Wild Things

I saw "Where the Wild Things Are" the other day. I think the book works a lot better than the movie, but anyway I felt like drawing my own version of Max. With this illustration I was working a little differently– I wanted a softer texture than the hard ink line I'm used to using, so I actually sketched this in pencil, light- boxed the sketch to come out with a cleaner drawing, and scanned it into photoshop. I like the quality it gave me but I have some kinks to pick out particularly where darker lines get these light halos around them. I'm pretty sure I can fix it, but like an idiot, I didn't save the original scan and I didn't feel like scanning the whole thing again.

The Gift

Here's an illustration I'm working on about a song from the Velvet Underground called "The Gift." It's basically a kind of sick story about Waldo Jeffries, a sap who met a girl in college who he hasn't been able to see since summer break. He misses her and is obsessed with the idea that she's found someone new, but he can't afford to go visit her. Like any sane person, he decides to mail himself and surprise her. Anyway, when she gets the gift, she can't get it open and in her frustration stabs a giant sheet metal cutter through the box.... and poor Waldo.

This is just the ink version, but color should be coming soon. In the color version, the box will look like a cut- away, so you'll understand that you're seeing through the box to what's inside....

Harvey Pekar

I saw on a blog called Drawn! that Harvey Pekar had his birthday recently. There was a link to a page where a bunch of artists drew portraits of the old man, and here's my interpretation.