Tout va bien!

Everything is fine... with regard to the situation concerning public employees in at least three states. Or at least that's what you would think due to the lack of coverage anymore. The airstrikes and predator drones in Libya, and the budget "debate" here in the U.S. have sort of squeezed that story out of the picture. Here's a piece I did recently about what the bills in WI, OH, and MI essentially do to collective bargaining for public employees.


They make it not exist anymore!

Luerzer's 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide!

I just received my copy of the Luerzer's 200 Best book. I have three pieces featured: one assignment for Wes from the L.A. Times, another for Joey, also at the Times, and one for Ronn for the Harvard Law Bulletin.



I'm honored to be considered by the judges as one of the "200 Best Illustrators Worldwide." To be considered for publication, the illustrator had to create the work within the past 18 months, and be nominated by an art director, or have been published in the archive before. There were 6,075 submissions from 1,139 illustrators in 44 countries.

Speak Out- while you still can

Here's a poster I designed for fun a few weeks back, when the public employee union fight in Wisconsin was just starting to get heated (I told you things were going to get ugly, didn't I?). It goes along with my earlier plea for people concerned, to call Senators, Representatives, and Governors. The first step in affecting any sort of change, is being heard. In a heartwarming show of solidarity, hundreds of thousands of people in Wisconsin and across the country have shown support for the workers unfairly punished by Walker's budget repair bill. For all you Wisconsin residents, here's a link to recall efforts.

Not only are people finally standing up to the attacks on unions, they are finally starting to get pissed off about the fact that many multi-billion dollar corporations pay NO federal income taxes. Here's a link where you can get involved.

And of course there are those who are still paying attention to the fact that we are at war in three or four other countries, NOT including Libya. I'd love to get off my soapbox, but this stuff is getting really hard to keep quiet about.

Washington Post Food section

I was pleased to receive a call from Marty Barrick at the Washington Post the other day, for a small illustration on the front page of the Food section. The story explains the importance of keeping old family recipes around, and how passing them down from generation to generation preserves family history.


You can read the article here. This was my first assignment for the Washington Post, and it was really nice working with Marty.

Cover for The Pitch

Last week I got a call from Sarah Norwood, to do the cover for Kansas City's The Pitch. The story's writer followed a team of competitors in the BonkHardChill, a treacherous race consisting of biking, canoeing, and trekking on foot (in February mind you), through the Lake of the Ozarks State Park. The very first words of the article are a description of the writer flying over the handle bars, and landing in a ditch. I felt this concept was appropriate:



This cover was a lot of fun to work on. I even got the wheel off my own mountain bike and covered it in paint for the track pattern. This was my first assignment for Sarah, and it was great working with her.

A brush with American consumerism

I did this piece, which was in yesterday's edition, for Josue from Boston Globe Magazine a couple weeks ago. The author describes his stint as a door-to-door vacuum salesman, in a very tongue-in-cheek assessment of American consumerism.



I really enjoyed working on this piece, not just because I thought the essay was great, but also because I got to incorporate a little photo-collage into it. I usually reserve the photo-montage for my personal work, but this assignment just seemed to beg for it. Luckily, Josue agreed. Read the story here.

LA Times Health Cover

This illustration of mine graced the cover of the LA Times Health Section yesterday. The article discusses the link many researchers are finding between heart disease and depression. Read it here.



Joey Santos art directed this one. Joey, always a pleasure!

Also, the current issue of Juxtapoz has an awesome interview with Emory Douglas, the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party. I discovered Mr. Douglas' classic work for the Black Panther newspaper a while back, and it's really cool to see some of the new work he's making. You can see a bit of the interview on the Juxtapoz site, but pick up a copy to read the whole thing.


Speaking of struggle, I also want to urge everyone who reads this to call your senators, call your governor, and urge them to voice support for public employees in this country. You can find the contact info for your senator here, and your governor here. I don't like getting too political on this blog, but public employees bear absolutely NO responsibility for the current state of the economy in this country. You can thank Greenspan and Wall Street for that.

As seen in Communication Arts...

I found out a couple weeks ago that my Zoologica Graphica series was chosen for the upcoming Communication Arts Illustration Annual! This marks the third year in a row that my work has been selected for inclusion in the prestigious annual. Now that a large chunk of the 100 booklets have been mailed out, I'm posting the series here for all to see (the four of you who read this blog)!




I'm extremely honored to be a part of the 52nd annual showcase of some of the best illustration being made today. And I'm really looking forward to seeing all the work that made it in this year.

Guns on campus, for the Globe.

I actually finished this illustration a few weeks ago, but it was just published in Boston Globe Magazine yesterday. The essay is written by a junior at Harvard University, who argues that students should have less, not more access to guns on college campuses.




One of the author's suggestions for trying to prevent future shooting sprees, is for colleges to alert law enforcement agencies about students that might be dangerous. Shining a light on troubled individuals might help the public be more proactive in preventing violent outbursts, such as the recent shooting in Tucson. You can read the essay here. Josue Evilla commissioned me for the job, and it was great working with him again.

Zoologica Graphica is out now!

I just sent out about 45 of my 100 limited edition Zoologica Graphica promo booklets (and have already gotten some responses)! I'll be sending out the rest in the next couple weeks.


As I've explained in earlier posts, this is a booklet I designed (including all the handwritten type), featuring a series of four illustrations. The series combines the names of animals depicted, with the medium used to create the image (E.g. a chimpanxerox, made from a collage of xeroxed paper). Eric Hines at Honest Bros helped me put the booklet together, helped with the text layout, and even screen-printed the little wrap-around belly bands.


More news about the Zooglogica Graphica series yet to come...

Zoologica Graphica: A sneak peek.

Here's a peek at what I've been working on the past couple months:


This is a limited edition of 100, self-promo booklet that I'm sending out in the coming weeks. It's called Zoologica Graphica. I'll post more details and pics after I send some of these babies out. I don't want to spoil it for the recipients by showing it all right now. Stay tuned. Same bat time, same bat channel.

Not quite quick enough on the draw...

I started and finished a piece yesterday, in response to the developments in Egypt over the past week. I had planned on sending it to newspaper ADs I've worked with before, to see if they could use it in connection to any stories running on the subject. I had a concept in mind in the morning, and started working out the final. I had been checking the Opinion section on the nytimes.com site throughout the day to make sure nothing had already run. As I was finishing the piece, and getting ready to send a jpeg out, I checked the site one more time... wouldn't you know it, the brilliant Christoph Niemann had beaten me to the punch! It wouldn't have been a big deal, as I'm sure there will be dozens of illustrations about Egypt in the coming days, but we coincidentally thought of a nearly identical concept! Here's mine:


Here's a link to Christoph's.
Very different styles, and actually, mine was more addressing the possible repercussions of a revolution in Egypt. Christoph's appears to be illustrating the idea of individuals, working collectively, bringing down the entire Mubarak regime? But after seeing his piece had already been published, I figured it would be pointless to send mine to any ADs. I thought it was a funny story though, so I sent it to Alexandra at the Times, and she agreed it was pretty crazy. Oh well. If I may flatter myself, I guess great minds do think alike.

Also, my limited edition self-promo booklets are done! More details to follow...

A little New Year's piece

Here's a quick little spot I did for Ivy Simones at the NY Observer yesterday. The deadline was pretty tight- I had the first half of Tuesday, basically- and the article wasn't in yet for us to really go off of... But they just wanted a simple image of a handbag combined with the New Year's Eve ball drop, for an article about a party thrown by the Gilt Groupe.


I had never heard of the Gilt Groupe (and to tell you the truth, I'm still a little uncertain what it is), but it was a fun little job. I liked playing with the pattern of the famous ball's facets to make up the purse's pattern too. And it was really nice to work with Ivy again.

Happy new year, and to hell with 2010!

Happy new year, all! I wish everyone a great 2011, and let's hope it's better than 2010. The past few years have been pretty tough on a lot of people, but not all! Let's see, over the past twelve months there was an horrific earthquake in Haiti, catastrophe in the gulf of Mexico, and 29 miners were killed in an explosion in a Massey coal mine in West Virginia. There were record corporate profits, but the unemployment rate still hovers near ten percent. The war in Afghanistan continues, and has become our longest, while we fight more covert proxy wars in Pakistan and Yemen, and we discovered that there were around 15,000 more civilian casualties in Iraq than were previously reported. Elected officials continue to display a frighteningly dismal understanding of history, and even go so far as to criticize landmark victories for civil rights in this country. And we lost Howard Zinn!!! I have hope for the next twelve months, but things are already looking pretty gross. Budget cuts while millions of families are struggling, attacks on Social security, further demonizing of Muslims in this country- I think we're in for a bumpy, and stomach-churning ride. Good luck.

Anyway! On a lighter note, I received an awesome holiday gift from Eric Hines at Honest Bros. here in Denver. This hoodie was sent out to some of the Honest Bros. clients. It even came in a really cool box!
I designed a self promo booklet featuring some of my illustration that I'll be sending out soon. Eric has been helping me put it all together, and even screen-printed the cigar band that wraps around the booklet. I just got a proof back from the printer, and it's looking good. I'll be sending them out (and posting photos when I do) towards the end of January. And yes! The hoodie is comfy!

NY Times Op-Ed

I got a call from Alexandra Zsigmond at the NY Times last week, with an opportunity to do a small piece for the letters section. The fun thing about doing Op-Ed work for the Times is that you usually only have a few hours to do it. OK, so it's fun AND very challenging. This particular piece was to accompany letters written in response to a recent article that showed that hospitals have not made many improvements in safety over the past decade. The basic idea: how to fix the hospitals. My solution:


I like it because it's very simple and graphic. Simplicity is especially nice when you only have a few hours, start to finish. Thanks again, Alexandra!