Plasma Section

The Residents - Eskimo (Festival of Death Excerpt)

One of my favorite Residents songs kicks in at the 7 minute mark.

Dog

In The Shops

Found a copy of the new album from Unholy in a Hot Topic last week. If you enjoy my art I suggest picking up the album as it is filled with a lot of my artwork. I made somewhere around 7 or 8 images that are spread through out the packaging and booklet. You can see some of it here. The music consists of very intense metal music, a fitting soundscape to my imagery!

Related article at Blabbermouth.net


The album can be purchased from Prosthetic Records.

Liberty Bell Creep

This is new work. It’s one of a set of 5 monster Liberty Bells. They’re for the Philadelphia Cartoonist Society book 3. The last couple anthologies had open themes, but this 3rd one finally has a Philadelphia theme, which makes sense I suppose since we’re a Philly based group. But I kinda dislike themes. I did manage to come up with something though…these goofy bells. After doin some doodling, it occurred to me how well the Liberty Bell form lent itself to being monstrafied. Here’s the PCS site if anyone’s interested. It needs an update big time. And I’m not in any of the pics btw... www.phillytoon.com

Hellmouth

I've been wanting to start a store for a while now... but the whole cyber world & the terrible economy make it almost stupid to start a real world, physical store. Which totally sucks, because a real store is where it's at. Anyhow, i'm gonna start this thing up online first, as a distro for Metal, Punk, Trash Culture & Occult crap. If that works out & i'm pulling money in, i'll open up a storefront & make that shit look wild.






Aeron featured a whole mess of Hellmouths on Monster Brains. CHECK IT OUT!
Here's the argument against online businesses just like that. Presentation. Real world presentation. You can't beat it. You can control the lighting, the smell, the sounds, how stuff is displayed, what people see upon entering, all that stuff. Fire up my smoke machine for special events... weird smelling incense burning all the time. Maybe some retarded black cat lurking around... etc.

Yo, does anyone know what that green monstrous door, i think it's French, from the Art Nouveau period is called? I'm trying to get a good picture of it.

8 preliminary drawings for "The Twelve Caesars"

Julius Caesar

Augustus

Tiberius

Caligula

Claudius

Nero

Galba


Vitellius

I started working on these in January, I'm obviously missing 4 more, they happen to be the later Caesars that are definitely not as iconic as the first bunch. Maybe it was just the time of the year, but I felt really bent out of shape (which lasted 3 mos). Listening to Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and Joy Division on vinyl didn't help. "The Twelve Caesars" by Suetonius is a really great book on ancient Rome, full of a lot of dark crazy shit. It was, also, in these preliminary drawings that I started drawing the human figure more as I do now. They were actually drawn, except for Augustus, in the order of the book. I think Caesar and Caligula being the first ones. Augustus was actually the last. I wanted them to in some way embody what I perceived, at the time, as human nature and it's relation to power, and maybe I still do. As I'm posting this I'm getting excited about the whole thing again. I'll probably try to finish up the other four drawings by the end of summer. After that I was planning to pick the top 3 and make them better.

VVV Logo

Two logos I did for VVV

Pig Police with Poison

More concept art for this Children of the Moon campaign i'm running.
Salsiccian police wear pig masks in order to add an extra dimension of anonymity & uniformity to their squads. The dogs wear human masks. This is a poison gas team, which normally takes care of things like rat-infestations, but the poison gas is occasionally used for crowd control & battle as well. The police in Salsiccia, just as the police in this world, are the enforcers of the legitimized crime syndicate known as the government.
"Who is the bigger criminal: he who robs a bank or he who founds one?"
- Die Dreigroschenoper, Bertolt Brecht

Svarte Konst Zine

I drew these for my Flickr pal Oscar Parastus' SVARTE KONST zine that's set to come out pretty soon.







They turned out a little more horrific than I thought they would.

viral infection

Okay, so due to a nasty bug in my eye I was hardly able to see anything, let alone draw or surf the web for the last couple of days. It's better now but it's still a bit of a strain to type this. (Probably the first and last time ever tears are running down my face while I'm posting on EBD...)
Just wanted to let you guys know that I really like everything that's been posted lately, even though I haven't commented.
Human Mollusk is watching you!

Sausages - From the Goblin

From my "The Goblin" blog.
Otto von Bismarck has a famous quote involving laws & sausages & their unsightly origins, but this has always seemed a slight against sausages. I could definitely do without laws, but sausages... sausages are another matter altogether. Like the pigs most sausages are made from, sausages take substandard food & transform it, almost magically into something delicious & integral to the culture. There is something alchemical about stuffing this meat back into its own intesting, something ouroborotic about it. No? Maybe Bismarck was right though, in that there is a base reality to the sausage, just like laws, because even though i personally can do without them, they are a dirty mechanism for the messy society we live in.

Hans Volzer - Sausage Magnate from a Children of the Moon campaign i'm running.
"The living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had he any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form was assigned to him, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other six motions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet." ~Plato

This fantastic piece "Uprising of Sausages & Hot Dogs" is by Sergey Tyukanov.
Everything in life has an end. Only sausages have two.

Nail with String Vanishes / Black Worm Labyrinth

I just had a really weird experience, I was looking at a wall and noticed a small nail with some sort of black tattered bit of material, could have been a string? hanging from it, not a couple of inches long. I'm really tired so I must have mistaken it for what it really was, which I can only assume to be some bizarre insect that was perched on the wall. I came to that conclusion on account of the fact that the nail with the string is no longer on the wall. I'm either really really tired or I'm losing my mind!

But prior to that bizarre disappearance, the strange black string that I previously thought that I'd seen gave me an interesting idea. It made me imagine giant black worms stuck to the side of a vast stone wall. Maybe they are slugs, vast leeches the size of semi trucks clinging to the stone with thick glue like muck that oozes down in long lines of stinking liquid. Their backsides might have strange patterns, perhaps resembling the faces of larger beasts to scare away whatever might fly up out of the surrounding space to consume them. Think of the Monster Brains logo as a good example. But I picture myself, stuck to this giant wall, attached to the sticky slimy covering of ooze from all the giant slug like creatures. I can move, I can crawl, climb up and down, but I can't let go. And on some of these giant black worms I imagine half dissolved bodies, rotting flesh and bone constructions stuck to the surface of these large beasts as their very skin consumes its meal, like a sort of quicksand with acidic digestive juices bubbling up. What is it about horse bones that creates the recipe for glue? Or animal bones used in making Jello? Perhaps these worms use the bones of their dinners in a similar fashion, excreting them in a gelatinous sticky trail. Being stuck to this wall and being surrounded by hundreds, possibly thousands of these vast horrifying creatures, tall as trucks, curling, shifting in every direction, they would appear as giant grotesque walls, become like corridors through which I must pull my way through, hoping not to get stuck to them.

Mater-Hulk Revolt Manifest

I've been trying to capture a certain sensation that I once felt pretty strongly. I associate it with science-fiction book covers, polish poster art, Tarkovsky films and a lot more sort of random "things".
I was at first a little reticent to follow that route, as I thought of it as more too-common nostalgia mining ( for a time I wasn't alive in to boot), but - and forgive me for being obtuse here- This fleeting sensation or aesthetic pleasure is one that I feel rooted to in a real way; it's not merely an attempt at dwelling in the past, but of drawing threads from it to now.
It isn't some sort of ironic connection, in other words.



Beyond just kind of feeling my way through lines and forms, while drawing this, I imagined an alternate future/present, in which all those "fantasy" illustrators who sold their self-published "folios" at flea-bag comic conventions throughout the 70s-80s somehow came to prominence. What if their influence was at work in a big way?
I rarely conceive of any sort of literal translation of the image into a coherent narrative or statement, but I think a general theme along those lines that I think is present in a lot of my drawings has to do with the idea of technological "meddling" with biologic forms; stuff like genetic manipulation, nano-technology, etc..
It's something I fear in a general way, but it's also very mysterious and awesome. The fear has more to do with ruining that epic mystery; the would-be masters of creation, in their march toward "progress" rebel against that mystery because it's something that can't be measured or contained. Hopefully that "mystery" is conveyed through lines, forms, colors, etc., that illicit some kind of emotional response. I feel it while drawing sometimes, but have no idea if it translates for the viewer.
Late-Capitalist Mysticism? Judeo-Christian backwash? Maybe so...



Lately I've been using an horizon-line in drawings that are meant to be somewhat representational, or convey the idea of specific forms in a specific space. Sometimes I rebel against that and seek to only use the page as the space to be dealt with. It's another limitation, and it's one I pretty much can never fully go along with. Eventually, I give into my urges to make forms, but like to try to make them just "off-flat", so there is some dimensionality at work, but it's toyed with or its rule is not followed. I often think of medieval Illuminated Manuscripts while I'm drawing images like this. I think they often achieve a perfect "off-flatness", to coin a phrase.
All the while though, I can see a lot of obvious influences come into play, always as an after-thought; Really busy graffiti, the Charles Burns brush-line, other horror comics, etc., etc., All of these were things that I was looking at as I was trying to learn how to draw, and I think it's pretty much impossible for me to shake them.
The connective tissue between all of them is a very controlled, sure line, but often used to create grotesque or outlandish forms. I've been getting better at allowing myself to make dirty or ugly lines (FILTHY!!), but there is something about making clean lines that I'll always enjoy, I think.

ANYHOW. It is good to be back. As I'm sure you ALL FUCKING KNOW AND ARE TIRED OF ME WHINING ABOUT, I tend to be pretty conflicted about a lot of the work I make, and I that makes my art-related "concerns" suffer; all the blogs I've started and stopped, books I've planned to make, every project I've ever talked about and, most of all, all of you guys who put up with it. In all earnesty, I thank you guys for giving a shit. It's pretty amazing that we have the opportunity to communicate the way we do and to show our work to each other. THANK YOU.

The Moon Man & Mysterium Lunae

Lunar Cultists stalk the land under the yellow light of the full moon, soaking up the late-night dew, looking to cause some lunacy for the unaware.

2 New T'ings that I Have

A Variety of Jewels

Fantasy From Hell

Here's an early build of an in progress portrait of a demon for a book called "Heads From Hell" being published in the UK sometime later this or next year. The left eye socket will have smoke pouring out towards the top of the composition. I'm also struggling to decide if I want the head to be isolated in darkness or to make the chest/shoulders area and have them act like a landscape with the long snout like nose having roots growing into the chest/shoulder. The lack of cohesion between the layers is still very obvious here without the insane number of layers I end up building on. That bubble stuff to the right is a place holder pic to help me decide on particle effects. This is one in a series of four.

Tattoo Design

"She Lord" prints now available

It's a series of 8 digital prints on archival paper 18"x22" (almost original size)done by Silacone Gallery.They're going for $95 plus shipping. If you like to purchase one, you can get it at www.fourstrokestudio.com/prints

Hug

A Kind of Skin

My Mood Right Now

new inks " Remus I & II "

In some ways, for me, the "Remus" pieces are trying to combine some of the drawings that I have done recently with my ink orthodoxy. I chose the name "Remus" for this series because Remus and Romulus in my mind represent Romulus being human and Remus being something else- a sort of alternative if you will. I'm kinda excited to see where this will go in the future. For now, these two are just baby steps.

Pipu's Eye

Page from the upcoming issue of Pipu, "Pipu's Eye".

Something weird is going on with Pipu where my art is starting to look like Shigeru Mizuki's. In other news, the local comic shop has a million old "Heavy Metal" magazines from 1978 to 1985 all priced at $1.50 & i'm having a hard time not buying too many of them.

ALSO, i gave my long-running button business a name & put it up online. Check it out!

BLITZKRIEG BUTTONS