For Whisky Nerds Only

Although I found this on the sidewalk in front of my house, it doesn't exactly qualify as a "found object" since I'd seen it before, and a friend of mine dropped it.

Still, it's worth sharing. This might even outdo the most ridiculous wine descriptions.

Hamstrung

I just completed my contribution to Zombo Gallery's upcoming Ukulele Show, curated by Nathan Mazur, and here it is - a genuine porkulele. The piece is titled Hamstrung.


Offers are now being considered for this one-of-a-kind, less-than-concert-quality piece of inept craftsmanship!

Back in the Bottle

Scott Smith, beermeister at East End Brewing, is releasing a new bottling of his delicious dark brew, Smokestack Heritage Porter, with label art by yours truly.
Smokestack Heritage was first brewed in the summer of 2007, and was limited to 600 one-liter bottles. This batch will be similarly limited. Since it's a new "edition" we tweaked the color scheme a little from the original version.

You can still purchase limited edition art prints of the original Smokestack Heritage label, as well as the ever-popular Ugly American label. Go to my store for details. These would make great holiday gifts for the alcohol fan on your list!

Umami, again

The Holiday issue of Table Magazine is out, and here's the full illustration referenced in an earlier post.

It's a 2-page spread, and the pale purple/pink "sky" extends to the top of the page, serving as background for the text.

Quality Control (1987)

Michael Dowers of Brownfield press, an old comix colleague, invited me to have some of my old self-published minicomix reprinted in his upcoming anthology Newave.

Michael's request prompted me to take a look at the two dozen (give or take a few) minis I published back in the all-analog days, and this issue of Mondo Howie caught my eye. There were 6 issues of this title. For each issue, I did the cover and guest artists provided their interpretations of my character Howie "The Hat" Patterson.

Most of my minis were offset printed at a local shop, and they ran a weekly special for a free color of ink. This week in October 1987, the free color was orange. Just in time for Halloween, I suppose. I can't remember if I decided to reject this edition because of the way the orange ink turned out, or if I hated my cover, but I destroyed half of the print run, and gave away the rejected edition for free.

Today, I kind of like the way it looks. And I remember being pleased to have a chance to use my primitive rubber stamp typesetting kit (long gone).

The cover of the subsequent "official" edition is shown below.


Artists appearing in this issue were: Steve Willis, J. L. Hart, Mark Martin, Dennis Worden, Scott Nickel, Peter Bagge and Andy Nukes.

Newave is scheduled to be published in 2009 by Fantagraphics Books.

Sandwiches & Surgery

A couple of recent things...


I just wrapped up the largest, most time-consuming freelance project I've ever done - a series of math "word problems" in comics form.

My assignment from the publisher was for two textbooks, aimed at third- and fifth-graders. Between the character design/model sheets, the full page comics, and the quarter-page solutions, it came to around fifty pages of full color comics.

The project was at times frustrating, with several groups having to review each stage of the art and writing, but overall it was a good experience. It helped to sharpen my negotiating skills, for one thing.

From start to finish, it lasted almost six months. Apparently, I do have some sort of work ethic.

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The panel above is from the first installment of a strip I'm contributing to the bi-monthly newsletter from Pittsburgh's Animal Friends. It's my community service project.

Phone Doodle

Scribbled during a long, boring conference call...

What's in your kitchen?

A recent pile of junk mail we received included a Crate & Barrel catalog. This page caught my eye because of the weird looking items in some of the storage containers:

l was wondering what the hell all of these odd items could be, and where they came from, when I noticed text on what looked like animal crackers, but it was difficult to read.

l eventually realized that the photo had been flopped, so the text appeared as a mirror image.

Good old Photoshop came through and revealed words on the mystery snacks:

Would you care for a pigeon cracker or a rat biscuit?

Work in Progress

Preliminary study for a commissioned painting. It's better than earlier attempts -- which are too lousy to show here -- but it still has a way to go.

It's not looking enough like the intended subject yet, and in fact reminds me of someone else completely.


With a little more refinement and perseverance, I hope I can get it adjusted to where I'm happy with it.

I posted another example of this iterative process in June, while working on a portrait of James Coburn.

Jim Copp Stuff

My friends at Playhouse Records were kind enough to send me a copy of the new book, Jim Copp, Will You Tell Me a Story?, published by Harcourt. It includes a CD of Copp's original 1958 recordings of the three wacky tales, and is available from Amazon.




In the 50s and 60s, Copp and Brown recorded 9 LPs worth of surreal stories and songs in their home studio. Each year the two pals would travel the country selling LPs from the back of their car to department stores and toy shops.




My favorite is A Journey to San Francisco with the Glups, a bizarre road-trip saga. This was the first Copp-Brown record I'd ever heard. I bought it at The Doo-Dah Shop, a long-gone used record store that was near the University of Pittsburgh campus.

Having missed out on these recordings as a kid, I discovered them during my formative early-college years.



Playhouse has two best-of collections available, and they're very nice nice samplers. I reviewed them for Cool & Strange Music, and have posted the review here.

All of the Copp-Brown recordings are worth looking into.