I Own This Town!

This faux-paperback book cover started out as a sci-fi novel, with the damsel in distress about to be grabbed by a giant hand, undoubtedly that of some mad scientist who invented either an enlarging or shrinking ray.

I drew the hands, but no matter how I placed them it just didn't look right. After a little while I gave up on the idea entirely and changed this to a thriller, keeping the woman but adding a back story about a serial killer stalking the streets of Los Angeles.

As I finished it up, I realized I had some extra space, so I created a little logo for an imagined brand of mystery novels called "Crime Scene", complete with dead body outline. Fun!

The Man From Hell

This faux-paperback book cover was meant to feel like the fumes of hell were jumping off the image, filling your nostrils with the smell of brimstone.

I wanted something super loose and scrappy, and while I think I didn't quite get it to where I wanted, in the end I came pretty close. That guy looks mean!

From The Vault: The Hi-Way Cafe - 2009

I used to be part of an art blog called The Pop Project, where each month all the artists would submit pieces centered around a theme. One month it was "The Twilight Zone", so I chose to illustrate a shot from my all-time favorite TZ episode, "Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?"

Set entirely in a quiet, off-the-beaten-track greasy spoon, WTRMPSU? is about a bus full of passengers who get stranded there because of a massive snowstorm. Rumors fly that an alien has been seen nearby, and paranoia quickly takes root, with all the patrons suspecting its each other.

Its a creepy, funny, tense show, with a hell of an ending. I saw it for the first time when I was eighteen, and amazingly it still kinda creeped me out. I've watched it a few times since, and it still really works.

Anyway, I had a number of moments from the show to represent visually, but I liked this one, which is just before the big ending. There's no sound on the soundtrack; making this moment even more unnerving, since (if you've seen the show), you get a small sense that something is most definitely up.


Not too long after posting this piece on the blog, I was contacted by the granddaughter of actor John Hoyt, who starred in the episode and is represented above. She loved the piece, and that her Grandfather was remembered so many decades later. She asked for a copy of the piece, which I was only too happy to provide. Who would have guessed such a thing?


I like this piece overall; but I think my favorite part is the stuff seen through the window. It kinda looks like it would in real life: fuzzy and indistinct, but you can still sorta make out what's going on. I need to do more of that!

Tall Tales

This faux-paperback book cover was entirely inspired by the model; I loved the idea this girl was so tall that she had to stoop over just to fit on the book cover!

Once I had that conceit, it was easy coming up with a tagline and title, which in this case leaned much more towards a girlie/"nudie" book rather than a murder mystery.

American Pit Bull

I was pretty disgusted over the recent news that Nike signed Michael Vick to some endorsement deal, so that inspired me to do this pro-Pit-Bull, over-the-top patriotic portrait of the breed.

As a model, I used my favorite pit, the gorgeous Dolly Menck!

The Misadventures of Patriotic Patty

"My first instinct is to say this is the last in the series ('Independence Day Irene' just doesn't have that alliterative snap),"--me, 2/14/11.

Well, here we are, and yes, this is the fourth cover in my "Misadventures" series of smutty faux-vintage paperback book covers. For the longest time (since Valentine Vickie, actually), I didn't even consider doing another in this series--the Fourth of July just seemed too "thin" a holiday premise to try this again. Then, for whatever reason, a week or so before today I decided there was no reason not to complete the cycle and whip this up.

I was initially correct--Independence Day Irene is very ungainly--but it didn't take long to come up with another appropriately alliterative title, and the word "fireworks" just screamed to be part of the tagline.


My instinct to say, once again, that there won't be any more of these, since there's really no big holiday between now and Halloween, which is how this whole thing got started. But who knows how I'll feel a couple of days before Labor Day?

From The Vault: Martin Short - 2006

I used to have all the "Hot Seat" portraits I did up on my namtab.com site, but now that I trimmed that page down to a manageable size, I figured it would be fun to dig out some of the older and (IMO) better ones and put 'em up here!

This portrait of Martin Short--who was promoting a one-man show on Broadway at the time--was one of the first Hot Seats I did for Time Out New York after they had redesigned the page and changed the orientation of the portraits from vertical to horizontal.

Feeling creatively invigorated, I really tried to give these portraits my all, making them more complete illustrations all around--giving the magazine more bang for its buck, so to speak.

So I thought the name "Marty" all up in metaphorical lights was a really neat desig element. Plus, it tied in visually to the picture, and sort of commented on Martin Short's on screen/stage persona, which was kind of an attention hog, the kind of guy who chased after the spotlight. Nothing would make that Marty happier than seeing his name in giant, twenty foot glowing letters.

But...for whatever reason, the magazine had some weird rule about no text ever being in these portraits, so they asked me to take it out. I kinda thought that ripped the guts out of the piece, but by that point I knew not to argue. Even if I had, they would have gone ahead and taken it out themselves, so I said sure, got rid of it, and the resulting printed version was okay, but not as good as what I had.

Some days, the bear gets you.

A Death Wish In His Eyes

For this faux-paperback book cover I wanted to get as far away from the aesthetic of the last three or four covers as possible: while they were all smooth and uber-clean, I wanted this one to be rough, rough, rough!

That's generally tough for me, because my eye keeps trying to clean and neaten: that just generally looks "right" to me. But I tried to ignore all that this week, and while the results aren't quite what I hoped for, this cover does have some of that roughness that I was aiming for.


Random Note: The title and (more loosely) the tagline come from the Jimmy Dale Gilmore song "Dallas", which I am familiar with when it was covered by the 10,000 Maniacs (and David Byrne) for their mid-90s MTV Unplugged set. Virtually every line in the song reads like something out of a pulp novel (go check them out yourself!), so they seemed perfect to re-purpose for this week's cover.

From The Vault: Super 16 - 2005

This was one of two pieces I was contracted to do for some sort of insider movie magazine (meaning it was a trade publication, not sold to the public), for an article on different film stocks.

This was one of the most difficult, frustrating jobs I ever did: the client in question had little to no idea what they wanted, and even less money to spend. But I really wanted to get some work in entertainment-related magazines (still do), so I bit the bullet and tried my best.

When the client saw this, they told me in no uncertain terms with was not what they wanted. They still couldn't tell me what they did want; they just knew this wasn't it.

I ended up discarding this entire piece and starting over. Having no time left, I basically grabbed some stock photos of people using various cameras, added some color and effects, and threw it all together. I thought it was awful, and I knew this would be the only time I would work for this particular client.

They actually liked the second version better, much to my simultaneous horror and relief. I asked that the pieces go uncredited--the only time I've ever done that--and tried as best as I could to forget about the whole job, and what a missed opportunity it was for everyone involved.

Laying in Wait

This is another faux-paperback book cover that started out as visual sequel to Little Girl Lost, and this time I was able to re-capture that general look and feel, with a couple of extra bells and whistles that LGL did not have.

The row of glowing lights gave this a Vegas-y feel, like the girl is sitting on a giant marquee, which was okay with me. The tagline could probably be better written (too many "they"s), but hey, there's always next week...

From The Vault: FMOFU Logos Pt.5 - 2010

This was to be the final set of logo designs I worked up for Famous Monsters of Filmland: Underground magazine.

Most of the other logo treatments had been rejected, so I got rid of all the concepts I had been playing around with earlier, and tried to come up with some other looks. Of this group, I really loved the last one--it looked really cool to me, dark and claustrophobic.

The one that was ultimately chosen--#6--I thought was cool, too, with the little drawing of a skull I had lifted from a previous poster I had done. I've said it before, I never throw anything away!

The Sin Around The Corner

This faux-paperback book cover started out as visual sequel to last week's Little Girl Lost: I wanted to replicate that cartoony, groovy look since I liked how it came out so much.

But, as usual, the process took over and I found myself here: a mostly collage piece with a piece of my illustration in the middle. I had originally drawn the brick wall in the same style, but I liked it better with the contrast, so I stuck with that.

This has a real 50s look that I really like, and I think the tagline is one of the most ridiculous (read: awesome) that I've ever come up with. So while it looks absolutely nothing like Little Girl Lost, I think it works on its own terms...

From The Vault: FMOFU Logos Pt.4 - 2010

Yet another set of logo designs I worked up for Famous Monsters of Filmland: Underground magazine.

I really liked the first two--I re-introduced the "paste-up" motif (hoping maybe, by sheer repetition, I could convince the editors to go with it), and I liked the second's red-with-dark bits look.

The third one is way too conventional "monster"-y, I think I probably felt the need to fill the space so I just whipped up one more logo variation...

Monster PSA: George Zucco

I haven't done a Monster PSA in a while; simply because I haven't had a really great idea for one.

But I was looking through a book about the Universal Monsters and saw this pic of character actor George Zucco, and I remembered he was one of the few "horror regulars" from that era that I haven't yet immortalized, so I set about coming up with a tag line.

Zucco was the rare actor who could toggle between A, B, and Z-level movies; he appeared in the Monogram cheapie Voodoo Man the same year he was in The Seventh Cross with Spencer Tracy.

He managed that balancing act through (most) of his career, so my first thought was the old chestnut "putting all your eggs in one basket" but that phrase is pretty antiquated; so I decided to go with a modern modern version.

Little Girl Lost

This faux-paperback book cover originally had a lot more detail in it--both the girl and the arm holding the gun were more fully illustrated.

But as I worked on this, I realized I liked it better with these stark, black-and-white (and red) shapes. When I added the somewhat funky font and background elements, I realized stark was the way to go!

From The Vault: FMOFU Logos Pt.3 - 2010

Yet another set of logo designs I worked up for Famous Monsters of Filmland: Underground magazine.

That first one is really a toss-off, and never under serious consideration. I liked the second one because of the addition of the blood spatter, a little design element I would incorporate into other FMOFU logo variations.

"Mera"

This portrait of Aquaman's queen, Mera, is just me goofing around, really. I wanted to try the water effect--since that is her natural habitat--and I thought it came our pretty well.

I was tempted to add some design element to this, like I did for the other Mera portrait I did, but then realized I should leave well enough alone!

Idol Hands

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

Not too long after I posted STD, I was contacted by author Jared Prophet to do a cover for his sci-fi novel Idol Hands. Since I had such a good experience working for a self-published author before, I thought why not try again? Maybe I can corner the market...

Jared gave me an idea of what he wanted for a cover, and even provided some photo ref of the space explorer babe in question. Other than that, Jared left it up to me to come up with the rest.

Like Strip Til Dead, Idol Hands was a lot of fun to work on. I don't get the chance to do much sci-fi, so I wanted to come up with a look that was similarly old school pulpy, but also recognizably sci-fi.

Jared liked what I did, asking for only a few small tweaks, which ended up making the final piece even better. It now adorns the book, which is for sale at Amazon.

I'm now working on a second cover for Jared (he is nothing if not prolific), and I hope it comes out just as well as this one!

From The Vault: FMOFU Logos Pt.2 - 2010

This was another set of logo designs I worked up for Famous Monsters of Filmland: Underground magazine.

I really loved this font, and desperately wanted to use it for the logo. In many ways, I think the second one, with the FMOF "paste-up" over Underground, was my favorite of all the logos I put together: there was a simplicity to it that really worked for me.

But, as any artist/graphic designer will tell you, your favorite idea is never the one that gets picked...

Dolly For President

Last year, to celebrate the birthday of the wonderful pup Dolly (who belongs to my pals Laura and Ric Menck), I worked up a poster for as-yet-unrealized movie starring Dolly, all about her work as an ambassador for Animal Rights, a cause near and dear to my heart.

It was called Dolly Goes To Washington, and I envisioned it as one of those muckracking-type movies, filled with lots of Big Time Movie Star cameos, all of them interacting with Dolly as she heads to the nation's capital to deliver a message about the rights of all animals.

So this year, I decided a sequel was in order: after Dolly went to Washington, the groundswell of support was such that she decided to run for President. Hence, Dolly For President!

The two main actors playing Laura and Ric, Cate Blanchett and James Cromwell, are back, but with a whole new cast of actors who are known for their support of the cause: Pierce Brosnan, Edie Falco, Lea Michele, Alicia Silverstone, Charlize Theron, and Forest Whitaker. The script for this movie was so good it even managed to get the legendary Doris Day, an impassioned animal advocate, out of retirement to play a sympathetic senator.

I had a hell of a time coming up with a design, and I had to let it simmer in my head for several days. Then I cracked it: I mimicked the design of, all of things, the poster to The Great Escape, with its comic book panel-esque structure explaining the movie's plot. That allowed me to have some fellow dogs (all pulled from my "Hello Doggie" series of real-life pups who needed homes) represented, an element I definitely wanted on there.

Happy Birthday Dolly!