Before I Sleep

This faux-paperback book cover is actually only half that, in that its a cover for a real book!

Author Milton Babgy contacted me about doing a new cover for his mystery/thriller Before I Sleep. Having had some great experiences doing covers for self-publishing authors, I agreed to work with Milton and I'm glad I did. I genuinely enjoyed Before I Sleep and dealing with Milton was a pleasure--he was very receptive to my ideas and always good-natured.

This version of Before I Sleep is available for the Kindle, and will be available in other formats soon!

Monster PSA: General Ursus

I know this isn't a motivational poster/public service announcement per se; I just love using the "naked, merciless force" tag--its one of my favorite lines, from any Apes movie.

You know, with Chris Christie not running in 2012, I think there's an opening for General Ursus...

Frankenstein Button!

Just in time for Halloween comes this Frankenstein button, featuring my custom original Frankenstein movie poster on a 1.5 x 1.5" pinback.

Not only that--this button glows in the dark! Yep, take it into a dark room and you'll see the Monster light up!

If you were interested in purchasing a button, they're only $5 postpaid! Simply click the Paypal button below to order--and if you order anytime between now and October 27th, I will ship them in time for Halloween!

Yes, Mistress No, Mistress

This faux-paperback book cover is just fun, fun, fun, mixed with pain, pain, pain!

In retrospect, I think maybe the tagline should have been "Powerful men paid dearly...to be treated like dirt!" Oh well...

Monster PSA: Darby Jones

This Monster PSA poster is from one of my favorite horror movies, I Walked With A Zombie. Producer Val Lewton was not big on filling his movies with typical movie monsters (in stark contrast to Universal, who was almost desperate to come up with monsters they could spin off into series), so Darby Jones as the mute zombie Carrefour is about as close as Lewton got.

And even though Carrefour was a zombie and therefore didn't worry about his health, I'm betting Darby Jones the actor saw the value in a good, brisk walk.

Just Pull The Trigger

All I saw for this faux-paperback book cover was day-glo colors and big flat shapes...and dammit, that's what I got!

This thing has a vague 70s sci-fi-ish feel to me, so maybe she's some of sort post-apocalyptic assassin. Yeah, that's it.

WTF with Marc Maron

WTF with Marc Maron is one of my favorite podcasts, one of the handful I find essential enough to pay for--Maron interviews with people from the world of comedy, of all stripes, and he's an excellent interviewer. There's been numerous times when his guest I someone I never found funny, but made for a captivating interview subject.

Today is Maron's birthday, and he's very generous with praise towards people who have sent him artwork related to the show. The idea for this piece--Maron ranting on the mike while a word cloud surrounds him--popped into my head, so I set about to getting it down as perfectly realized as possible. It was fun coming up with all those words and cramming them into every conceivable nook and cranny.

I sent this to the show, I hope Marc likes it!


Update: By Popular Request, this poster is available as a 10x15" print on my Etsy store! You can order one right here: WTF with Marc Maron poster.

X Marks The Spot

I was all over the place with this faux-paperback book cover, and I think it shows--there are so many conflicting design elements here that I just sort of chuckle at it.

The key art is kinda smutty, yet the tagline is very high-falutin', making the book sound like its about deep themes, when its really probably just a sex book. I guess I woulda been great at working at one of those 1950s "men's sweat" publication houses, sleeves rolled up, cigar in hand, grinding out material to be sold at bus stations all around this fine country.

Monster PSA: Conrad Veidt

Every so often I get an idea for another Monster PSA poster, and they're so fun (and, admittedly, easy) to do that I never let the idea sit around in my head too long before getting it down.

My first color choice for this one was green, but then of course it made Veidt look just like The Joker, who was inspired by the Veidt film (The Man Who Laughs) in the first place! I didn't want to make that association (it's already pretty strong without me having to do anything), so I went with some cooler colors.

I tend to get ideas for PSAs in groups, so there'll probably be another one of these sooner than later!

Meet Your New Best Friend

This was another one of those ideas I had that I just had to get down, if anything to get it out of my head so there's space for the next idea!

I am a passionate advocate for animals, and if I could imagine a perfect life for Darlin' Tracy and I it would be to have enough money--and land--to adopt every dog, cat, rabbit, or whatever that needed a home.

All these animal portraits are from pieces I had already done last year; it was just a matter of putting them all into this PSA-type poster and writing the very simple, very direct copy.

Who knows, maybe some animal shelter or charity will see this and want to use it? If so, it'll be more than worth the effort it took to put it together...

The Girl Who Couldn't Leave

This faux-paperback book cover is a ghost story, pure and simple. I liked the moodiness of it, so I decided to skip the hyperbolic tag line, and just go with the title and author.

Blackhawk

Last week, I was perusing the blog for All Things Fun, my LCS located in Berlin, NJ.

There was an article by my pal Glenn Walker about the old DC series Blackhawk (which is about to be part of the New 52 line of books), and I did a double-take when I saw this picture accompanied by the caption. That's because this is not a vintage 1952 lobby card for the Blackhawk movie serial, its a poster for the serial, created by me!

At first I thought Glenn was just goofing, but then I asked him about it and he told me they found my poster via a Google search on someone else's website. Assuming it was vintage, they used it in the post.

Glenn apologized for the mis-attribution, but I took it as a compliment, that anyone would mistake something I've done as having been done in the era I was trying to replicate!

Hawk-aaaaa!

Charles Schwab On Investing - Summer 2011

This is the latest piece I've done for Charles Schwab On Investing magazine, their Summer 2011 issue.

Tomb of the Unworthy

Like Strip Til Dead, and Idol Hands, this cover isn't a faux-paperback book cover, its an actual book cover!

This is the second book cover I've done for author Jared Prophet, who is a prolific sci-fi author. Jared is full of ideas and very fun to work with, and you can purchase a Kindle edition of this book over on Amazon.

I normally don't get to do much sci-fi stuff, so these covers are a nice change of pace for me. I'm busy working on another cover for Jared as we speak!

Bought and Paid For

As per last week, this faux-paperback book cover was sort of made to order: instead of a sexy babe, this cover features a big slab 'o beef for my female and gay fans.

The plot? Well, I think the tagline explains it: this guy is basically a rent-a-hunk for some aging, wealthy wife, and then one day she turns up dead! Did he do the deed? He says no, but how can he explain that she leaves him a bunch of money in her will? Cleft McBeefslab has to figure out who is trying to frame him!

I'd say the book is set somewhere hot and humid, like Miami maybe, so there's lots of scenes with the titular hunk taking off shirt.

You're welcome, Amy.

One Hit Too Many

I realize this faux-paperback book cover looks a lot like my cover for Strip Til Dead, but I try not to let that stop me when working on these: I try to act as though this is the only cover I've ever worked on, and not worry about repeating elements. My theory is, if it works, it works. Hey, if Martin Scorsese can use the same Rolling Stones song in two movies...

This cover originally started out from a suggestion by my pal Amy Bias, who is effusive with her praise for my work, but asked if I was ever going to do a cover that featured some "eye candy" for the ladies--meaning maybe one week I could hold off using a sexy babe and substitute a big hunky guy for once?

That seemed like a perfectly reasonable suggestion, so I had a boxing-themed book in mind from the beginning. But after playing with it a for a while, this is what I ended up with. Sorry, Amy.

Little Girl Found

I like the faux-paperback book cover for Little Girl Lost so much I wanted to do a sequel--the title a no-brainer.

I think if I decide to another "Little Girl" book, she needs a happy ending!

On Her Knees

I might have to stop doing these faux-paperback book covers, because I think I will never come up with better, more salacious title/tagline combo, period.

Find This Woman!

For this faux-paperback book cover I had the image, and that's what I built from--once I added in the checkerboard background, I realized the plot was a woman on the run, hiding from both the mob and the cops. After that, it just a matter of figuring out how and where to put the type!

Locked-Up Heart

Sometimes, when working on one these faux-paperback book covers, I like to experiment and come up with something using the absolute least amount of detail possible: reducing everything down to just basic flat shapes, and see if anything can be made from them (other times, of course, I go crazy with the detail).

Unfortunately, any time you do that, people thinking you're ripping off Sin City, but what are you gonna do?