Something interesting I found.

Found this book at a antique shop in Petersburg. I thought the type on the cover and the illustrations were interesting. There are no copyright notes to show when the book was made.

Call for Entries American Illustration 28

Here we go again. Another in the seemingly never ending call for entries for the Illustration Annuals. It can be a bit of a pain but in my experience if you're lucky enough to be included, it's much more effective than paying to be in an illustration directory/phone book. I have a feeling those things may be going the way of the dinosaurs if they haven't already.

This time it's for American Illustration, I've always loved this book, their selections seem to be a bit more edgy than their competition. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not.

A Show Poster By Noah Scalin

I recently had the pleasure of screen printing a limited edition show poster that Noah Scalin had designed for one of his clients, Target Margin Theater. With any luck you might see a few posted around, if you're in the Brooklyn area.

Project proposal

I am currently working on a comic, based on an Iranian children's story, The Little Black Fish by Samad Behrangi. Behrangi wrote this story to inspire children to question Iran's education system and authority. Many of these children became key figures (and leaders) of a communist guerilla group which later contributed to the fall of the shah of Iran.

The point of Behrangi's story was not just to inspire actions like these, but to insure dissent amoung future generations. He was so dedicated to this mission that he traveled from town to town with frostbitten toes to teach in village schools. Due to the radical nature of his teachings and political actions he was considered a threat to the shah.

My proposal:
I was hoping that there would be interest in a compilation of subversive children's stories narrated by a character that is a storyteller. Each comic would be divided with short comics of the narrator running from authorities and introducing each comic. The narrator has acquired tattoos on his skin as a way to remember the stories he has told. The tattoos also serve as a means to evade authorities by disguising the subversive paraphernalia.

Diversity of comic style can be justified because the storyteller is constantly traveling, therefore, different tattoo artists would be illustrating the tattoos.

If this idea is of interest perhaps we can set aside some time to discuss the best way to implement such a project. Right now I am not very set on anything, but a format proportionate to the size of what I have already illustrated.

Example of the style I am using for "my story."
The style is based on Bizhan Jazani's (one of the guerrillas) paintings.


Pencils from comic.

Call For Entries Communication Arts Deadline 3-06-09

Anyone from Team8press or anywhere else who make pictures should check this out. I'm sure you're all familiar with Communication Arts, it's one of the industries oldest and most respected publications on all things visual,creative and graphic. If you have something you've done in the last year and feel strongly about it, enter it into CA's yearly illustration competition. The competition is fierce but if you're lucky enough to get something in you'll have bragging rights, for a year anyway.

Just go to; www.commarts.com/competitions and enter.

El Jefe Poster for The Raveonettes

My good friend and fellow illustrator Bob Scott invited me to join him to see the Raveonettes this past Saturday at the Black Cat in DC. Being a big fan of the band it didn't take much convincing and to make it even sweeter Bob said he'd do the driving. When I went to the Black Cat's website to see about getting my ticket I was pleasantly surprised to see that another pal of mine, Rockville MD graphic designer, illustrator and all around great guy El Jefe (aka Jeffery Wright) had done the poster for the show. I promptly emailed him to see if he'd be attending the show and he responded that yes, he and his lovely wife Kelly would see us there and he'd have a little surprise for me. As I had hoped the surprise was a copy of the poster he'd done for the show and to make it even cooler it was signed by Sharin and Sune of The Raveonettes. Note to self, go to more shows that El Jefe does the poster for and ask him to meet me at said show.

Oh yeah, the band, they tore the house down.

Italian Film & Food Fest 2008

This was another collaboration with Spencer. Unlike my previous experience which was my first time working with Spencer, I had no reservations. I knew I was in good hands and this time I asked him if he wouldn't mind doing the design as well as the color and of course he didn't hesitate and as you can see he did his usual bang up job. This is the second poster that I've had the pleasure of working on for the Italian Film and Food Festival. The festival is sponsored By Ed of MammaZu and 8 1/2 and Brad of Edo's Squid. We worked with Ed on it and he proved again to be the model client.

Flashback - 2007 Calendar Pages

So a few years back Team Eight gathered together 13 artists and had each one design a page in our 2007 silk screened calendar. Each page was printed as a stand alone, 12.5 x 19 inch poster and then loosely bound as a stack. In a flurry of ink and squeegees, we printed 200 of each.
That was over two years ago and we've recently rediscovered a few still sitting on our shelves. Seeing these 13 amazing posters and remembering all the hard work that went into them, we've decided to pop them up on etsy for anyone who didn't get a chance to get their hands on them two years ago. Each month we'll toss up a new one, starting naturally with January, by Becky Cloonan, and the cover, by Russ Guatier.
See 'em here and get them at our etsy store.