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The
Mask of Fu Manchu - I had
wanted to continue working on my Universal 50's Sci-Fi
movie posters, and have been playing around with a couple
different ideas, but nothing had completely clicked.
Sometime around Halloween though, I bought a boxed set
of MGM 30's-era horror films, called The Hollywood Legends
of Horror collection. It featured the films Mad Love,
Doctor X, The Return of Doctor X, Devil
Doll, Mark of the Vampire...and The Mask
of Fu Manchu.
I
had seen Fu Manchu once, about 10 years ago,
and didn't remember much from it. But watching it anew,
the movie really came alive for me--it's totally
insane. Depravity of all kinds, torture, rioting
mobs, severed limbs...this film has everything, and
was made before the Hayes Code really cracked down on
movie content, so they threw in everything but the kitchen
sink here. And presiding over it all is Boris Karloff,
an old hand at this stuff, and Myrna Loy, for
pete's sake, who had a legendary career in much more
respectable films ahead of her.
Anyway,
the dang movie got me inspired, and I started messing
around with the Karloff potrait--I had had an idea in
my head of what he should look like, and how he'd frame
the rest of the poster. So I started on it, and old
Boris came together quite well. Then I came back to
it a day later, and the ideas just kept comin', where
to lay in the type, what colors to use, all of it.
One
of my biggest issues when I try to do these retro-type
posters is, try as I might, they always end up looking
too modern to me. I find that my design--what looks
"right" to me--tend to lean toward a more
modern look. This time, though, I found the right color
combos that looked cool to me (lighter, more subtle
instead of the in-your-face tones I normally use), but
also genuinely old-fashioned (I was also looking at
actual Fu Manchu posters also to know what to
try differently). When all was said and done, I felt
that this design could actually pass for vintage, maybe.
I even spaced the type of the co-stars in a manner that
looks weird to my eye, but I know is also time-period-accurate.
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London
After Midnight - I was obviously on
some sort of creative tear here, since I jumped into
this one the day after finishing Phantom. I knew
that this was the other really iconic image that Lon
Chaney is remembered for, even though the film itself
is now considered a "lost" film.
To
be honest, once I had the main image of the piece, the
rest of it came together fairly easily--the only other
element I knew I had to nail was the font. I knew the
font should be more ornate than most of the ones I've
used, mostly because this was an MGM film, which tended
to be that way, aesthetically.
And
since Chaney was pretty much the whole show in LAM (promotionally,
at least, since I obviously haven't seen the film),
I didn't think I needed lots of pictures of the other
cast--just one would do it. Overall, I'm very pleased
with how this came out.
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Mark
of the Vampire - I
had originally thought about re-doing my Dracula
poster, since I thought the main portrait of Bela was
the weakest part of it. But who am I, George Lucas?
I decided to leave that piece alone and move on to another
Bela-as-a-vampire movie, Mark of the Vampire.
MOTV
is really more of a mystery/thriller with some horror
elements thrown in, but Bela does look just like the
Count here, and to give the film even more visual kick
is the addition of Carol Borland as a female vampire.
So I knew I had to include her as well, and I wanted
to stay away from the traditional blood-red color scheme
and go with something more muted. I wonder how Bela
felt being the face that sold the movie, yet it's Lionel
Barrymore who gets top billing?
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Mad
Love - Right
after finishing MOTV I had wanted to do another one,
so I jumped right into Mad Love, a truly demented
thriller starring Peter Lorre who I knew would provide
a real grabber of a central image--his bald head and
beady eyes makes for an unusual main character.
It
was nearly impossible to find any images of Lorre's
co-star Frances Drake--the object of Lorre's obsession--so
I ended up having her be a lot smaller than I had planned,
but I think in the end it worked out. I like the abstract
graphic hand reaching out to grab Drake, and how it
works against the main axis of the piece. The off-kilter
lettering helps with the whole something-ain't-right
feel, too.
In
terms of the classic 30s MGM horror films, I'm pretty
much left with Devil Doll, Doctor X, and
The Return of Doctor X. Since I find DD to be
pretty dull, I think I'll be visiting the good(read:
evil) doctor soon...
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The
Bride of Frankenstein - I am a HUGE
fan of the classic Universal Pictures' Classic Horror
Monsters films--Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein,
Dracula, The Wolf Man, Creature of the Black Lagoon,
The Mummy, The Phantom of the Opera, and The
Invisible Man. I recently purchased a DVD set of
all these films, and while I worked with them playing
over the past month, I kept trying to think of some
way to pay "tribute" to them, and have fun
in the process.
So
I came up with the concept of producing a series of
posters for the films, pretending as though they were
being re-released in theatres. I wanted to have them
be a combination of retro and modern design styles.
I kept thinking, what would catch my eye
while walking through a theatre lobby?
I
wanted them to have a cohesive look, since they were
all part of this imaginary reissue series. But, of course,
they each needed to look distinctive, too--from the
Grand Guignol horror of the Frankenstein films,
the moodiness of Dracula, and the later, more
studio-backlot-ish style of The Wolfman.
Bride
of Frankenstein was my first, and I think my best
attempt at these. It looks classic and modern at the
same time, and the blood-red background helps set the
tone for a film about death, body parts, and graveyards.
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Frankenstein
- Obviously a direct
companion piece to Bride, this, Bride,
and the Invisible Man are the only ones where
I use the more fanciful, script-y font for director
James Whale's credit.
Obviously,
the Jack Pierce-created makeup for Frankenstein's Monster
is on of the recognizable characters on the planet,
known to everyone whether they've seen the film or not.
Having this beautifully iconic an image as the center
of the poster does half the work for you.
The
curved title, receding into the distance, works well
I think with the placement of the cast, and the flat
lower-half of Frank himself.
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The
Wolfman - Each
poster features tag lines from the original ad campaigns.
The Wolfman's tagline (too tiny to read here,
it's "Even a man who is pure in heart, and says
his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfsbane
blooms and the autumn moon is bright"), fit just
perfectly in the moon-shape behind Lon.
I
feel this poster has a more direct, pulpy feel, to match
the newer approach of 1940's-style Universal horror
films.
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Dracula
- "While I
love the colors on this one, now that I look at it,
I think the portrait of Lugosi as the Count looks a
little too goofy to really convey the horror of the
story. If I ever get really motivated, I may re-do the
central image and keep the rest." --Me, March
2007
Dracula
was the last of the first set I had worked on; and I
think I got a little ahead of myself, in that I was
so excited about what I was doing that I wanted to finish
it and have all four to look at, even though the Lugosi
portrait was weak and I think the color choices were
iffy, at least compared to the others. It's always bugged
me that Dracula was simply not the best possible job
I could've done at the time.
So
while I was doing prep work for Hunchback of Notre
Dame and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein(below),
I decided to redo the Lugosi portrait to something less
goofy and more sinister; in particular I love that sharp
angle of his cape over his his right shoulder. The original
red I used was too bright, so I went with something
a little more subtle. And finally, I put in the background
color a little more carefully and added the cobweb.
I
am infinitely happier with this one, and now I feel
like it's just as good as the other ones in the set.
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The
Mummy - I think this contains one
of my most arresting central images--the crepuscular
face of Boris Karloff's Imhotep. I went through lots
of fonts looking for something strong and vaguely hieroglyphic-y,
but not too modern, either (I didn't want any
comparison to the look of the 90s Brendan Fraser
remake...ugh).
One
of my original intentions was to have these posters
have a repetitive, consisent look, using the same approach
and even images if appropriate. So the Mummy poster
was a nice treat, since two of its four main characters
are played by two actors from Dracula, David Manners
and Edward Van Sloan, so I simply got to re-use their
portraits here. Gee, why couldn't Universal those guys
in every movie?
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The
Invisible Man - I was determined
that The Invisible Man poster would be my crowning
achievement...in my head, I saw the main image of Griffin
(played by the great Claude Reins) as a nearly invisible
one, fading into the background, which I thought would
look go over like gangbusters.
Then
I tried it, and...it just didn't work. The IM main image
looked muddy, not transparent. It had none of the power
I thought it would. Oh well. Not wanting to entirely
give up on the idea, I went transparent with the logo,
which I thought looked just great (aided immesurably
the cool-o found I found to use). Since, unlike the
other films, IM gave off no "feeling" of color
to me (the sandy oranges of The Mummy, the Grand
Guignol red of Bride of Frankenstein), I decided
to play up the invisible thing once more, but going
with all blacks, whites, and greys.
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The
Phantom of the Opera - For Phantom
of the Opera, I completely ignored the fact that
the film, unlike the rest, was shot in color. I worked
on the main image in color just to see what it looked
like, but it stuck out so much from the rest that I
decided to stick with the program.
I'm
not too sure now about the use of yellow on the insets,
but I do know my favorite part of the poster is the
Phantom's shadow, cast upon the logo at the bottom.
I think it's really neat.
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Creature
from the Black Lagoon - And finally,
one of my favorites, The Creature From The Black
Lagoon. For reference on all the various characters,
I found a whole book on the film on ebay. After I got
it in the mail, I realized it was part of a "Monsters"
film book series for kids that I read and re-read when
I was a wee lad, attending Johnson Elementary all those
years ago. The Creature poster went pretty smoothly,
all coming together like I saw it in my head. One nice
touch that was an accident was the Creature looking
directly at "the beauty" played by Julie Adams,
a nice (to me, at least) metaphor for the obsession
the Gill Man develops for the comely Miss Adams.
And,
now that I look at it a while after its completion,
I realize I inadvertantly reflected the approach of
the later Universal films with this poster--the Creature
one is more filled, more "noisy" somehow,
more trying to grab your attention than the somewhat
more classically-styled era of the Frankenstein films.
As horror and sci-fi became more commonplace in movie
theatres, each film had to be a bit more loud, a bit
more Startling! and Shocking! to get an
audience to pay attention, and I think I've (again,
accidentally) conveyed that here.
I
had an enormous amount of fun on these; and I hope it
shows. Most of all, I would hope that if something like
these ever did get used for this purpose, that they'd
maybe get a few new people interested in seeing these
great films.
There
are some more classic Universal films, but they're mostly
sequels of their original hits, not leaving me with
a lot of creative interest in trying them. But who knows?
Universal did a lot of great 50s sci-fi films...
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The
Phantom of the Opera - 1925 Silent Version
- I thought I had covered all of the classic Universal
monsters, but when my pal and fellow artist (and monster
fan!) Steve Spatucci helped me record a phone interview
I did with actor Norman Alden (Ed Wood, Back
to the Future, and the voice of Aquaman on The
Super Friends!), I figured the best way to say "thanks"
was not with some lame-o gift card, but with a new Universal
Monster poster, made just for him.
I
didn't have too many iconic characters left to choose
from, but then I realized I never tackled the original
1925 Phantom of the Opera--arguably one of the
most famous monster faces of all time. Luckily, when
it came to putting the poster together, Lon Chaney's
visage is so famous, so intriguing, and (still!) so
creepy, that it really helped make this one of my more
successful monster posters (IMO).
I
had originally drawn a lot more of the Phantom, including
his arms and more detail on the cloak. But after seeing
how it conflicted with the type at the bottom, rendering
the rest in black made a lot more sense. Sometimes I
have to sacrifice my own time and effort to make something
look better in the long run, and this is one of those
cases.
I
enjoy doing these monster posters so much, and I get
such a good response from them, that even though their
many times the work, I always finish one of these up
feeling very creatively satisfied. Luckily Steve liked
it too, and before long it'll be hanging on one of his
studio walls along with other genuine monster merchandise,
so it'll be in good company!
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The
Hunchback of Notre Dame - I had decided
there was at least one last classic monster in Universal's
stable that I hadn't tackled, and that was the Hunchback
of Notre Dame.
Since
I've done so many of these, putting this one together
was fairly easy and a total pleasure--Lon Chaney's make-up
as the Hunchback is so visually dynamic, even all these
years later--that having that as the central image starts
you out on the right foot. I think the most difficulty
I had was picking the font, trying to find something
not too cartoony but still remaining "loyal" to the
ones Universal used on the original posters.
I
had briefly wondered if there were any other Universal
monster films worth doing up like this--Son of Dracula(a
pudgy, Lon Chaney, Jr. Dracula? Nah), House of Frankenstein?(too
many of the same characters), Dracula's Daughter?(nothing,
but nothing actually happens in that movie--really,
go see!--so nah to that one, too). So I figured Hunchback
was it, until... (see next!)
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Abbott
& Costello Meet Frankenstein - Then
realized there was one more film, and one of my all-time
favorites, too--Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.
Not only would it give me my first chance(incredibly)
to do portraits of my favorite comedians, Bud and Lou,
but it would allow me to do a lighter, sillier poster,
but still within this series. I did get to re-use my
Wolfman piece, but I had to do a new Frankenstein(since
this was Glenn Strange, not Boris Karloff, under the
neck bolts) and it timed out perfectly just having finished
a new Bela Lugosi Dracula.
I
had just as much fun putting this one together, maybe
a little more because it gave me an excuse(not that
I need one) to watch the movie all over again. Working
on this one felt like a great way to wrap up this long
series I started four years ago, not knowing they would
become the most popular, well-received pieces I've ever
done.
And
as much as I love the overall design I came up with
for these, I think I want to try something different
so it's time to officially bring this series to an end,
just like Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein
did for the Universal horror monsters.
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This
Island Earth - I had wanted to get
around to doing a new set of Universal film posters
for a while. I had pretty much done every one of the
classic monster films of the 30s and 40s (with some
exceptions) and had decided to move into their classic
sci-fi period of the fifties. And even though most of
the films were still in black and white, I knew I probably
wanted to do them in color, to help convey the new ideas
and concepts these films were all about. While the classic
monsters were based on supernatural and more earth-bound
origins, the fifties films were all about science gone
mad. (Knowing I had to do them in color is probably
what kept me from doing them for so long, since I knew
they'd be so much more work)
One
of my favorites from this period was This Island
Earth, one of the preeminent sci-fi films of the
time. Aside from the unusual setting and tone, the thing
most memorable about the film to me was the introduction
of the Metaluna Mutant, the mute alien creature in the
second half of the film. I knew I had to have him peering
out towards the viewer, pincher at the ready.
Even
though it was a lot more work having to worry about
color, this piece really came alive for me, getting
to use these beautiful, bright, bold colors. This thing
really pops
for me. For the most part, when I look at my own work,
all I can see are the flaws or the things I could've
done better/ But this piece just gets better to me every
time I look at it. I just love this thing.
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The Mole
People - Having been filled with
confidence after finishing TIE, I wanted to jump right
into another one immediately. Another favorite was The
Mole People, starring B-movie staple John Agar, and
produced by essentially the same team that did TIE (as
well as Creature of the Black Lagoon). Also,
MP had another great, unique monster in the Mole People
themselves.
I
have a small, 4" high figurine of a Mole Person,
so to get the kind of lighting I was looking for I pulled
him off my shelf and shot some moodily-lit shots, which
was a real help. And while I don't think Mole People
came off as well as TIE (the colors don't pull together
quite as well to me, and the actor portraits I think
are less consistent), I still think it came off pretty
well and I plan to get around to doing more films from
this great era of sci-fi films.
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Joel Martin - "The Man Behind the Music" -
This was a piece I was commissioned to do for a magazine
article on Joel Martin, a music producer and entrepreneur,
who has worked with people as diverse as Eminem, George
Clinton, and The Romantics.
They
wanted some sort of rock poster type feel for the cover,
but that was the extent of their ideas. I had planned
to just put together a rough for them to look at, but
when I sat down on a Saturday afternoon(with Johnny
under my chair, snoring contentedly, and Sports Night:
The Complete Series on the DVD player) something
came over me--in an instant,
I
had an idea in my head what the poster should look like.
I had originally thought of a late 60s, psychedelic
poster, like for The Grateful Dead or Jefferson Airplane.
But then I thought a better idea was a riff on those
classic, fun, dynamic Motown Records concert posters--that
way I could work in pictures of some of the famous people
he's worked with, instead of just being stuck with a
picture of a guy nobody recognizes. As I kept working,
the damn thing kept getting better and better, and each
little piece fell into place like clockwork.
By
around dinnertime, I had produced this--the rare piece
that actually looks better on the screen than it did
in my head(that never happens). I had forgotten to eat
lunch and other than to take Johnny for a walk, I never
stopped working for about five and a half hours.
Unfortunately,
soon after this the whole project fell through(d'oh!)--the
article, now finished, focused more about his past than
the people he worked with, and the magazine decided
to run photos from his life rather than use any illustrations
at all.
So
while I'm of course disappointed the piece never ran,
I am so glad I saw this through to the end, because
it's instantly become one of my all-time favorite pieces,
and it was a total joy putting it together.
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The
Poster Project - March 2008 - For a few weeks
in February and March, I was having a tough time getting
motivated to do any new illustrations outside of my
normal client obligations.
This
bothered me a lot, because normally I am very prolific,
and doing all this extra work has paid enormous dividends
for me--I get to hone my skills, I get to see what kinds
of designs and ideas "work" and which don't,
which helps me come to any individual client a better
artist. Also, I simply enjoy the process of sitting
down at my desk and creating something. It's relaxing.
But
for whatever reason I just couldn't get motivated, until
in early March I picked up a book of posters designed
by the design agency Modern
Dog. They started in the mid-80s, a brought
a really fresh asthetic to the art of poster design.
I had never even heard of these people, and here was
page after page of beautiful, inspiring work.
I
ended up reading the whole book in one sitting, just
before I went to bed, and after I turned in I found
I couldn't sleep. All of a sudden I started getting
all kinds of ideas and had an overwheling desire to
start being creative again.
So
the next day I decided to start on what I informally
call The Poster Project--I would design and execute
one new poster, on any subject, in any style, per day.
I would force myself to try and come up with the best
stuff I could. If I didn't, fine, but at the very least
it would get my creative juices flowing again. And boy,
did it!
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Jenny
Lewis - I really enjoy Jenny
Lewis' music, partly from her work as lead singer
of Rilo Kiley, but mostly from her awesome solo
album Rabbit Fur Coat. So this is a straight-up
tour poster, hopefully conveying the slightly
weird sense of whimsy that I get from her songs.
Odd
thing about the Jenny portrait--the more detail
I added to her face, the less it looked like her.
So it worked a lot better this way.
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Barack
Obama For President '08 - As
per Modern Dog, I didn't want to be limited to
just using my illustration style to put a poster
together.
This
image popped into my head one night, and by around
11am the next morning I had this poster completely
done, looking almost exactly
what I first saw. I like the Saul Bass-esque blocks
of color, and the slightly ragged look.
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The
American Eskimo - Tracy
had been bugging me for a while to a portrait
of our pup Johnny, since I had done pieces on
pretty much every other pet in our extended family.
It's not like I didn't want to, I just could
never find the right angle on it.
But
then I came up with the idea for poster promoting
the hearty breed of which Johnny is a part(half
of her, at least), and I immediately pictured
her as I'm sure she sees herself--brave and indefatigable,
immune to the bitter winter weather. I originally
just had her and the mountains, and then I kept
adding the little details--the wind, the snow,
and it all just came toegther so perfectly.
Trace
loved it so much, we had it made into a t-shirt.
Yes, we're that kind of pet owners.
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Romeo
& Juliet - Trace and I had
been watching Shakespeare in Love one night,
and that inspired me to do a poster for one of
The Bard's plays, it was just a matter of which
one--its not like there aren't a lot to choose
from.
Then
at some point I had the idea of matching that
iconic World War II V-J Day photo with Romeo and
Juliet, and putting a poster together for some
imaginary WW II-era version of the story.
The
idea to have the photo ripped in half was easy,
the rest took a lot longer to get where I wanted
to go, but eventually I had the thing nailed down.
Like the blood spatter I mentioned above, the
FDR campaign button was the nice little final
touch it needed.
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Bob
Dylan Live In Concert - Bob
Dylan is never far from my thoughts. Between listening
to his music and his weekly Theme Time Radio
Hour show(which I'm listening to as I write
this), there isn't a day that goes by where he's
not around.
So
I had several ideas for Dylan concert posters,
and this one started with the portrait and I just
sort of stumbled my way around until I fond a
design that worked with it. When you're taking
about a living legend, you don't need many--or
any, really--superlatives. You just the who, the
where, and the when.
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Bob
Dylan Live In Concert 2
- Like
I said, I had several ideas for Dylan concert
posters, and I saw no reason to not try out at
least two of them.
This
shot of Bob is from his nifty ad for iPods(to
the tune of his song "Someday Baby"),
and the image of Bob in his full cowboy get-up
in front of that stark white background remains
compelling to me.
So,
like above, I kept the design simple--you don't
need much when you've got Bob Dylan as your subject.
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The
Clothes Off Our Back - This
idea was a real burst of imagination, since its
entirely made up and not based on anything I had
going on at the time.
I
love doing the fashion-y
glamour stuff, so Iillustrated this woman
looking very smart and began building a poster
around it. Fashion for fashion's sake doesn't
appeal to me, but I liked the idea a fund-raiser
for some charity, so in my head I imagined a selling
of expensive fashions, with all the proceeds going
to an organization whose goal it was was to find
homes for homeless people.
I
added the sketchy pencil-ish lines to the figure
to give it that sketchy feel, and the original
shocking red dress was replaced with a more fanciful
and more visually-compelling pattern.
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Nosferatu
- I've
covered the classic monster poster idea pretty
thoroughly, I'd say, and wasn't interested in
going back to something I'd already done to death.
The whole point of this exercise, after all, was
to come up with all-nw stuff.
But
I felt I could do up something for the silent
1922 classic Nosferatu, a film still considered
by many to be the definitive vampire movie. Since
the film was made in Germany during the Silent
Era, and without the permission of the Bram Stoker
estate, there wasn't a lot of slick advertising
done for it, so I knew that any poster for the
movie had to look more rough and not as blatantly
commecial as the Universal Monsters had been.
So
I ditched any cast or crew list, and went with
this very stark look, of just the creepy vampire
and the title, and little else. I moved Nosferatu
all over the poster, until I realized having him
at the very bottom made me feel like he was crawling
out of Hell itself, in the dark, on a terrible
quest for blood.
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Hey
Kids, Comics! - Another
idea, like the Dylan ones, where I get to immerse
myself in something I love.
The
idea: A week-long convention/festival all about
comic books, their history, and their place in
the culture. It would be high-brow stuff, with
talks from the likes of Michael Chabon, Alan Moore(by
satellite, of course), Art Spiegleman, Frank Miller,
Dan Clowes, and the like, but also willing to
swing to the other side of the spinner rack and
talk about Archie Comics, Batman, and Marvel
Team-Up.
Yeah,
yeah, I know--this kind of get-together will never
exist, but that's what made the idea so attractive
to me.
So
I wanted something classy(hence the clean, rigid
design, and not a Pow! Bam! to be
found) but also silly--so we've got Elvis reading
some comics, plus photos at the bottom of comics
in the culture. And just to make things perfect,
we tell our audience that this together is "Not
Approved by Comics Code Authority." Take
that, Dr. Wertham!
The
most fun part of course was figuring out which
comic covers to choose--I wanted a nice balance,
but I simply couldn't keep some of my favorites,
like Aquaman, Plastic Man, and the Phantom Stranger--out
of the loop.
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Patton
Oswalt - Another
poster for somebody I like, comedian Patton Oswalt.
Patton
has released two live albums, Feelin' Kinda
Patton and Werewolves and Lollipops,
both of which are hysterically, brilliantly funny,
and I think I've listened to both of them about
a thousand times.
Like
the Jenny Lewis poster, you can overthink stuff
like this, and try and really design the hell
out of it, when maybe its best to keep it simple.
Patton
has an underlying tension in his comedy, and I
sort of felt that by putting his scrunchy face
in front of a happy flowery background. The "Wackity-Schmackity-Do"
line is right from his act.
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Batman
- This
was an instance of having a vague image in my
mind, and building a poster around it.
I
had a still from the 1943 Batman movie
serial, where Bats looks, er, let's say less than
imposing. In fact, he looks downright stupid.
But--in this particular still, Batman is leaning
over, looking off-frame, and his cape is covering
up most of him. When I saw this still, I saw a
basic shape that just screamed "Batman"
to me.
So
I played with it for a while, and kept removing
all the details until I ended up with this, which
in some ways reminds me of the almost abstract
approach artist David Mazzucchelli took on Batman:
Year One.
Once
I had that, it didn't take long to come up with
a justification for such a painterly approach
to a superhero, and the bright yellow just made
the whole thing *pop* to me.
I'm
particularly proud that nowhere on this poster
do you see a bat.
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The
Adventures of Captain Marvel -
I
did this poster the same day as the Batman one(it
was a good day), and of course the approach to
this is about as far from the Batman one as possible.
Where
Batman is stripped down to the bone, design-wise,
this one throws in all the necessary details for
a genuine movie serial poster. And also like Batman,
I had wanted to do a poster for this movie serial
for a while.
I
wanted a sort of two-pronged approach, one where
we sort of introduce the character by giving a
super-short version of his origin, and then we
get to the adventure contained in the serial itself.
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Mercury
Theatre - Another
poster just for something I like, in this case
Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre.
I
imagined a poster advertising his old shows, being
rebroadcast somewhere out there in Radio Land.
I had seen an old-time poster for cigarettes starring
Spencer Tracy, and it featured a color portrait
of him in front of a monochromatic collage background,
and that visual appealed to me tremendously.
It
took a while to put all the elements in the right
spots, but eventually I settled on something that
looked classy and sophisticated, but hopefully
not too stuffy.
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The
American Prospect -Boy,
was this fun.
In
August 2004, I was contacted by American
Prospect, a political magazine
about doing several illustrations to accompany a series
of articles called "A New Progressive Era?",
all concerning what a Kerry Presidency might be like,
how to achieve it, etc. The art director there wanted
a series of WPA-styled "posters" to illustrate
some of the themes of the articles, as well as a one
full-page piece to kick off the whole thing.
I
was given several of the articles and other topics and
asked to choose which inspired me the most. I settled
on the above six, ones dealing with building the labor
unions, equal rights for gays and lesbians, investing
in infrastructure, leadership, getting young people
to vote, and how to take on the curiously-named The
Right. One thing I definitely wanted to do was approximate
some of the various styles of WPA art--the abstract
silhouettes of Building a Better Tomorrow, the fun,
loose The Time is Now, the more cartoony A Good Investment,
the serious, propaganda-ish Equal Rights. I wanted lots
of different colors and ways of using them, and with
the text, a somewhat-serious-yet-cheerily-optimistic
tone, which the WPAs had (no doubt reflecting the tone
of the man whose administration created the program,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt). I
wrote the text myself, mostly just to show themagazine
where I thought their text would go.
To
my delight, when I submitted the pieces, the magazine
was so happy with what I had come up with that the art
AND the text remained unchanged--I had managed to strike
the exact tone AP was looking for. There's only been
a handful of times when a piece I submitted went from
my first "draft" to printed page, and it felt
like that, for this assignment, I could do no wrong.
The
final touch to all of them was just to entertain myself.
Most of the WPA posters had a small credit line on each,
listing where they were made--"Chicago Works Progress
Administration", etc. So I added the line "Works
Progress Administration Marlton, NJ" to each one,
just to give them each a little more verisimilitude--my
new favorite word, and one I finally stopped using incorrectly!
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Brothers
4 Life - A good buddy of mine named
Markus hired me to do a piece for a relative of his,
Julius, as a graduation present. Julius has a good buddy
named Manny Hernandez who are, as they call themselves,
"Brothers for life."
They
had a picture taken of themselves, and wondered if Markus
knew any artists who could turn it into something more.
The light went off above Markus' head, and he told me
his idea--to portray the BFL's in the context of a 70s
Blaxploitation movie poster, like for movies like Super
Fly, Cotton Comes to Harlem, or Coffy.
This sounded like enormous fun!
After
finding out some likes and dislikes of the guys, I searched
for a nice, super-groovy 70s font and started throwing
it together. I added some girls in bikinis, the skyline
of Atlantic City, a Red Cross (Julius is a RN), and
another relic of 70s blaxploitation films, a huge Caddy.
I also added a movie rating, and a logo for American
International, a studio that produced many of these
movies. The hyperbolic tagline at the top is also my
own invention.
Those
70s posters were full of multi-colored backgrounds,
featuring the people and places of the movie, so it
was fairly easy putting all the above elements together.
I set them all with lessened and varying transparency,
that way the BFLs really popped off the poster. Since
my style isn't drawn with colored pencils or painted,
there was a limit to how close to the look of those
70s posters I could get, but I think I achieved a nice
combination. I was also happy that this piece looks
very different than a lot of my other work--lots and
lots colors, as opposed to the limited palatte I frequently
use. Markus and family really like it, too, and it's
great to know that the subjects got a real kick out
of it as well.
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Carnac
the Magnificent - I loved--love--Johnny
Carson. Always did, even when I was a little kid, and
didn't understand half of the jokes. When
the Carson Tonight Show began it's last-couple-of-months-wrap-up,
each show filled with the hugest names in showbiz, I
watched it every night. Most of show biz is phony, of
course, but watching giants like Clint Eastwood or Steve
Martin stop in one last time made me feel that this
emotion was real. Looking back on the shows now, I'm
struck by the gentleness of Johnny--he got laughs at
other people's expense of course, but it never seemed
as callous as a lot of the comedy nowadays.
Right
after Johnny died, I wanted to do some kind of piece,
some sort of tribute. I caught a pic of Johnny as one
of my favorite characters of his, Carnac the Magnificent
(Answer: "106 in Los Angeles." Question: "Under
the Reagan plan, how old will you have to be to collect
Social Security?"). Knowing that Johnny started
out as a magician, and that it was a favorite pasttime
of his, I thought, why not do a Carnac concert poster?
Once
I had that idea, it was enormous fun putting this together.
I know I wanted a mid-60s ultra-show-bizy look, with
all those weird squiggles and star shapes. The opening
line "Silence, please" was, of course, what
Carnac would always ask for before attempting to divine
the answer in the envelope held to his forehead. The
show had to be at 11:30pm, the time that the world got
to see Johnny, every night for 30 years. I fiddled with
it for a long while, moving eah little piece back and
forth--I designed the living hell out of this thing.
It had a white background for the longest time, and
then when I sort-of accidentally dropped black in the
background, it pulled together for me, giving me that
late-night, night-clubby feel that I knew I wanted.
Maybe
this is a show you could go see, in some nightclub in
the sky...
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Cat
O'Nine Lives - This was soooo much
fun. Even though posters are double, triple, etc. the
amount of work than doing just one portrait piece, I
never have more fun than trying to arrange
all the various elements, like it's a big jigsaw puzzle
and the ultimate solution will reveal itself if I just
keep going. The time seems to fly by, hours and hours,
yet it never seems like work.
This
time I wanted to try a noir thriller. I knew I wanted
the classic noir icons--hard-boiled cop/detective, cityscape,
shadows, and of course a sexy babe, preferably one that
looks like she could kill you or kiss you. Not wanting
to borrow a title or taglines from any established movie,
obscure or no, I went for a run to clear my head and
try and think of a good title.
About
halfway in, I knew I wanted a sexy babe with some sort
of cat connotation..Cat O'Nine Tails? Not bad... The
Cat With Nine Lives? Hey, wait a minute...
So
once I had the kitschy title in place, the whole thing
started falling into place. I have a book (a couple,
in fact) of classic film noir posters, and I really
liked the hero-behind-or-up-against-a-real-or-metaphorical-wall
motif running in a couple of them. I knew I wanted our
hero looking at this mix, tempted but (of course) wary
at the same time. I kept contrasting the colors between
the two til I settled on almost a total split of hot
and cold. Somewhere along the line I came up with the
idea this was part of a series, which gave me the chance
to create a second logo for it..."A New Johnny
Chance Thriller!"
After
adding some small details, like the bullets and the
cat's eyes, I stopped and looked back on what I had
created. And I really, really liked it.
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Dark
City - I recently read a wonderful
book called Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir
by Eddie
Muller; it's a big fun book all about the film
noir movement in movies of the 40s and 50s, the people
that made them, and all the juicy details involved.
Going through the book, I couldn't help but reconnect
to the original inspiration for my art style--it was
the stark black and white shots of Orson Welles in The
Third Man that got me thinking about how you could
convey information with just a little bit of color and
shadow.
I've also thought how sad it is that most of these films
are not available in most local, Blockbuster-minded
(in more ways than one) video stores. So I decided to
come up with a poster for the film festival of my dreams:
an all film-noir marathon, showing nothing but a combination
of my favorites (Touch of Evil, Double Indemnity,
Phantom Lady) and Films I Haven't Yet Seen But Want
To (Narrow Margin, Detour, Scarlet Street).
I
used what I thought was an iconic image--the guy's got
a gun, sure, but he looks a tad nervous (an element
in nearly every Noir film). I decided to limit myself
entirely to black and white, something I hadn't done
in a long time. Since the book was the inspiration for
it, I named this imaginary festival in its honor. Once
I added a suitable overheated bunch of taglines ("Murder
at any moment! Suspense in every step!"--nicked
from the poster of the ultra-obscure 1947 film Desperate),
I had eveything I'd ever want to see in a Film Noir
Festival poster.
Welcome
to Dark City...but watch your step!
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Obama
'08 - I
wanted to do an old-style campaign poster, pure and
simple. This is one of the rare times that the image
in my head came out on the screen almost exactly verbatim.
I
like the big open spaces, the intense, no-detail white
shirt, and the slightly old-timey font, complete with
inspirational quote. It feels a little like the Uncle
Sam "I Want You" poster, which is also something
I had in mind when doing this. I definitely waned a
"brighter tomorrow"-type feel, but not beat
you over the head with it.
Maybe
sometime I'll get up the guts to send this to the Obama
campaign directly...
*Update*
Since I wrote the above, I did indeed find the requisite
guts to send it to the campaign, offering my services
to them as an illustrator and/or graphic designer. Maybe
Sen. Obama will be walking by some staffer's computer
when its on their screen, point to it, and exclaim:
"I want that guy!"
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Oilcan
Drive - My buddy Sean Tiffany--my
first Kubert school roomate--has always been a fountain
for comic book ideas. He's come up with a couple different
totally complete worlds and the characters that inhabit
them. Like
me, he's done well for himself as freelance illustrator,
and we're in regular commisseration about our similar
career paths (plus I know he's home during the day,
like me).
One
Sean's newest ideas is OilCan Drive, a comic
about a rock band set in the a post-apocalyptic world.
There's music, fun, adventure, and a bass-playing
monkey! But don't take my word for it--go to Sean's
website and check it out for yourself.
Anyway,
for Sean's birthday, I wanted to do some kind of OCD
piece for him. I had in mind those classic, 60s-era
house ads DC Comics used to run for its books, as well
as
a rough, scrappy kind of look, but with a semi-jokey
tagline so you'd get the sense of what the book was
like. The DC-house-ad part shows in the "Look for
This Cover!" line, pointing to the cover as if
you could go to your local newsstand and pick up the
first issue (if only...).
Anyway,
I sent it to Sean, and, thankfully, he really liked
it. He told me he wants to use the piece for the possible
OCD music CD (Sean, in addition to being a great artist,
also dabbles in music, the bastard), which I took as
a real compliment. So, hopefully sometime in the not
too distant future, we'll get to see (and hear) more
from Oil Can Drive!
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Silence
of Night -
This
image came to me, almost fully-formed, while I watching
a Boris Karloff movie one afternoon. I made a mental
note to work on it later, and then, afraid I'd forget,
got up to do it.
This
is another one of my made-up wish-list movies, and this
time I thought I'd try my hand at 'literate horror',
an informal genre that was pioneered by Val Lewton in
the 40s and picked up somewhat by films like The
Haunting, Curse of the Demon, and Rosemary's
Baby.
This
film was put together by a dream team for any horror-film
fan: Vincent Price, star of approximately 10,000 horror
films, Claire Bloom (The Haunting), a screenplay
by master horror/sci-fi author Richard Matheson, and
directed by longtime Lewton director Mark Robson. I
imagined a screenwriter and director who wanted to give
long-time horror star Vincent Price a chance to something
more subtle, more serious, and maybe more frightening
than the usual boogie-man parts he was doing (like the
one Boris Karloff got with Val Lewton back in the 40s).
To
that end, the poster would be more subtle, less in-your-face.
It would highlight one bold, distinctly vague-yet-unsettling
image, and try to establish what kind of horror movie
it was. The
only thing I added was the silhouette of the mysterious
stranger--is he discovering that skull, or did he put
it there? The fact that it also looks just a little
bit like a tombstone only underlined that sense of uncertainty
to me...
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Sisterhood
of Sin - I hadn't done one of my fake
movie posters in a while, and was itching to put another
one together. Each time I do one, I think they come
out just a little bit better than the last one. The
last one I had done, Cat O'Nine Lives, was a
50's pastiche, so I knew I wanted to try and mimic another
era of moviemaking this time around. I sat down with
my lapboard and just did some rough sketches and then
tried to write some taglines to match.
I
liked the idea of multi-panel look, and that immediately
read to me as late 60s/early 70s-era movies. So I created
my own exploitation film, The Sisterhood of Sin.
It would have sex, violence, crazy dialogue, maybe some
car chases...and no time for subtlety (as the poster
suggests). It would feature actresses from some of the
more notorious women's revenge films and in my fantasy
world would be the ne plus ultra of this kind
of film. It would star the late (*sniff*) Cheryl "Rainbeaux"
Smith, who, in her title role in the soft-adult version
of Cinderella, was instrumental in nudging me
down the path of Becoming A Man. Thanks, Rainbeaux.
I
put this together over a few days, piece by piece, and
really enjoyed myself. I think this has a nice, open,
fun look, and totally devoid of subtlety. I wish they
still made movie posters like this today, and I wish
I was the one doing them.
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The
Strange Case of Mr.X - I'm not really
sure how or why I started this piece, or how it ended
up here, but, not for nothing, here's a movie poster
for "The Strange Case of Mr.X" a movie that
does not exist, directed and starring a group
of people that never all worked together at the same
time.
I
had originall wanted to try doing some portraits in
a more simple, cartoony style. I had just finished the
exhausting NBA All-Star Game art, which were highly
detailed, and wanted to try something in the totally
opposite direction. I didn't want to bother with a likeness
either, and just see what I could do with a creepy-type
portrait and nothing else.
So,
starting with the creepy close-up, I added the mad-scientist-like
red-tinted glasses, a spider-web-and-bloody-hand-print
background, and tried to imagine a movie that would
fit what I had already created. Since I was doing the
whole thing from scratch, I thought why not just make
up a movie, as well? So I had horror movie legends like
Boris Karloff (Frankenstein, of course) , Peter
Lorre (Mad Love), and Ernest Thesiger (Bride
of Frankenstein) in a movie directed and produced
by the team of Jacques Torneur and Val Lewton (Cat
People, I Walked With A Zombie).
This
poster is a little more comic book-y than my Universal
Horror posters, and I think that's fitting, since it
matches the style of the artwork, and I wanted to go
in that direction anyway. And because I can never leave
well enough alone, I do plan to do more in this style,
and maybe create a whole slate of Movies That Don't
Exist But Would Be Great If They Did.
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The
Alamo Drafthouse - The
Alamo Drafthouse is a super-cool retro old-time movie
house located in Austin, Texas. The owners and operators
are real movie fans and try to make seeing movies a
unique and memorable experience. They are friends with
two friends of mine, Dan and Harry, who are half of
Jersey's own Exhumed Films. After a recent trip to Texas,
they came up with the idea of hiring me to create a
one-of-a-kind movie poster as a way to say thanks for
their hospitality while Dan and Harry were visiting.
The AD owners are big fans of 60s spaghetti westerns,
so Dan gave me some parameters of what he thought would
be appropriate; the rest was up to me.
I
knew immediately what kind of look I wanted--one grabber
of a central image, and alongside it a collage of images,
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