Monster PSA: Peter Lorre

This week's "Monster PSA" poster is Peter Lorre, as he appeared in the uber-creepy, uber-weird 1935 horror movie Mad Love.

Mad Love (directed by Karl Freund, who also did The Mummy) is so strange, such a perverse little movie that it seems amazing it got produced at all. Strangely, it doesn't seem to rank up there with the great 1930s horror films, and outside of film fans its generally not that well known.

I wonder what might have happened if it had been produced by Universal anbd had been part of their stable of films, instead of MGM, which didn't seem into making horror movies at all? I think its possible that if Lorre's Dr. Gogol had been a Universal character, he would've fit in right alongside Dracula, Frankenstein, and the rest.

When coming up with the poster, the tag line seemed obvious. When you look like that, you're sure to feel like you stand out a bit...


Available:
Peter Lorre t-shirt
Peter Lorre mug

From The Vault: The Batman Family - 1997

Deciding to post this odd little strip for this week's "From The Vault" installment was partly inspired by my pal Sean Tiffany, who frequently posts really vintage pieces of his work on his art blog.

When I got out of art school, I was doing a lot of collage work and even managed to get a few freelance jobs with that style. Of course, collage as an illustration method can be rather limiting, so I was searching for ways to expand what I could do with it.

One of the ways was this weird comic book/collage hybrid, which Sean once described as "South Park before there was South Park."

At the time, news of the fourth Batman movie was starting to leak out (in those pre-internet days, when great beasts roamed the Earth) and I took that as a springboard for this idea, where Bats takes you on a tour of all his supporting characters and makes a few comments about each.

Looking back over this, some of the jokes fall flat, but there are some I think are still pretty funny. Also, the juxtaposition of the collage elements behind each character also still work for me--my favorite being a little chunk of text behind Catwoman that says "Caution: Filling Is Hot!" that I cut off a McDonald's apple pie package.

With each panel filled with little bits and pieces and squiggly lines, these two pages took me a long while to put together. The upside to that is, twelve years later, these originals are still a lot of fun to look at and hold in my hands. Every so often I think about doing another two-pager like this, but I've yet to come up with a compelling idea that inspires me enough to devote all the time and effort. But who knows what the future holds?

I have other examples of this kind of work, so if you'd like to see more, let me know in the comments!

Time Out New York: Penelope Cruz

This week's "Hot Seat" portrait for Time Out New York is actress Penelope Cruz!

Having to look at pictures of Penelope Cruz is not a bad way to spend some time (especially when its officially "work"!), and I knew I wanted something very bright and striking.

I decided to extend her hair well past where she actually has it, and turn it into some sort of graphic-y shape. Having a black and white portrait with a light magenta background made the whole thing seem to really pop, and its one of my recent favorites.

Batman

After mentioning on another one of my blogs that, every time I go to a comic con, I come this close to buying a bootleg of the complete Batman TV series on DVD, a friend of mine generously made copies of his set and sent it to me. Holy Generosity!

This is the first time I've seen these shows in years, and it's been a lot of fun watching them over again. As a kid, I absolutely ate the show up--I couldn't get enough of it. It wasn't until I was around 11 or 12 or so when I realized, "Hey...I think this show is supposed to be funny." I feel like it was that moment I became a man.

So while I'm watching the shows, one after the other, I got a hankerin' to draw the Adam West Batman. When I do that, I always try and make him as cool looking as possible--there's something about transforming the purposely-goofy looking version of the character into the more "serious" Grim Avenger of the Night take that I get a kick out of.

Monster PSA: Buster Crabbe

This week's "Monster PSA" poster is Buster Crabbe, one of the biggest icons from my childhood, in his role as Flash Gordon.

Even though Buster Crabbe and/or Flash Gordon is certainly not a monster, Crabbe and the character are forever linked to the movie monsters of that era because...well, they were made all around the same time, and in many cases used a lot of the same sets and props.

The UHF channel that used to run all the monster and Abbott & Costello movies (where I saw them all for the first time) also ran the Flash Gordon movie serials, and at the time I was enthralled. I haven't seen any of them since I was young, and while part of me is curious to see them again, another part of me is a little scared that they might not be any good, and I don't want to ruin the memory.

In my mind, Buster Crabbe will forever have the word "Hero" floating over him, so the tagline for the poster seemed rather obvious. And even though the serials were in black and white of course, Flash Gordon in the comic strip (and the later 1980 movie) was dressed in bright red and bright yellow, so that was a no-brainer as well.



Available:
Buster Crabbe t-shirt
Buster Crabbe mug

Monster PSA: Orson Welles

I've been in a real Orson Welles mood lately, and I decided at the last minute that I didn't want to let Halloween pass without a "message" from Mr. Welles, who of course pulled off one of the greatest tricks in American history--his Halloween broadcast of "War of the Worlds" which panicked a nation into believing it was being invaded by Martians.

This poster is less of a public service message, and more just a statement about the man in question--I thought Welles, being a magician (in a number of ways), would indeed rather perform a trick for any kids that might have rang his doorbell, rather than give them some candy.

Happy Halloween everybody!

From The Vault: The Stranger - 1994

This is one of my earliest attempts at the then-new "cut paper" style, a portrait of Orson Welles as he appeared in the 1946 film The Stranger.

For some reason(s) I can't quite put my finger on, this piece was--and in some ways, still is--my all-time favorite piece I've done in this style. I love the balance of colors, the slightly German expressionist feel to the shapes (Welles plays a German in the film--coincidence?), and the fact that in some ways, its probably the closest I'm ever going to come in this commercial style to something approaching "art."

At the time, I was so happy with this piece that it gave me a huge boost of confidence, that I could pull off almost anything I wanted to with this style. It remained in my portfolio years, long after all the other pieces from around this time were gone. In many ways, I don't think I've done much--even fifteen odd years later--to match this.

But I keep trying!

Time Out New York: Bill Thompson

This week's "Hot Seat" portrait for Time Out New York is NYC mayoral candidate Bill Thompson!

I knew I wanted something very rah-rah patriotic for this, since New York City really is the capital of the United States (sure, sure, its officially Washington...), and I also wanted it slightly old-timey, so I thought it'd be cool to use a vintage shot of the city (from around 1940 or so) as the background.

With the benefit of hindsight, I'm not sure I pulled it off entirely to my satisfaction, but overall I thought it came out pretty well.

Exhibition at the Miami Beach Cinematheque Part 2

Just to keep everyone up to date--the exhibition of my Universal Monster posters that's happening at the Miami Beach Cinematheque starting on Halloween night will be kicked off with a live webchat between myself and the MBC, starting around 830pm!

Anyone in the area interested in attending, please check out MBC's site for more details!

Monster PSA: Dwight Frye

This week's "Monster PSA" poster is Dwight Frye, definitely one of the most instantly recognizable of the 1930s horror icons.

For this one, I decided to forgo any real connection of tagline with the subject. Instead, having read that Frye was generally pretty unhappy (feeling as though he was typecast playing only Fritz/Renfield-type roles) during the last few years of his life, I wanted something sweet and reassuring.

If Dwight Frye had lived to be an old man, he would've seen how beloved he is to horror/monster movie fans--like Lugosi, who also died relatively young--he'd be treated as a king now. And maybe, if he could've known that, it would've helped him feel better about his career and how it played out.

So I liked the idea of Dwight Frye, somehow still alive in 2009, being happy and content, so much so that he'd want nothing more than to hang out, be your friend, and...who knows? Maybe even sit down with you and watch Frankenstein together.



Available:
Dwight Frye t-shirt
Dwight Frye mug

From The Vault: Namtab in Entertainment Weekly

...sort of. Even though I have never done any official work for Entertainment Weekly, my work has appeared in the magazine! In this 2003 article on Margaret Cho, you can see the portrait I did for her in the background. It was a quite a surprise, seeing that when I leafed through the issue.

So far, I've had my picture in the magazine, some of my letters printed, and this--but no actual original illustration. I hope to change that, eventually...

Time Out New York: Tegan Quinn

This week's "Hot Seat" portrait for Time Out New York is musician Tegan Quinn!

I didn't know much (read: anything) about Ms. Quinn, other than having heard of her as part of the duo Tegan & Sara. Since she's promoting an upcoming solo tour, I thought I'd go with an "action" shot--the subject in a real place, instead of the usual poster-ish approach I go for.

So I put her on a darkened stage with real moody lighting. I added the little pop of red color just to have some nice contrast, and I think overall it came out pretty well.

The Pop Project

I've got a new piece up on The Pop Project, where this month's subject is "The Twilight Zone." Click on over there and check it out!

Monster PSA: Lt. Col. Glenn Manning

This week's "Monster PSA" poster is a bit of a change of pace, in that I have the title character (from 1957's The Amazing Colossal Man) doing the speaking, not the actor.

But when I was putting this poster together, using the actor's name just didn't work (sorry, Mr. Glenn Langan!). There was something about the very-important sounding "Lt. Col. Glenn Manning" that worked a lot better in this context. The public service message seemed obvious, considering who was delivering it.

The Amazing Colossal Man was one of those cheapie "B" sci-fi films of the 1950s that was run on my local UHF station seemingly every other Saturday, so I became very familiar with it. Its not a great movie or anything, but it has an endearing goofiness that holds up better than a lot of other movies from that era.


(This Monster PSA poster is available at my Zazzle store as a t-shirt and mug)