I'm in The Atlantic talking about Bettie Page!

"Male Fans Made Bettie Page a Star, but Female Fans Made Her an Icon"

Hey neat! I'm in a major online news source talking about pinup icon Bettie Page like I'm some sort of expert on the subject. Heh. I was approached by the writer of the piece, Tori Rodriguez right before the holidays after she found my artwork, notably my Bettie-homage pieces and asked me some questions. Some of my answers were used for the article, some weren't. I figured I'd post the rest of the interview here. Def check out the article above though, it covers a lot of ground, delving into her past, the musings of other fans including the illustrious Dita VonTeese (whom I had an intimate run-in with back in 2012) and a review of the new documentary Bettie Page Reveals All!



1. How did you first learn of Bettie, and what initially drew you to her?
I first learned of Bettie as a teenager in the early 90's when I would go shopping at Tower Records and saw Bettie's image on lunchboxes and other merch. As a young goth, it was initially her black and white Irving Klaw era photos that hooked me in. All those boots and corsets and those iconic bangs. I've heard of her being referred to as the 'Marilyn for brunettes'.

2. What is it that you love about her/what does she represent to you?
As a pinup artist, her photographs are an invaluable resource. Her posing, expressions and choices in attire are what pinup art is all about. She can run the gamut of fun-loving beach bunny to whip-cracking dominatrix.

3. Any thoughts on why she appeals to so many women in general?
I think it's that she represents a freedom to express her womanhood in a very repressed time. Even though her outfits (or lack thereof...) aren't as shocking today as they were when they were taken, she owns it. I have several books in my reference library that feature her spreads from men's magazines back in the day, and how she unabashedly owns the outfits she wears is inspiring. No matter how over-the-top, or scandalous or even downright silly, you can see her rock it. Such confidence is inspiring.

4. Some women see Bettie as an alternative to unhealthy societal pressures to look perfect and behave in a certain way. Where do you think these unhealthy messages come from, i.e. who/what is sending the opposite message to what Bettie represents? (I know the answer to this seems obvious, but we want to hear fans' perspectives.)
To me Bettie was a gateway into subcultures like rockabilly and burlesque, which are very body-positive environments to women with ample curves who want to celebrate their bodies. From Bettie I learned about other pinup models and burlesque superstars like Tura Satana. From Tura I learned about the movies of Russ Meyer and from there I've monkey-barred into this whole wonderful world of showgirls and rhinestones and pencil skirts and cleavage, cleavage, cleavage. So I surround myself with these images of powerful women and try my best to ignore what the standard of beauty is that other people or entities try to push on me.

Studying Up on Retro Cartooning

Always looking to keep my work fresh I'm constantly keeping my eyes peeled for new inspiration. Like a fancy new liquor I can splash in the martini shaker of my brain, sometimes I find something in the back of of my cabinet shelf that's been there all along, hiding in plain sight, covered in dust and cobwebs. I mix it in with my regular favorites and holy crap- where was this deliciousness my whole life? 

'Gee, willeckers!'
Self portrait in the pie-eyed
style of 20s-30s animation.

I plan on doing a whole 'family portrait' in this style
for eventual 2013 Christmas cards. 

So hey guess what- that thinly-veiled analogy I just used of liquor is actually about retro cartoons, particularly those of the 1920s. I've always been a fan of old cartoons, especially since my first artistic interests laid in the animation industry. I fortunately have SUPER supportive parents as well, who were totally feeling my artistic obsessions (especially since these interests were nice and quiet and solitary when I was a kid) and would point me in the direction of pretty much anything animation-related they came across. In particular the old Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies and Fleischer cartoons of their youth and then eventually I moved on to the more obscure works including those of Osamu Tezuka (Unico), Richard Williams (Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure) and Nelvana (Rock & Rule). Even during vacations to Disney World as a child my parents would enroll me in children's animation classes while they were getting to ride Splash Mountain. 

'Cutie Patootie!'
A flapper pinup in the 20's style.

As I got older my interest shifted from animation into comics but I still wanted to keep the clean aesthetic and line economy of traditional 2D animation and I've been chasing that look ever since. And being a big fan of the concept of 'climbing your artistic family tree' for inspiration, I've been researching the works of Ub Iwerks and Max Fleischer, two of the founding fathers of animation. I remember watching so many of these cartoons as a kid and being engrossed in the adorable creepiness.

Fleischer's Bimbo in "Bimbo's Initiation"

Part 1 of "The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story"

The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story... by CarlStallingEnthusiast

I hope these inspire you as well! I hope in the near future to have my pie-eyed portraits available as a commission option!

Ooooh!!! I'm INTERVIEWED on a PODCAST!

Hey kids!! Want hear me spout some verbal diarrhea for over an hour??

Thank you to the awesome guys at One-Of-a-Kind-Workshop podcast for being my first ever podcast interview! If you can get thru all my irritating verbal tics and stutters, I talk about some quasi-interesting stuff.

As I told Fenny as we were live-texting our reactions to what I said to each other: "Even I'm getting tired of hearing myself.  Waitaminnit... JESUS CHRIST IS THIS WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE AROUND ME??? D:"

(Fair warning: I consumed an entire bottle of wine during this interview. The more coherent I get, the drunker I am. Go figure.)

Give it a listen:

Click here to be taken to the OOAKW site.

Tura! Tura! Tura! (Also: Inking)

So I had the honor of being personally invited to take part in Tura! Tura! Tura! 2, an upcoming tribute show to the great, late Tura Satana, of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! fame out in Palm Springs, California. I will be showing alongside several artists I have looked up to for several years and get to have my work in front of fans from the mysterious west coast. I'm hoping this is the beginning of a prolific phase in my career and other galleries take notice and invite me to take part in more shows.

::cough:: Gallery 1988... ::cough::

The secret I found to getting Tura's likeness as Varla right?
Flared nostrils.
Really!

***Editor's note: For the next few paragraphs I go on and on and on entirely too long about inking and my art process. If you're into it, awesome. If not, the above info with accompanying links and pictures below are all you really need to know.***

Flyer for the show by one of my artistic heroes,
the great Mitch O'Connell.

 I'm super excited about this show, as this is my first time testing out my new technique of toning my original inks on vellum with grey scale markers and graphic white on the gallery scene. Anyone who's given me time to flap my jaw about it would know I've *really* wanted to get into the low brow gallery scene for years now, but for the longest time being a primarily digital artist all I felt I could really offer was prints. Which while nice, unless you want to cough up the dough to get nice ones made, it's hard to break in to the kind of price points that original pieces go for. I never thought anyone would want my original inks for my pieces, as I though they were 'ugly' and on various pieces of scrap paper and had a zillion corrections on them.

Digital version!

Up until about 4 months ago my process of creating art was to lightbox my rough pencils onto bristol board and then tighten them up from there, then ink directly on top of raw pencils. While this worked for me for several years, I had noticed that when I transferred my images via lightbox, I lost a lot of the detail and energy from the original roughs. Eyes wouldn't line up, subtle hints of smiles would be lost, kinetic lines that came together perfectly looked stale and forced the second time around. Plus a lightbox can be a bit of a pain in the ass if you don't have a set area for it already, with a nice dark room to use it in and plenty of extra bulbs for when the lights start to dim (which will make tracing an aggravating process). Add to this headache by using a super thick, rough piece of bristol to draw on to, with a very hard pencil (I tend to use a 2H) which will put grooves in the surface of the paper if you dig with a death grip like I do and you're setting yourself up for a potential nightmare scenario. Once I would get to the inking stage, which is going directly onto my finished pencils (that are now all marred from my pencil-diggings), I need to be extra-careful as I only get one real chance. Unless I *really* screw up and have to black out an entire portion, re-draw it on another piece of paper and paste it in in Photoshop. And that leaves the re-sale value of the original pretty much nonexistent. But if I screw it up minimally with the inks I'll have to go over with white-out. Which leaves additional snags as inking on top of pencils means I eventually have to erase the pencils, which if I ink over white-out causes them to smear. Along with the fading that ink tends to suffer from with heavy erasing as I swear by using Microns and other disposable fine-line pens. I've tried brushes and nibs and much like how I feel about painting, it's just not for me. And yes, I've tried Rapidiographs as well, but they are far too expensive and a nightmare to clean. I digress. Anyhow, all of these 'ugly inks' as I refer to them, resulted in piles upon piles of discarded inks around my desk. At my old day job, when we had to move our offices after I had been there for 2 years I realized I had accumulated at least a 1.5" thick stack of inks that I had completely forgotten about, much to the horror of my coworkers who were all familiar with my work. So yeah, I eventually started to realize that I'm kinda sitting on some potential money here and have been trying to find ways to polish up my original inks to the point where my OCD'd ass would feel comfortable selling them.

Vellum is basically a heavy grade tracing paper some comic artists choose to ink on.
A lot of tattoo artists and draftsmen also use it, which are two other types of artists I
have been heavily influenced by.

 I remembered an inking method we were taught back in the heydays of my time at Kubert School, being a vellum overlay taped to your pencils that you can ink on without worry of damaging the pencils underneath. I had messed with it a little at Kubert School, but admittedly my inking has been under arrested development due to a rather possessive former friend who insisted on inking my work all through Kuberts and the years following, so it wasn't my strong suit for a long time. Anytime I did ink my own work, the emotional blackmail thrown at me would put even the most passive-aggressive Catholic mother to shame. Fortunately I kicked this so-called friend to the curb a few years ago and have been trying to play catch-up now that I'm free to pursue my art without worrying about those latched onto my coat-tails. So I gave vellum a shot earlier this year and have fallen madly in love with it, but now I had all of these curled up inks on pieces of vellum sitting around my studio. It was also around this time I was prepping for HeroesCon in NC back in June, and wanted to start drawing commissions at my table and needed a method that would allow me to keep a high standard of work without the need for a computer or digital assistance. If you've already read my HeroesCon recap, you'll know that drawing at my table didn't work out for me so well. I was able to do pretty well with post-convention commissions instead. And plan to do more commissions this way before/after shows in the future. Anyways, so I wanted to have my vellum inks available for purchase as original pieces in themselves outside of my digital color versions I save for the internet and prints. I had noticed there's a cool trend with a lot of convention sketches in recent years where artists will use a set of cool and warm grey markers to fake out colors, to really awesome effects. Adam Hughes is one that comes to mind who does this. And then also there's the sketches of the LA Chapter of Drink and Draw Social Club, which features artists drawing on tinted boards, allowing for white highlights from white-out and gel pens to really pop. These two influences, along with my obsession with the aesthetics of old school animation gave me the bright idea to tone my vellum inks on the opposite side with markers and white-out (though I started moving to paint), resulting in an original one of a kind piece of artwork that matches the digital version.

Original inks, toned with markers and white-out on vellum.
This will be the actual piece in the show.

So yeah, whew! Hopefully with this newly-discovered method of doing things I can *finally* start breaking into more gallery scenes and getting substantially more buck for my bang, as it were. Since all original inks cost me to produce is time, which I feel justifies a higher price tag than just sending stuff off to a print shop. Which helps me financially justify working freelance and keeps me out of yet another soul-sucking day job. So keep an eye out for my next commission deal, I plan on doing more pieces along these lines as well as more art shows in the near future!  

Post-Heroescon commissions.
Keep an eye out on my social media feeds for my next commission offering!

Milestones

Summer 2007
My first summer as a New Yorker

On this day 5 years ago I moved to NYC to live with the man I love, carrying out one of the single best and scariest decisions of my life. It was scary because the risk was so high. If it all went well- I'd be living a dream come true. I'd be where I belong. But if it failed, I'd be chewed up and spit out and would have marked the second time in my life I had to crawl back to the primordial suburban ooze from whence I came. I had never lived on my own before. To go from the safety of my parent's basement, tucked away in a Maryland suburban cul-de-sac to the biggest, brightest, craziest city in the United States. The mythology of it makes my head spin. The city where songs have been written, movies have taken place, shows have been filmed, universes have been built upon. I have had a love affair with New York City since the first time I visited in high school for some art field trip. We only went to the Met and saw the Rockettes, but God, I wanted to stay. Thank God we didn't go anywhere near the Lower East Side. I'd have run away with the gutter punks. One of the times I went during Kubert School I kept one of the subway tokens I didn't end up using and strung it on a shitty shotbead chain around my neck. Almost like a promise to myself. Or some sort of totem. That was 1999. I rarely took it off. I thought I lost it while attending Dragon*Con 2004 and was so unbelievably upset. It showed up again though and it is one of my most precious pieces of jewelry. I still wear it everyday. Moving to NYC has allowed me to pursue my dreams of being a career artist in ways I would have never dreamed possible. This city has enabled me to make connections and friendships with amazing, creative, DRIVEN people who continue to inspire me. Had you told me 8 years ago that my life would be as it is now I'd have laughed in your face. I had thought the most I could hope for was getting full-time at Hot Topic and a studio apartment behind the local Target with my burnout boyfriend at the time who I had to MAKE get a job at Starbucks. My sole confidante was my supposed best friend, who sabotaged any attempt to better myself at every turn. It's a testament to my gumption that with all the setbacks I suffered at her hand that I still emerged as driven as I am. I was told on a daily basis that I was wasting my talents. Spinning my wheels in the mud. That there was more for me out there. Moving to New York was the new start I needed. One by one I severed connections to those that dragged me down and I am so much better for it. I now have real, true friends that support me along with career success that has been a long time coming in a city I love with the man of my dreams. 

YAY!!!

So yeah, there's that. But also! Another big thing that happened just yesterday, being that I got my *first* big article written about my artwork in a major comic book blog, being ComicsAlliance which is one of my favorite comics news blogs. And I'm not even being all ass-kissy, I really do love CA. Like, if you have a free afternoon, read Chris Sim's Remedial Batmanology. It is perhaps the funniest thing I've read in the past 5 years. Also I'm a fan of anything Bethany Fong writes. She and I have very similar world views. But yeah the article is awesome and it coming out was a complete, amazing surprise to me. Shoot, if anything I was figuring I would have to do at least 5 more X-Men redesigns before I popped up on any radars. A ComicsAlliance article about Ross Campbell's Jem & the Holograms redesigns were actually what inspired the project to begin with. I'm also super-glad to see the comments aren't terrible. They're actually all pretty glowing. I know I shouldn't look but I can't help it. It IS really reassuring.




Haha, but yeah sorry I got all sentimental and TL;DR on you. You probably just wanna see some art, huh?

Cyclops!
“Energy blasts, huh? Here’s one from a pro!”
I think Cyclops gets a bad rep. I think people think just because you're a leader you gotta be square, which doesn't have to be true. There's plenty of cool leaders of teams (Hannibal of the A-Team for instance). And a guy can play it super straight and severe and still be cool. Cyclops is a very necessary member of the X-Men. Plus he's one of the more iconic members of the X-Men. I've always loved the visor. So with my version of Scott I wanted to really play up the old 'Slim' nickname, and what better way to accentuate how skinny a guy is than by putting him in a tailored Mod suit. I also modeled his looks a lot from old pictures of Michael Caine from stuff like Get Carter and The Italian Job. Just super cool, like you never ever see him sweat. Plus I wanted him and Jean to really LOOK like they're supposed to be together. Like they come as a set.   

I'm also working on a private commission featuring an action shot of my Dazzler redesign. It was too fun not to pass up. Right now I'm just finishing up inks, but you can check out some progress shots I took of the piece so far. I'm having her skate against a team of Hellfire club Goons- much like her first appearance!

This may or may not be a ploy to get traffic. 9_9;

Hey hey hey! So my insanely awesome year of the Paigey Roadshow is starting to gear up! Got lots of new merch cooked up and I'm excited to be vending at some all-new, all-different venues, including some roller derby bouts and concerts in my home state of Maryland alongside my BFF's store Little Asian Sweatshop. The first up in my adventures is in two weeks- Charm City Roller Girls Home Season Double Header on Saturday March 10 from 5:30-10:00 at Du Burns Arena in Baltimore. If you're in the area, I suggest you check it out! CCRG helped me get my first exposure in the art world when I did derby portraits and bout posters for them back when they first started up.

Speaking of all-new, all-different- I'm taking a little art time to myself for the next couple weeks and doing some redesigns of the characters that got me into comics in the first place, being the Uncanny X-Men. These versions of the characters have been running in my head for awhile so why not draw them? Trying to have a callback to the X-Men of the late 80's when everyone had different looks and everyone had their own unique presence in the team. And lots and lots of COLORS!

Rogue!
“You look as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”
My version of Rogue still has the Carol Danvers/Ms Marvel powers (obviously) and since she's super strong and near invulnerable with the power of flight, she doesn't see the point in working out as crazily as some of her teammates, hence her being a little curvier. Plus she's from the south and eats fried everything. And she's voiced by the chick who did her voice in 90's X-Men, because that is my definitive Rogue voice.

Dazzler!
“Call me Dazzler, darlin’. That’s my name — and that’s what I do. Dazzle people.”
My version of Dazzler (one of my all time have comic characters) is a roller derby girl, obviously a lead jammer. And she probably sings in a band or something when she's not playing derby. I imagine her as one of those effortlessly cool girls who has a zillion awesome projects going on but can't hold a day job to save her life. So you always end up paying for her beer. One of my fave details I came up with was the mirrorball helmet, and the runs in her opaque blue tights were fun to figure out how to draw (esp the blown-out crotch, which is always the first to go with me at least). 

I've got ideas for the rest of the core Blue/Gold team as well, which I'll put up as I finish. I'm actually working on a Gambit next. Which should be fun, cuz I DO NOT LIKE Gambit, so this will be my attempt at making a Gambit I like while still making him recognizable as Gambit.

Things I Love Thursday (3/10/11)

***Butthole Surfer's 'Who Was in My Room Last Night?' video***



You ever see something during your formative years that you forget about as you get older only to revisit it as an adult and find out it had a huge subconscious impact on you as a person? That's what I realized about this video. All the hot rod, low brow, kustom kulture stuff that I always had an interest in but only became a serious fan of in the past 3 years or so can probably be traced to me at 12 watching this video on Mtv and having my pasteurized suburban vanilla adolescent mind blown away. I had no idea what I was looking at but I wanted to. Unfortunately it being in the dark ages before the internet, I couldn't look up on Google who did the art for the video (which was Robert Williams, one of the founders of the low brow art movement) and me being a shy, nerdy 12 year old who was still holding on to her Ninja Turtle action figures, I was too intimidated by the 'cool' people in my neighborhood/school/limited social circles to ask about music or bands or anything. So it gestated for about 18 years til I randomly checked out the video on Youtube 18 years later. And all the pieces fell into place.




***Liquid Television's Dog Boy segment***


"Dooooog booooooy!!!! AWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOO------!!"

I've sang the praises of Mtv's Liquid Television before. Oh back when Mtv had smart, relevant programming and actually played videos. Sigh... what's truly upsetting is when you're an oldie like me you remember all this awesome stuff Mtv used to do, and then you see how far the network has fallen. I'm looking at you, Jersey Shore.

Anywho, Dog Boy is based off the work of cartoonist Charles Burns, famous for his run on Black Hole. I love the use of prosthetics, post-production shot framing that looks like a panel and crazy lighting and set design. Everything looks like a comic strip, and I can't get enough of that rubber hair.



***Java's Bachelor Pad Radio Podcast***



From the website:
"Every week, The Bachelor Pad Radio Show features music every swinging bachelor needs to have. Lounge, cocktail, exotica, private-eye jazz, and even a touch of retro-swing from the likes of Esquivel, Martin Denny, Yma Sumac, Julie London, Les Baxter, Frank Sinatra, and many others. Tune in and enjoy! "


Java's Bachelor Pad radio is one of the only podcasts I listen to on a regular basis and it is for me the perfect music to draw to. With every episode I find at least 2-3 songs I simply HAVE to have on my iPod right after listening to it. Also, the Podcast ties in with Bachelor Pad magazine, which is a quarterly publication in the style of mid-century men's magazines. I have even taken ads out in a few issues for my blog!

Things I love Thursdays 1/13/11

My 5 favorite movies of all time:

#5:

Trainspotting





I saw Trainspotting in the theater my junior year of high school on a quasi-date with a classmate. It was my choice of activity, and also our only date. I think I scared him. Haha, oh well. The movie blew my 15 year old brain away. Marcus Renton is also who I would be if I was a dude.

#4:

Streets of Fire





The most recent addition to my top movie list, I finally saw Streets of Fire about 2 years ago via Netflix after being curious about the video cover when I worked at Tower Records back in 2001. I love how dramatic it is, especially with half the songs on the soundtrack written by the great Jim Steinman, who also wrote for Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler. It also has an evilly hot young Willam DaFoe looking amazing with his quiff and vinyl butcher overalls. And also has Lee Ving, lead singer of the 80's hardcore band Fear and Mr. Boddy from the Clue movie.

#3:

True Romance






I didn't see True Romance until about 2006. I had no idea it was written by Quentin Tarantino, and is his more optimistic version of Natural Born Killers (which he wrote later out of frustration that no one was interested in True Romance). Once I finally saw it though I was in love. Clarence and Alabama are just the absolute ideal of two people completely in love with each other. I even plan on getting my own version of the True Romance cupid tattoo on my inner upper left arm with the words 'You're so cool' in the banner eventually.

#2:

Phantom of the Paradise





I saw Phantom of the Paradise in high school and immediately loved it upon first viewing. The music, the visuals, THAT HELMET. I still want to make a 'femme' Phantom costume and make my BFF Fenny be a lady version of Swan. I've already got the helmet, just need the cape, catsuit and voicebox.

#1:

Rock & Rule





What can I say about Rock & Rule that I haven't already said? Haha, well, I'm going to get Angel, the female lead tattooed on my left arm this spring in Sailor Jerry classic pinup style by Cyn Rudzis, one of my new favorite tattooist. And I really need to just get on making some 'I survived the Mok concert' buttons. If not just for myself.

I'm on Funny or Die!!!!

So yeah, remember when I got to meet and get my picture with Pee-Wee a month ago when he did that Foursquare promo?

Well, the VIDEO of his adventures around NYC is up on FunnyorDie.com and you can see a certain bespectacled punker girl reduced to utter speechlessness at 2:58! Like really, my hands were shaking and I thought I might burst into tears.

Pee-wee's Foursquare Day! from Pee-wee Herman

And just to show you how much I LOOOOOVE Pee-Wee, here's a couple pics from last year's Halloween when my fiance Phil and I dressed up as Miss Yvonne and Capn' Carl. BEFORE I EVEN KNEW HE WAS MAKING HIS BIG COMEBACK!

Today's secret word is: HOLY SHIT!

AAAAAAHHHH!



Soooo... I follow Pee-Wee on Twitter and he said he was going to be at Katz delicatessen at noon, so I BOLTED down there from work (in Midtown) and actually got to meet him and give a fan testimonial! He was going around the city all day today for a promo thing with foursquare and his upcoming Broadway show, which I'm actually going to for my 30th birthday at the end of the month (2nd row center) as a birthday gift from my BFF Fenny.
Let me just say- this was a dream come true. My hands were shaking so bad when I met him. Pee-Wee is totally my childhood hero and one of the first people in life who taught me that it's totally awesome to be yourself, no matter how quirky that might be.

Influence Map Meme

There's a meme on Deviantart called the Influence Map, where you fill in various sized squares on a gridded template with various things that influence you as an artist. These don't necessarily have to be other artists like I put, for me that just seemed the most obvious choice. It's a pretty fun exercise, I enjoyed seeing artists who I am fans of filling it out as well. Interesting to see where we as artists come from.
From the template itself:
"As an artist, you are influenced by things. The reason why you do what you do is the combined application of all the things that influence you. If you run into a major block and cannot create new work, chances are you are forgetting what inspires you and need a refresher. Fill in these squares with everything that influences and inspires you to fuel the art you love to create. Refer to it as a kind of "map" in the future in case you get lost.
You can literally put anything in these squares-- photos of locations or people, other artist's work, artists themselves, video games, TV shows, music, movies and books. You name it, you can put it in there. Fill the grid by placing more prominent influences as larger images. A 3x3 image being the biggest."

You can download your own template here.

Here's mine:

Rock & Rule

I don't have much to show artistically this week, I'm in the middle of alot of projects so I figured I'd make my semi-weekly post this go around about a little movie called Rock & Rule.



Rock & Rule is an animated movie that came out of Canada in 1983. I saw it when I was a little kid on Super TV and it haunted me until I was 12, when I found it for rent and finally saw it again at an age I could truly appreciate it for the awesome that it is. Rock & Rule is the end all, be all artistic greatness that I aspire to become. Artistically speaking, this movie is why I get up every morning. It is, in my opinion, the pinnacle of greatness that all else is compared to. I cannot suggest watching this enough. I've seen it over 100 times, including 5 times on acid and at least twice on mushrooms. It's actually a rite of passage for many of my friends to sit and watch this movie with me. I'm completely obsessed.

No, REALLY.

Let's take inventory of my obsession:

One of the most common pieces of Rock & Rule memorabilia, the Marvel super special, is relatively easy to come by.



I also have the theatrical poster in my kitchen, which is insanely hard to find. It took 10+ years of eBay trolling to come across.



I commissioned my pal Miss Monster to paint portraits of the two main characters, Angel and Omar for my living room.



Which sit caddy-corner from my full framed set of Rock & Rule lobby cards I've had for 13 years (one of my first ever eBay purchases). Those things have been through ALOT.



Three of the crown jewels of my R&R collection: my authentic hand-painted animation cels of Angel from her introductory scene, along with pencil tests and cels of Mok from his big reveal ('Anyone want a beer?') and Angel during the Mok concert. I came across these during my semi-regular search for Rock & Rule stuff on eBay, which paid off amazingly well, as a guy out in LA was getting rid of all 3 of these which had already been matted and framed and were going for $1200 for all three. He apparently had to get rid of them to make rent. Honestly I'd sooner sell blood than get rid of these and assured them they'd be going to a huge fan and would be very much appreciated. And they are. ^__^





And to prove just how crazy I am about this movie, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the world who has a Rock & Rule related tattoo. My precious big-tittied mermaid above my left knee (done by Duane at Have Fun Be Lucky) is an exact copy from a screenshot of the one Aunt Edith does on the back of the Sailor's head in Nuke York. One day I want to get a full calf piece that's a big Rock & Rule montage by tattoo artist Joe Capobianco, I think he'd be able to truly capture the characters.



But yeah, as you can see- I frigging LOVE ROCK & RULE. As far as I'm concerned it is the most perfect piece of cinema ever. Sure to many it may be flawed, ridiculous and cheesy. It was started in production with a half-finished script, ran out of money halfway through and has an identity crisis between being child-friendly and adult-oriented- but this movie has had a huuuge impact on me artistically as well as me as a person. The characters are strong, notably the two protagonists Angel and Omar, as well as the villian, Mok who other than Captain James Hook and the Kurrigan, is my favorite villain of all time. It's not a surprise Mok, full name Mok Swagger, is supposed to be a caricature of Mick Jagger, just... look at him. What I love about Mok is that he's so unapologetically evil and self-absorbed. I love villains that are just evil without some whole sob story origin about how they used to be good but then *something happened*. That was how they ruined Darth Vader in my humble opinion. Plus he's voiced by the awesome Don Francks, who if you're a total nerd like me, you will recognize as the voice of Sabertooth in the 90's X-Men cartoon. He has the quintessential evil snarl-scream voice. Ah, so great. And the skill of animating his face and most especially that mouth is awe-inspiring. I do love a good villain with a weird mouth and snappy clothes.



Angel and Omar, the two main characters, are basically both my ideal female role model growing up and my ideal guy. Dog noses aside (damn you furries), and focusing on their personality, Angel is one of the strongest animated heroines I've ever come across. She's assertive and doesn't take any guff from anyone, whether it's Mok himself trying to seduce her with a record contract or her own boyfriend Omar trying to hog all the band's fame. Even when the guys from the band rescue her from being sacrificed to a demon at a satanic rock concert she still steps in for the final take-down in the most deliciously cheesy "we'll SING at you" ending ever. Punctuated with a rainbow, no less.



:40- Epic scream is epic

Omar is the man. Even with an orange mullet, square eyes and a dog nose he's hot. I admit it. And I ain't no furry, dammit. Part of this attraction I'm sure is that in the US version he's voiced by greaser dreamboat Paul Le Mat, who you might know as John Milner from American Graffiti. ::swoon:: I've heard the Canadian version of Rock & Rule with some other guy doing the voice of Omar and yeah... it's not the same. He just doesn't sound as cool and as much of a snide prick. I'd almost go with saying I strongly dislike the Canadian Omar voice. Although what's cool in the Canadian version that you won't see in the US version is about a minute of extra footage that ended up being cut, including a longer Angel getting choked scene as well as a kind of weird Mok and Zip are backstage shot at the end when Mylar's on the mic. You can see those on the 2 disc collector's edition dvd that came out back in 2005. But yeah, Omar's awesome. Lookit him rock out with Robin Zander of Cheap Trick doing his singing voice. Dude's got charisma.



If you wanna check out Rock & Rule yourself, you can get it on DVD over at Amazon.


More info:
Rock & Rule on Wikipedia
The Critical Eye review
Interview with the creators in fps magazine

Ed Emberley taught me how to draw

Edward Randolph Emberley (born October 19, 1931 in Malden, Massachusetts) is an American artist and illustrator.
Emberley is best known for his work with children's books. In particular, Emberley has contributed illustrations to instructional books for drawing. From an educational standpoint, Emberley believes that everyone can learn to draw. His instructional drawing books for children present simple step-by-step instructions and often employ the numbers, letters, and shapes with which early elementary-school-age children are beginning to familiarize themselves. His book Ed Emberley's A.B.C. uses this style of instruction exclusively, presenting a single letter-based drawing for each letter of the alphabet.
Emberley has illustrated or contributed to over 50 books. Many of the books were published in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Emberley has experienced a renaissance with adults who fondly remember using the books in their youth, and are now purchasing them for their children (or for themselves).

As a kid, I hung out at the library, mostly because it was one of the only public places my over-protective parents would allow me to roam beyond eyesight. The kids section and the art/comics section were my stomping grounds, and I must have gone thru all the books there at least three times over. Even back then I barely had the attention span for any books without pictures, and ever since I was old enough to look at things I've been a visual person. But one of the things I got that I was OBSESSED with, and caused quite a sum of late fees, was the Ed Emberley's How-To-Draw Books. These were like, my artistic bible growing up. He breaks stuff down SO SIMPLY that literally ANYONE can draw this stuff, and it's perfect for kids who want to draw, cuz it helps them make SENSE of all the crazy scribbles they do, and learn basic structure and how to use simple shapes to make a picture. I mean,look at this:



Even if you 'can't even draw a straight line' you can follow Ed's instructions. And for the record, hardly ANYONE can draw a straight line, regardless of their artistic skill. That's why rulers are so popular.

Look how simple that is. And after you draw all of the things he shows you, it arms you with the basic artistic ability to break stuff down that you see in real life into simple shapes and then build them back up into a picture on paper. Which is, essentially what an artist does.



Here's a review I found of Ed Emberley's Make A World book, that they recently reissued, which was my favorite by far. Honestly, this book changed my life. It makes anyone capable of drawing SO MUCH STUFF, that it's like your imagination just pours out onto the paper. At least it did for me.




How to Draw a Werewolf, from The Big Book of Weirdos. He was my favorite. I'm actually gonna get a tattoo of him sometime next year or so.


For more information:
Ed on Wikipedia
Ed Emberley search results on Amazon.com
Ed Emberley.com (requires Flash)
Make A Word: The Film (upcoming documentary on Ed Emberley's book)