Some images from a feature for Boating about the harrowing hours that a group of NJ fishermen spent stranded in the Atlantic. A fishing trip gone wrong. As you can see, it all works out in the end. Coming soon to all of you with a Chris-Craft in drydock. I really enjoyed working on this one. Thank you, Bernadette!
If you’re flying United, you’ll see this stuff in the Hemispheres Magazine in your seat-back. Thank you Christine!
So I’m getting a tiny bit of attention for the past weekend’s NYT Op-Ed, God and Man in Tennessee by Amy Greene. I’ve worked for The Progressive before, but I never thought of myself as a maker of stridently political images. But this little drawing of Adam and Eve sharing a school lunch (that’s a spork, y’all, not drug paraphernalia) has become a bit more polarizing than I intended.
I do agree with the author, there’s no place for any faith in public education. If you happen to have a relationship with the Christian God, the best part about it (in my view) is that you chose it. Free will is a gift, and I don’t think that even God feels that he should be compulsory.
Irene posted a little bit of this, so I suppose that I can too (a little bit). It’s a part of a piece that I did for TOR.com called “How to Make a Triffid”. Before reading this, I hadn’t even thought about nucleopeptides since Mrs. Floyd’s AP Bio class. You all will see the rest of the image + the fiction soon, I am sure.
The SOI has a lot of illustration-related events, but my favorites are the ongoing sketch nights. There’s music, food, original images by some of the best illustrators who ever lived, the SOI bar, and 3 hours of life-drawing. Tuesdays are nude, Thursdays are more costumed. It’s $7 for students and $15 for the rest of us. 6:30-9:30, but come early if you want your choice of seating.
Made a quick bookplate for my new sketchbook, which I also made. It’s an angel who is trying to bottle-feed this little thing that I used to draw in the god-awful, universally-hated comics that I once did for the Brown paper. He looks like a leek, but he’s actually half fish-tail (the top half) and half asexual legs. The point is that he has no points of access and egress, no holes. Unable to talk, eat, see, make waste or have sex, he’s the loneliest creature in the word. And, like me, he’s always running into things. In the water he kicks in one direction while his tail thrashes with equal force in the opposite direction. So he’s like an aqua-Hamlet. For me, he’s more than a character—Fish Boy is a Saint.
For the NYT fiction blog piece “The Mountain Man” by Thaddeus Rutkowski. A fantastic and efficient short story. I can remember having very similarly motivated fantasies when I was younger. I could have used any of these sketches and been happy. Thank you Alexandra!
The Art Directors Club is having a special launch party on Tuesday the 13th (this week) for ADC YGX, during which a whole slew of letterpress posters will be sold at very reasonable prices. The profits will benefit their educational programs. Here’s a preview of mine with all the tape still on. So if you want it, come on down and show your support. Hope nobody minds that it’s a bit to one side of grayscale… The phrase that everyone is x-ing out is “YOUTH FADES”. Having this thing messengered to me was like receiving a prophetic telegraph from a clandestine cabal of hipsters.
In the Op-Ed today in a piece about the Haitian political landscape (the recent white-washing of Duvalier in particular). Originally I may have wanted to give this thing more of an earthquake-vibe, because I associate infrastructure rebuilding with political evolution… but this image is better for this particular article. With subjects like this the concepts can get so heavy, so I’m happy with the final. Thank you Josh!
Get excited for the upcoming release of Lemon 5. The theme is Michael.
For one of the deadlier reviews for the Book Review that I’ve read recently.
“Any beginning writer can find both instruction and inspiration in Elliot Perlman’s new novel, “The Street Sweeper.” If it were tricked out with commentary in the margins — in fact, now that I’ve finished marking it up, anyone’s welcome to take my copy — it could serve as a textbook on how not to write fiction. At the same time, it gives the lie to those killjoy teachers who tell you that amateurishness, tediousness and incompetence will keep you from getting reputably published.”
And that’s just the beginning. I am so sorry, Mr. Perlman. At least, being the kind of illustrator that I am, I never have to express so visible a bias. I enjoyed the job.
