We're Gonna Need a Bigger Billboard...

Back in college, wanting to live a little dangerously, a friend of mine and I "embellished" billboards with spray paint.  Our first target was the enormous visage of a local political candidate.  Nothing smacking of anarchy -- we crossed his eyes, put a bow tie on him and a word balloon reading, "howdy".   The next one, pictured above, was our masterpiece.  Another street level board, we stared at it until the picture hidden within slowly appeared -- and was then rendered in paint.  This one turned out so well, it's kinda hard to tell what was there before.  Originally, the lady in the surf was screaming with delight, standing beside her equally glee-filled male counterpart.  We covered him up and replaced the guy with the classic JAWS shark's head.  Suddenly the woman was screaming for a different reason.

In half-Banksey fashion, I won't divulge the name of my partner in proto-tagging (in the event she runs for public office some day) but this is what's weird -- after we did the embellishment I returned a few days later to snap a picture -- and it was gone.  Bummer.  Jump ahead five or six years, I was recounting the whole tale to a former frat brother and he said, "I worked at the drugstore right around the corner of that!  It was so funny, I took a picture of it!"  Hence, the photo above. 

Note:  For drama's sake, I re-embellished the picture to restore the teeth and the shark's pink maw.

X-FILES - THE PREHISTORY

I didn't make this up -- these guys are in the opening sequence of the X FILES feature film that came out in the late nineties.  All I did was name them -- and offered the tagline: "Join these intrepid prehistoric alien hunters as they track down amazing new life forms... and kill 'em."

IT'S ALL ABOUT HOW OTHERS PERCEIVE YOU

HOW I SNUCK INTO R-RATED MOVIES

When I was a kid, I managed to see THE GODFATHER, THE FRENCH CONNECTION,  THE EXORCIST and ROSEMARY'S BABY -- all rated R, snd all thanks to MAD Magazine and the brilliant talents of Mort Drucker, Dick DeBartolo and others.  There, by way of eight meticulously drawn pages, I "saw" films restricted to audience members under the age of seventeen (without a legal guardian.) 

Whoa, you say -- I just read a MAD movie spoof and it was a lame-o pale comparison to the movie it was mocking, but that's because things have changed.  Hugely.  Back in the seventies and eighties, MAD movie satires not only presented plot-point by plot-point recountings of the film's story but the panels so perfectly reflected the screen images -- from the actors to the locations to the angles -- that it was like seeing the world's best story board panels.  Satires were eight pages not four, and there was one in every issue -- not every third issue.  What's more, back in those days, the magazine satirized films that appealed to an adult audience (see above list.) -- then again, that was the film-going crowd... there was no teen market to speak of.

Oh, and the above panel is classic Mort Drucker, taken from the 2001: A Space Odyssey satire, or as the magazine affectionately called it: 201: (Minutes) of Space Idiocy.  My good friend Craig McNamara forwarded an article from FILM COMMENT on this very subject:

http://filmcomment.com/article/mad-magazine-movie-parodies

NORMAN REEDUS -- NOT DEAD!

This blogsite has more than a couple pictures of zombies among the posts but despite that, I have to admit I do not watch THE WALKING DEAD.  That doesn't mean I am unaware of the phenomenon it's become or how one of the characters played by Norman Reedus has risen to the top and that the actor has become a really big star.  I drew this of NR during the shooting of the 13 GRAVES pilot.

REASON TO QUIT SMOKING #37

Back when I read ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, well, weekly, it invariably had a cigarette ad on the back of the magazine.  And this one just asked for a redux.  For the life of me, I can't imagine what the ad guys were thinking, having studly Bruce Campbell -esque guy blow a PAPER party favor into the girl's face -- with a LIT CIGARETTE IN HER LIPS.  The only doctoring I did was to add the flames... and making the guy's mouth screaming in agony.  

SPRING IS IN THE AIR

 

WALT KELLY: The Greatest Cartoonist Ever?

There are greats and then there are great greats and Walt Kelly, creator of the comic character POGO still, in my opinion, rules.    On top of the exquisite artwork, the strips were incredibly witty and satirical and to think Kelly's stuff used to run in big ol' Sunday color strips every week.

 

The above is a book I've kept since childhood (note the one dollar cover price...)

LONG TIME TENANTS OF THE FIELD MUSEUM

 

 

 

Speaking at Columbia College's wonderful TV department last week, I took time out to visit Chicago's Field Museum.  Normally on such an occasion, I like to draw pictures of the exotic patrons and museum-goers but there were subjects at the museum that held a pose, no matter how long you took to draw them.  In fact, some haven't moved in, like, a hundred years.  The three pictured here, Sue the T-Rex, the skeletal architecture of Gorilla Gorilla and a nameless wild boar, were a few of my favorites.

Before you could text for help...

 

An editorial illustration I did for the University of Southern California's paper, The Daily Trojan.  I can't recall what the accompanying article was exactly, as most students -- even when I went there for one year -- tried like crazy to get in.

LIFE LESSON #37 (or "be cool, stay in school")

College-bound youth of the world, consider yourselves warned --
if you want to maintain a decent GPA, pay attention and take legible notes in class. 
The accompanying jumble of writing and drawings (but mostly drawings)
are actual notes from one of my University of Minnesota notebooks.
Amazingly enough, somehow or other, I did manage to graduate.
 

WATCH OUT, IT'S MOVING...

I strung together a bunch of panels from 12 O'Clock Somewhere and cut them to a cool cover of Funeral for a Marionette by my brother Jonathan's jazz quartet The Aurora Club.  True-blue visitors to this site will recognize a few of the panels, but there are lots more (like the one above) in store. 

Boy, oh boy, Boy Boy

One of the doodles I did while working on 13 GRAVES. Boy Boy did not appear in the pilot. Colored with my ever-trusty Corel Painter 11.

WEIRD SCIENCE COMICS? NOT EXACTLY...

No, not THE weird Science comics published by EC back in the 50's, but comic book covers I did for WEIRD SCIENCE, the USA TV series. Military afficionado big brother Chett (Lee Tergesen) was big into comics and a couple of episodes called for some specific titles for the storyline. I did these in watercolor and markers... and perhaps the most generic typeface computerdom had to offer in the early nineties. My son Laird would reprimand me for Captain Invincible's saying, "Poisonous snake" when in fact he should say, "Venomous snake."

CHIMPS OF USC

When I was enrolled at USC I was an illustrator for The Daily Trojan, the campus paper.  I started a comic strip and I drew illios and cartoons and one such venture slammed the new, big calendar showcasing studly guys enrolled at the school.  Theirs was titled LOOKING GOOD, the men of USC.  My version had a different title... 

HERE'S TO 2013!

As the site address and the artist's name suggest, I had nothing to with this execept that I thought it was hilarious... and is a perfect post for the new year. 

For the confused, look up 'thylacine' on wikipedia and the joke falls into place. 

SEASON'S GREETINGS

On vacation next week so this card for our (climate) changing times will have to suffice...

JUNGLE BOOGIE

 

 

 

 

MINNEAPOLIS.  BACK IN MY AD DAYS (when 'X' was just a letter in the alphabet and a box was something you kept stuff in and the X-Box was still a long ways off) I designed the cover for the MATTERHORN SCREAMER computer game, but I also did a rough cover for another Disney theme park ride adaptation for THE JUNGLE CRUISE.  For whatever reason it was initially entitled JEWEL OF THE JUNGLE (probably because the goal was to get the sizable diamond hidden somewhere... I dunno -- we never got past the box cover.)  Anyway, I did my rough and it was sent to Disney and the artist there Disne-fied it -- and made it 110% better.  But he/she did retain my design... and the cool bamboo typeface I did.  I did wonder why they gave the jungle-guy such a big nose though...

THE SAGA OF JIM J., NE'ER DO WELL

This originally appeared on the back page of CRITTER COMICS.  One of those, limited panel "how will I end this strip" situations.  Originally done in marker and colored post-publication with the trusty Corel.

HAVE A DICKENS OF A THANKSGIVING!

One for you English lit nuts...

A TEEN WOLF NEVER-WAS

In the first season of TEEN WOLF, the big reveal was to be – after discounting the impotent, burn-scarred and vegetative Peter Hale as a suspect, we see the big bad Alpha werewolf – and HIS FACE IS BURNED TOO!  The logic: As a human, he’s comatose by day… but a rampaging monster by full moonlight.  This angle was abandoned but not before I did a production illio of Hale’s night-time version.  No denying it -- heavy Berni Wrightson influence at work here.



EVER SEEN KEEN EDDIE? LOG ONTO NETFLIX, NOW

 

KEEN EDDIE was one of the best shows I worked on.  Shot and cut in the Guy Ritchie LOCK,STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS style, our show followed a NYC cop working with Scotland Yard -- a fish-out-of-water premise actually shot on location in London.  Mark Valley played the title character -- he was great-- and it was Sienna Miller's first foray into acting (also great.)  They were backed up by the inimitable Julian Rhind-Tutt and the super-cool Colin Salmon as Eddie's detective partner and SY superior, respectively.

 

The series was created by Joel Wyman and the editing was fast-paced, the locations and guest casts rocked and the music was fantastic.  But don't just take my word for it -- all 13 episodes are available on disc.

 

I wrote two of the episodes but like a lot of the shows I work on, I also did some production sketches in the the writer's room.  The one above is of Eddie calling on a gangster whose daughter is having her portrait painted.  As for the tea kettle, I guess it was influenced by the fact the show took place in London, England.  Tea time and all that. 

BIGGEST MONTH YET!

 

 
Congratulations all you ardent followers from around this big ol' world -- October 2012 has been the biggest month yet for Vlam-Ink!   678 people checked out the blog!  Subtract the people looking for stuff on Maurice de Vlaminck (the French painter (1876 – 1958) and that still leaves an impressive number.   

To celebrate I had fun with Corel Painter 11.  The beauty of a quick little doodle is you can spend the time festooning him with colors and vines and all the cool Painter details I'm still uncovering.

Twelve O'Clock Somewhere Intro

CRITTER COMICS

 

 

Critter Comics was my first stab at a comic book that actually involved spending TIME... penciling panels first, using big ol' sheets of artboard, etc.  Admitedly, the world is, and was at the time, not remotely original -- a world populated with bipedal, world weary animals that gambled and smoked cigarettes.  In my defense, I was at the time hugely influenced by R. Crumb's early FRITZ THE CAT strips, the ones drawn with rapidograph pen that had Fritz as a government/James Bond kinda guy.  The big difference --  Steve Critter was a dog.

 

Critter comics only appeared once and I photocopied and stapled all copies myself.  Funny story -- somehow an issue made its way to California (how, I dunno... I was in Minneapolis) and a guy there sent me a check for a year's subscription to the comic.  

THE GREATEST MOVIE YOU MAY NEVER HAVE SEEN

Before THE INCREDIBLES, before RATATOUILLE,  and way before the live-action MI:GHOST PROTOCOL, Brad Bird adpated the novel The Iron Man (by British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes) and made THE IRON GIANT, arguably the best animated feature released in the last fifteen years.  One of the last 2-D animated features (though the Giant was totally computer drafted) the movie bombed -- Warner Bros didn't know how to promote it, CGI was catching on and word-of-mouth on the movie wasn't hot enough to make it a grass-roots sensation. 

 

After the movie closed at thatres, the above postcard was released to promote an IRON GIANT memorabilia sale at the local mall's Warner Bros. Store featuring Bird and the other creative minds behind the film.  There the group lugubriously signed autographs and lamented the fizzle of what should have been.   

More Yeah Right? Yeah, right.

 

Aother pen-and-ink flyer for one of our gigs, this one at the famed Seventh Street entry, the side bar of Minneapolis's

First Avenue club made famous by Prince (among others).  Lots of now famous bands played 7th St. including LOUD FAST RULES (later to be named SOUL ASYLUM -- a less interesting name), THE REPLACEMENTS and TRIP SHAKESPEARE.  We even warmed up for TETE NOIRES there, an all-girl quintet who were years-ahead-of-their-time and helped make Minneapolis THE 80's music scene.

 

As for First Ave., my brother and I saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers there long enough ago that we went to a Thanksgiving show on a whim and managed to get right up to the stage.  I recall that we kept shouting to the band members -- possibly Flea himself -- that they should do a tune in 3/4 time. 

 

As for the smoking dog adorning the flyer, that's Steve Critter the title character of CRITTER COMICS, a b&w comic book about a former secret agent who happens to be a dog who smoked cigarettes.  More on CRITTER in future posts.

BARBARIC BUCKET LIST

BEHIND THE SCENES AT REAPER.  In the late great series the character of Ben (brilliantly played by Rick Gonzalez) was stricken with a decidely premature concern over an early death (I suppose helping your friend return escapees from hell every week could do that to a guy.) One episode found Ben obsessing on the many things he still hadn't done in life and above is an early list of what those things might be.  What the pupil-less barabarian sketch has to do with the list I don't know.  Or why Ben's missing nut is mentioned. 

"AIR OUT, STOMACH IN!!"

Yes, I know -- this blog usually features artwork and anecdotes about comics and movies and TV and such but it's also about funny stuff. 

 

Years ago my friend Lisa Roy sent me a photo-a-day calendar that I suspect was published in Germany, where she was living at the time.  Unlike most calenders that have twelve pictures, this one had 365 to be exact -- black and white photos that were laugh-out-loud funny or bizarre or absurd.  And I saved a lot of them.  The above shot of (Italian?  Czech?) soldiers diligently following orders  to blow up balloons fits any or all of the save-worthy criteria.

 

Turns out Lisa and Nancy Jones (another longtime friend) have checked out this site and even left comments... a section of the blog that, I apologize, I never check because... well, no one hardly ever leaves comments.

 

 

 

SHADOW ASSASSIN

Working on FRINGE I pitched the notion of a shadow going around killing people.  As opposed to the X-FILES episode with Tony Shaloub where, if people stepped into his shadow they sorta got sucked in, this was about a detached, sentient shadow that lumbered around knocking people off.  I wrote the finished episode with Joel Wyman and it turned out great, but - as with every show -- along the way various ideas were tossed out and then... tossed out.  One idea being the Shadow killer being delivered by a Renfield-like assistant via a seemingly empty overnight suitcase left open...