The Laughing Monsters

I was commissioned last week to do an illustration for the book review of The Laughing Monsters, by Denis Johnson. The piece appeared in the Boston Globe over the weekend. I only got a few lines from the review, so I had to find other reviews and synopses of the novel to get a clearer picture of what the book was really about. I won't go too far in depth (better to read the actual review, or better yet, read the book), but basically the main character, Roland Nair, works for NATO and is sent into West Africa to locate an old anti-terrorism buddy of his, Michael Adriko. The review describes Adriko thusly: "A native of Congo who has ended up affiliated with the US Army by way of Ghana, Michael is a figure cloaked in so many lies, mysteries, and identities that the novel makes little effort to render him 'believably...'" From what I could gather reading as many reviews as I could find, the main themes of the novel seemed to be ever-changing loyalties, enigmatic identities, and the relationship between these two characters- one driven by greed and power, the other seemingly nothing more than a thirst for chaos. I had one firm idea hit me early on, and turned in only one sketch, however I was pretty confident it would work. Luckily it was well received and I was able to proceed with the final:

Following along with the themes I could surmise, I wanted the identity of the figure to be obscured- it also worked out that scribbling over the face with a black pen looked like a ski mask/balaclava. The characters make their money in this world of rebels and terrorists, not always in opposition to them. The Boston Globe review can be found here.

(I did not make the cover illustration above) It seems like a really intense and intriguing novel, and the illustration was a lot of fun to work on. Thank you to Kim, the AD on this!

The Replacements (not the cool Paul Westerberg kind)

I have a piece in the current issue of Newsweek. I believe it should be on stands until Friday, at least that's when I picked up my copy last week (it's the one with the cool Nigel Buchanan illustration of a saluting Marine on the cover). The piece is for the weekly Two Numbers column, which contrasts two different numbers, on things like the median wealth of the average American family in 2007, vs. 2013, or sales of kale in the U.S., vs. sales of corn chips, and has featured such artists as Serge Bloch, and Edel Rodriguez recently. I was excited to get the email from Mike, the A.D., as this is one of those big national publications I've been looking forward to working with since I was in art school. Anyway, this week the column compared the price of a knee or hip replacement, at two different hospitals:

At St. Josephs Medical Center in Yonkers, you can expect to pay the princely sum of $17,068. Ouch. But wait- at Christ Hospital in Jersey City, look forward to a bill of $139,072! The article makes the case that, love it or hate it, Obamacare has made medical costs more transparent, which is a good thing.

You can get to the article here, but you may need a subscription to read it. Thank you to Mike, for the great opportunity! Here's a pic of my copy:

Getting metaphorical

My recent cover piece for the Washington Post's Capital Biz magazine ran yesterday. The story describes the recent multitude of venture capital firms in the area, providing investment for new, smaller businesses. Fairly dry stuff, so I had to get metaphorical on its ass!



And they did a great job of linking the article to the illustration by way of the headline. Brilliant copywriting. Thanks again, Mere! It was a real pleasure!