt them down and terrify them until they curled up into the weak-sauce filled basket of quivering simpering puppy guts that they are. Only one dude's ever pulled this shit that I know of, and that dude has been dead ever since.

A Bag of Heads

Do you ever wish you were Frankenstein's Monster? Do you ever wish you could stomp with a bag of heads? This show is tonight so I'm posting this right now. I have a bunch of other posters to post, and, of course, there's this month's monumental amount of marketing materials I made to move millions of Melt masterpieces I still have to get up and on this site. The trick is finding the moments between hard drawing and mad navigating the choppy waters of reality to type, upload, and employ the old hypertext management language skills to join the fray of the information superhighway. It's so time consuming, and I am still mystified as to why.

At any rate, GOATWHORE is playing Now That's Class tonight. I like Goatwhore, especially Carving Out The Eyes of God. Strong Intention, the mighty RINGWORM, and Befallen are all also playing.

I confess I was pretty heavily influenced by the recent Hellboy book House of The Living Dead, which has both subtle and overt homages to the classic Universal Horror movies like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf-Man, and The Mummy. I've been spending a lot of time lately in the world of horror stories, and these are some of the best. Another great influence on my senses at the moment has been this book, a collection of Bernie Wrightson's CREEPY and EERIE comics, CREEPY Presents Bernie Wrightson. It really got me stoked to cover as much of the drawing with black ink as I could, and I think it came out pretty good.

Ghost Ship Graveyard

This is the first time I've done a poster for The Mohawk in Austin. I'm pretty stoked it's for such a good show, and I was able to do something so ridiculous as a haunted pirate ghost ship. Graveyard from Sweden is a really awesome stoner-ish rock band that reminds me of everything good from classic rock radio without any of the bullshit that sucks about classic rock radio. Speaking of radio, I don't know much about Radio Moscow, but I'd definitely be down to check 'em out, give them a whirl, why not? Also, Eagle Claw! They're playing the New Years Eve show I did a poster for at Red 7. If I were in Austin, I'd be going to both of these shows.



Here's a close-up of the ghosts on the ship. I drew them separate and "ghosted" them in on the art in Photoshop. Pretty fun piece to work on.



Here's the straight up black and white line art for this one. I liked drawing this. I especially liked drawing the water. It's this brush stroke pattern that when you're doing it just looks like a mess, but the closer it gets to being done, the more it actually turns into the intended image. It's almost a surprise sometimes, when that happens.

I feel like the last few weeks, the holidays, really beat my ass this year without me even knowing it. Now I'm torched and confused as to when/how that happened. I'll hopefully be posting some more stuff this week. Been working pretty hard on some things, shaping 2012 into the best year yet. Stay tuned!

Mad Weapons

It's a Very Red 7 New Years Eve with Russian Circles, The Roller, Eagle Claw, and Boyfrndz! Kiss 2011 AD goodbye!



When I launched into this I knew for certain I didn't want to do anything ...Russian, or with circles. Also, it being N.Y.E., I wanted to do something eye-catching. This wasn't the moment to be subtle, not that I've been all that subtle over the past few batches of posters, but... y'know, sometimes it just needs to be taken to eleven. This, and the next few posters for shows in Austin, would happen to be some of those sometimes. Anyway, I started with this big ass robot not unlike other big ass robots I've done in the past. This quickly evolved into the last rough, with this primitive Shewolf rockin' mad weapons.



A lot of times I don't take my pencils this far, the refined. I usually keep them rough and then do a lot of the work in the inking stage, but this time around I opted to get more thorough and make sure everything was dope before I starting to ink.

Russian Circles is pretty goddamn good. I can think of a lot of worse ways to spend New Years Eve. Personally, my Ladybird and I will be watching the Lord Of The Rings Extended DVDs all in one sitting. Happy New Year, Gandolf!



I inked the living shit outta this with a brush, then went back in with a rapidly dying Micron .01 pen, then splattered it with a toothbrush. I'm overall pretty satisfied with how well the inks look. I like the fur and the way the robot is textured. I like these characters a lot. As with almost all of my posters, there's a story there somewhere, to be told. I did at one point have a narrative for the Shewolf character I had drawn in the past, vague intentions of a huge volume of pages that wander through that world and the moments that make up this character's reality- bouncing them off our own world and the balance between the microcosms of particular instances and the much much bigger picture of the long view, the grand scheme. The forest vs. the trees (or probably more accurately, a segment of the bark on one tree in the forest) so to say. Maybe some day, I'll make that comic? Someday, I suppose.



So, lastly, here's the lettering and splatters I used to create the textures and the splatters in the coloring stage. I was planning using this one as an example of the process of coloring, but then got carried away and forgot to take screen caps or save the file at various stages. Not that my process is all that informative or complicated, but... it's good to check in on that type of thing every now and again.

Well, I've spent way too long on this post already. I've been listening to the Drive Soundtrack as I've been typing this. Man, I know most people probably mostly love the pop jams, College song Real Hero, or Nightcall, which... great fucking jams, but the Cliff Martinez stuff on this one, the instrumental tracks... holy shit, this is good. Everything about that movie makes me super duper happy.

More coming soon. Two other Red 7 posters, Ten Imaginary Movies, and then some new comics!

Spacefighter Z Comic by J. Kelly

Five copies of Spacefighter Z, Part One: The Final Report of The Dolly Five by J. Kelly are now available at the Shiner Comics Store. If you missed it's debut at this year's Genghis Con, now's your chance to get a copy of this sci-fi/horror masterwork!

Here's the first three pages:




For those new to the Spacefighter Z concept, it's part of the pantheon of ideas known as the Ten Imaginary Movies series of posters painted by J. Kelly. This series spawned an art exhibit where I, John G, created a multitude of fake ephemera for these imaginary films. This is the same project that our new horror comics anthology, The Lake Erie Monster, came from (more info on that, SOON!).

You can see more about the Ten Imaginary Movies at Kelly's blog, Pave The Ocean!

We'll be posting the Ten Imaginary Movies Poster Set in the Shiner Comics Store soon, so keep that interweb tuner clicked in right here for the latest signal broadcast faxes!

DRAG'ON

Here's this Rodd Racer homage, the nefarious villain Drag'on. Rodd Racer is an amazing creator owned comic by this maniacal dude Toby Cypress, that kills it. It's incredible because it's a chase comic about these bonkers OG car racers in this sprawling weirdly Hugh Ferriss-ish cityscape, but has this great gangster ass noir overtone that sets up the business that is the chases/races/disgraces. Published by Image earlier this year, in July. It's definitely still available, and I give it my highest possible recommendation. RODD RACER IS THE GOODS!

I had every intention of posting this a long time ago, but it slipped through the cracks. So now I'm trying to catch up and get my blog chops back. I may post the original for sale in the Shiner Comics Store, but that won't be for a couple days.

Anyway, Toby Cypress is also doing a crazy webcomic blog thing called KURSK, which you can check out here: http://kurskcomics.blogspot.com. As of this post, he's got 12 pages up, but hasn't posted any since July, right before San Diego Comic Con this year. So, here's me calling him out and saying GET ON IT, SON! I want more KURSK!

I can't fault him too hard though, being as he's one of the artists behind Blue Estate, another Image comic that blows my mind. It's a collaboration between a fistful of artists including Viktor Kalvachev, Nathan Fox, and Robert Valley. Also credited are the writer Andrew Osborne and Kosta Yanev. I've only really read the first issue, but I've got the Vol. One trade in the mail. I ordered that shit off Thwipster!

Okay, more sooon!

METAL

International Heavy Metal Day is 11/11/11, or November Eleventh, Two Thousand and Eleven, which I guess can only happen this year (of this century, at least). So MELT bar & grilled is celebrating by offering a special sandwich:

The 666 Number of The BBQ Roast Beast Melt!
Slow Roasted Beef Brisket
marinated in spices and then drenched in a smoky sweet BBQ sauce
Homemade BBQ Beans
Crunchy French Fried Onions
Pepper-Jack Cheese



I really wanted to keep this as simple as I could, and as vibrant as possible. I know there's a tendency in the Metal genre to keep things black and white, or toned down to dark colors, earth tones and be as visually brutal as the sound of the music is. Which is something I actually love about it. There are entire sub-sub-genres of Metal that I don't like to listen to but I love the visuals of. In fact I think in some cases, the better the art they use, the worse the band is. At any rate, I opted for vibrant psychedelics and a simple straight-forward concept.



Here's the hand drawn text, I draw all the text I use on every single thing I design by hand, which is to say that it's never an actual font. I mean, the text in the title and the information at the bottom is based on a typeface, but I drew it by hand and scanned it. This jpg is what that scan looks like. I do that to all the text of every poster or anything I design. I think the only time something I design ends up with digitally generated text on it is when I do a Scene Magazine cover- and that's because Scene Magazine's Art Director is a stone cold Design Gangster. I'm usually just the hired illustration gun in that scenario.



Here's the ÜBERMETAL Black and White version, for all y'all Metal Heads that are into this kinda thing. DOWNLOAD THE ÜBERMETAL B/W VERSION PDF for DIY Printing! The full color prints are available at the three Melt locations, though. Or, shoot me an email and I'll make sure you get what you want!

Speaking of Metal, here's a list of some of my favorite Metal records, not really in any order other than... these a good records and I like them. Not really firmly set in the Metal Genre these are, other than... I consider them Metal:



SLEEP'S HOLY MOUNTAIN is probably something I've listened to more times than is possible to count. I also like it even more when I think about the Alejandro Jodorowski movie, The Holy Mountain, which is an amazing ass movie. I want to make a giant comic called Holy Mountain just to throw my wizard hat in the ring some day.


High on Fire, Surrounded by Thieves is maybe the most D&D of all metal records that isn't just full on nerd-wuss bravado, not that I'm opposed to nerd-wuss bravado, I just said I was going to "throw my wizard hat in the ring", but this one comes from a place of true heavy hack and slash style D&D. Like if Sleep records are magic, this shit is blunt force hand to hand combat.


Carl Orff, Carmina Burana is probably the most Metal of all recorded music ever. There are multitudes of versions, including the one pictured that was performed by the Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Chorus. This is the jam that plays every medieval movie when the armies of chaotic good and the undead neutral evil clash in a rapture of ridiculous violence.


Brian Posehn, Fart & Wiener Jokes is pretty goddamn great, and in addition to farts and wieners- he has a lot of funny shit to say about Metal, Metal Heads, and a being a nerd. I drew a poster for a gig he did in Austin last year, HERE.


Lastly, but not leastly, I think everyone in the universe should get hip to KRALLICE. They've been around for a while, and making incredible music the entire time. I saw them headline Champagne of Fests III, and I think I got permanent hearing damage from that set.

I think that's it for now. I spent way too long working on this post.

Nine Posters on the Third (Red 7 Owns)

All these posters are for Red 7 is Austin Texas. I think the last poster I drew for them that I posted was this guy, back in promotion for the Illustrious show at Wall Eye Gallery:



This one is so obviously a Mignola/BPRD riff, though I think it predates when I just started including the BPRD logo patch on characters gear. Been doing that a little bit lately.

I've been on a pretty fierce warpath for the Red 7 this year, and here (with the exception of the latest one I'm working on RIGHT NOW) are all the posters I've done for them. I may post future blog updates about some of these individually, but here they are in one huge gang, including links to as many of these bands as I can manage and a couple sentences for each.



Cleveland's own RINGWORM, this band Nails from California, New Lows from Boston, and Bitter End. This is the left hand half of a diptych, and I knew I wanted to go post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior types. I recently found this weird art thing called The Eighth Day that kinda sorta blew my brains out, LOOK AT THIS!



Saint Vitus has been around forever, it's pretty cool to get to do a poster for them. Dixie Witch and The Roller are both from Austin. So is Mala Suerte, which I thought was Spanish for Bad Dream, but it actually means Bad Luck. Mala Sueño is Bad Dream... which I think is up or grabs as far as doom metal band names is concerned.

At any rate, I was way into this comic Orc Stain that this complete and total nutbag named James Stokoe is responsible for when I drew this. I especially like how insane that comic is. The colors are good too.



Here's the big drawing I did that I broke in half to make this dippy. Infinite Dragon, I don't know where I got that idea, other than I knew I wanted the images to flow into each other but not have like, a mirror effect so much. I did something like this before, with two dudes murdering the shit outta each other. I like to think these are all good posters on their own but then when you see the diptych it's next level type shit. At least I hope so.





A simple straight forward poster for a simple straight forward bill with three great bands. Big Business, Torche, and Thrones. This is actually also a creature design piece of the Lake Erie Monster, of which Jake Kelly and I are doing comics about. Which I will have some announcements about soon!



Man, there is no limit to how much I love Wolves In The Throne Room. I don't really know anything about Megaton Leviathan, but they were on tour with WiTTR, so they must be pretty cool. Pushmen and Skycrawler, I think are from Austin.

This piece was a lot of fun to draw, but getting a buffalo's head right was super challenging. Wolves in The Throne Room is thematically tied to nature and primitive energies, mythology and nature-based occultism, so I really wanted to do something that worked within those themes. Again, this is kind of sort of Mignola-influnced, but ...I think it stands on it's own, aside from that. Someday I'm going to book WiTTR to play on top of a mountain surrounded by a ring of bonfires in a thunderstorm. The poster for that is gonna be nuts.



Space Natives, Cosmic Nomads, I will be making a comic about these characters some day. I do strive to tell a story, imply a narrative with each piece. One poster conveying a bigger picture and a glimpse into a bigger world. Oh, hey: Dead Meadow, they're alright, Spindrift, and Rings Band (which I couldn't find anything about them but honestly didn't look too hard).



HEY New Bomb Turks! I drew this so long ago, and this show hasn't even happened yet! High Tension Wires, Grand Champeen and OBN IIIs. Did rock bands just run out of names? Or just the ambition to come up with a good one?

So, yeah, I drew this poster and then DC Comics relaunched everything they publish and included a Frankenstein comic where he rolls deep with a team of weirdos. Kinda made me happy, but then I got the first issue and was reminded that I am not the person that DC Comics are meant to be read by. Anyway, I like the idea of a carload of bonkers characters on an adventure, and Frankenstein at the wheel. Frankenstein, dudes. FRANKENSTEIN.



This poster is definitely one I will be posting a separate blog entry about. Why? SLAYER. I DREW A SLAYER POSTER. Yeah, so it's part of Fun Fun Fun Fest and it's not like I worked directly for Slayer, STILL.... SLAYER. This was a lot of fun to draw. Also, it's fun to listen to Slayer.

Fun Fun Fun Fest is this weekend and the line-up is absolutely absurd. I can't imagine the logistics of something like that, even just going there as a dude that wants to see bands play, and Brian Posehn talk about farting. I will go one of these years, but holy shit, this year is bananacakes.



Again, I'll be posting another process piece about this one. However, I will mention, this might be the most difficult thing I have drawn in forever. FOUR BMX bikes, with riders swinging various things. DOOMRIDERS to be exact. I will link to all the other bands later. They're playing at FFF Fest Red 7 for FFF Fest Nites, it's a free show you need your FFF Fest wristband to get in to. Still, I'm pretty stoked on this poster.

Next up is a handful of other show posters, and some comics pages. Genghis Con rapidly approaches! and I'll be hyping that up some more. Go check out the Genghis Con facebook page and RSVP to the event. Tell your friends, AND your enemies! Genghis Con is a demilitarized zone for all critical beefs!