Let's shake on it

This illustration for The Los Angeles Times appeared in yesterday's Envelope section. The story follows the release of several films involving con artists in recent weeks: Blue Jasmine, American Hustle, and of course The Wolf of Wall Street.

Believe it or not, this image did not come easily. What follows is a series of missteps, almost theres, and not quites:

These sketches focused more on the mention in the article of various awards that movies featuring con men have garnered over the years. One and two are attempts at showing that the flashier con men do better than the low key figures, when it comes to critical and audience acclaim.

This round focuses more on the consequences of the con men's actions, and how they ultimately become victims of their own greed (with the exception of the Wall St bull with award laurels for horns), but they still don't capture the main theme running through not only the article but the movies' storylines. Plus, we wanted to include a wolf somehow, since The Wolf of Wall Street was a slightly bigger piece of the story than the other two films. So after pulling out some hair, cursing myself, and pacing back in forth in front of my sketchbook, an idea hit me and I scribbled this pathetic doodle:

I tightened the "sketch" and sent it in. That was it. To quote my AD Wes: "Bingo." Finally.
Thank you to Wes for his always helpful insight, his ability to steer my frantic thinking towards a more coherent direction, and especially, his patience.
Happy New Year to all! 

What we do is secret

This piece for the Boston Globe's Sunday Op-Ed section was a really quick turnaround. Last Wednesday afternoon/evening, basically. The op-ed is about the Senate meeting that took place out of view of the public, behind closed doors, at night. And something was actually accomplished! The GOP agreed to confirm Obama's appointees for various posts, in exchange for the ability to filibuster. The author suggests that transparency in politics may not be such a good thing:

It's an interesting thought, and I was eager to try my hand at representing the idea visually. Here are the other sketches:

I liked the idea of showing the Capitol blurred, obstructing public view. I also tried using the "off the air" screen over the Capitol, since the meeting took place late at night, off camera- although that may have worked better had this piece been in color. The last sketch shows how the politicians' statements being redacted leads to agreement. The point of the article is that our leaders grandstand and ape for the cameras far too much for any compromise to be achieved. SOAPBOX ALERT: While I do agree that playing to the cameras, and offering sound bites instead of solutions can be extremely frustrating (and this was a meeting about confirming nominees and filibuster rules, not drafting some specific legislation), I personally disagree with the premise. It all seems so backwards nowadays. Private citizens' every electronic communication can be collected, stored and analyzed, with barely any oversight, much less a warrant, and we're expected to allow our elected officials- whom we've hired to work on our behalf- to conduct business in the dark?
Thank you to Greg and Dan for the assignment!

What goes up...

This illustration for Bloomberg Markets is for an article about the housing market taking off around most of the country. Sounds like good news, right? Maybe. But many economists are warning that if prices keep rising the way they are, we might be in store for another bubble.

Many are optimistic, especially people able to get out from an underwater mortgage. However, economist Dean Baker (whom I referenced in a previous post), among others, is warning that this could be dangerous if the market continues to rise too high, too fast. Baker warned about the last housing bubble, when so many were convinced (or at least tried to convince the public) that the party would last forever.

The article referenced the virtual feeding frenzy of the current housing market, with some homes for sale receiving fifty bids, despite almost a million dollar price tag! I tried to show that idea of frenzy in some of the sketches. You'll notice my original kite sketch shows a nearby lightning storm, but the situation isn't quite to that point yet, so the clouds are a little milder in the final.
Thank you to Corliss, who was a pleasure to work with!

Paging Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard

The Summer 2013 issue of the Harvard Law Bulletin is out now, and it features some of my illustration. The cover story is on a pretty important topic for this country- healthcare! Apparently medical tourism is all the rage these days. Those without insurance, and even those with it, occasionally travel to other countries for medical procedures that are simply too expensive to get here in the U.S. Sometimes the insurance companies will even pay for patients to travel, covering airline tickets and hotel stays, in order to save the company money. Who needs single-payer when you can get frequent flier miles?!

I was really excited to work on this assignment. There were so many angles I could approach it from, as evidenced by the almost dozen sketches I turned in:

 Hey, I didn't say they were all good. But guess what? The AD liked another sketch so much that it ended up being the cover:

We both really liked the sketch with the patient in the hospital gown carrying his luggage, but ass cheeks might be a little racy for a Harvard publication. Maybe if anybody else needs an illustration on medical tourism... Playboy, I'm looking in your direction.
 Thank you again, Ronn!

Speaking of healthcare, I saw a great story on Democracy Now the other day, featuring a book out now that details how austerity policies impact health. The book is called The Body Economic, Why Austerity Kills. Just food for thought for anyone interested.

Can you dig it?

Here's a piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education. It was the lead piece in the Views section, and the story focuses on the need for colleges to get on board with the sustainable food movement, i.e. growing their own food, or at least getting as much as possible from local sources, etc.

The article is titled "Fire Your Food Service and Grow Your Own," and much of it details the way most colleges, despite their commitment to many other hot issues, are very much dependent on Big Agribusiness for their food needs. With my first set of sketches, I was focused on "getting big business out of the food," and also on the idea that so much of the food comes from very, very far away. My favorite was the "registered trademark" symbol being plucked out of the bunch of grapes:

Well, missed the boat on that one... The editor replied that they wanted to focus more on agriculture, and the connection between colleges and the growing aspect. So, back to the drawing board, and ended up with the solution you see above, combining the "university column" with the idea of gardening, by way of a spading fork. You can also see Brian Taylor's "Zombie Marathon" at the top of the page. Sweet! Thank you again, Ellen!

For 5280 Magazine

This piece is out now, in the current issue of 5280 Magazine. The essay explains the author's decision to make her kids attend school the Friday before Winter break (one week after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary). Although she grants her daughter's request that she visit the school and eat lunch with her, she tells them that even during tragedies like Newtown, it's important to have the courage to press on and live our lives.

With my sketches I was really focusing more on the idea of the author getting past the tragedy, represented by a flag at half mast. None were really relating to school enough though, or even referencing it at all, aside from #6.

Dave, the A.D., liked the inclusion of the school crosswalk sign in #6, and wondered if that could be more central to the composition, given that it was so graphic, with maybe the flag at half mast in the background. After playing with the sketch a little more, I suggested combining the sign with the flag, and including a mother with the two kids normally on the sign (referencing the fact that the author has two kids, and went to school with them for lunch). It worked well tying into the story, as well as suggesting the idea of getting on with every day life, in spite of constant tragedy.

Thanks so much, Dave!