Conflagratory sketches

Here are some sketches. In the planning stages of a very long epic narrative. Working title is “The Conflagration.” I figure it will be done in about twenty years or so.

Just some sketches.

Old new New Yorker piece

Well, after a months long accidental hiatus, in which I had a few weeks of technical issues with uploading images, and then a few weeks of travel, and an eternity taking care of a new baby I am finally back to blog all about it.

You will probably never see it now, but I had a piece in the 02Jul12 issue of the New Yorker.

This was an interesting piece process wise. It is the first non-fiction piece I have had to edit. It was to accompany a blurb about the Dragball of the Harlem Renaissance. The first version had an awesome rainbow gradient background. One of the editors, for reasons undisclosed to me, put the kibosh on that and asked for it to be changed.

I can only draw one conclusion as to the reason: the covert, but ongoing, war against awesomeness that our nation is perpetrating.

Here they are. You can compare:

The art game

I have a piece coming up in the 04-11Jun12 issue of the New Yorker. Apparently it is a special sci-fi double issue, so that should be awkward and fun.

Alighiero Boetti has a retrospective coming up at the MoMA and this piece is to accompany a write-up.
Seeing that this was upcoming got me thinking about the art game and the mass manipulation of consumers disguised as or presenting itself as the “Art World.” It’s really not much different than the “design world” or the “PR World” or the “Advertising World.” It is a game in which the object is for the Lords of Capital to manipulate the target audience to want whatever the Lords of Capital have to sell. And therefore droves of middle-men, also known as designers, marketing gurus, journalists, curators, PR agents, copywriters, etc., are employed to facilitate this shell game.

It made me think of this from the philosopher and artist Kenneth Smith:

 “When a specific collector has covertly managed to corner the market on a given not-yet-arrived artist's major works, that's the time when a major museum-retrospective is due, formally and officially and "impartially" consolidating his reputation for all to see. The "public" apparatus of the museum validates the "private" collector's parking ticket. Then, at the close of the poker game, the collector shows his hand of cards and tells the other players, "Read 'em and weep."  And another multibillion dollar fortune is made, just on the side and incidentally. Because just as Adam Smith noted in his decades-ago book on the phenomenon of SUPERMONEY produced when a startup-company has its first public offering of stock, art is this same kind of escalator-game, multiplying initial investments by magnitudes inconceivable to the sweat-blinded, hard-working public. ”

Though I am aware Boetti is not exactly a “not-yet-arrived” artist I have no doubt this exhibition could be traced back to the sound of money being deposited into some wealthy “patron” of the arts’ Swiss bank account.

Fluke!tastic

Hey internets! I will have a table at the Fluke! festival in Athens, GA on Saturday 21Apr12. If you are in the area come check it out. It takes place at the 40 Watt in downtown from 11am-6pm and it only costs a measly two smackeroos.

Fluke!, for those of you who do not know, is an independent comics festival, which the amazing Robert L Newsome and Patrick L Dean have been organizing for over a decade. This will be my first one and I am quite excited.

So come on out.

In other news here are two self-portraits so you can remember what I look like.

The first is a little auto-bio piece I did for the good people of Tokyo who apparently wanted to know who it was who did that big drawing in that little bar. We did this to put up beside it so they would KNOW. Hence the Japanese texts at the bottom.

And the second is a self-portrait after a vicious tennis melee I had with my racket. My opponent hit a deep shot. I thought it was going out. I then pulled a classic rookie tennis move. I stood there watching. When it hit the line I was out of position. I jumped back and tried to get my racket up. Instead I hit myself in the eye socket.

It was awesome.

Now I have a sutured eye socket. Soon I will have a permanent villain scar. To top it off I lost 5-7, 6-7.

Outskirts

The title of this newest piece seems quite appropriate. I feel as if I have been on the outskirts of everything for some time now.

For those of you who don’t know my beautiful wife, Mary, and I had a baby boy on 29Jan12. His name is Augustus Ray Stephens and he is something else entirely. We are, needless to say, extremely preoccupied and generally exhausted lately. Add in Augie Ray and many other ingredients and you have a recipe for a long hiatus between blog posts.

Well, I have been intending to post this one for over a week, so sorry if it is too late to grab a copy. I have a piece in last week’s New Yorker, cover date 16Apr12. The piece is for a Russian film called “Outskirts.” It is from the early sound era of the movies.

Hopefully I will post some pics of Augie soon. And I also have a back log of things to post up from the work I have been doing for Southern Comfort: Japan.

Wish me luck!

Out of this world

I spent the holiday season working on a campaign for Southern Comfort, Japan. They are trying to introduce Mardi Gras in Japan. My friend, Takuya, hired me to do all the illustration work. It turned into one of the strangest ad campaigns I have ever seen, and I am super excited about it. When all the products are finished and I receive photographs I will post a lengthier exegesis.

But, while finishing it up, brand manager Haruyo Naka convinced someone to hire me as a kind of representative artist for the year. This entails doing a mural kind of piece that Southern Comfort will use to promote their brand in Japan.

Anyway, last week I finished it up and this is what it looks like.

Who will love me?

I have a new illustration coming up in the New Yorker. This will be my second fiction piece and full page illustration. It is scheduled to appear in the 31Jan12 issue. That comes out tomorrow.

The title of the story is “Someone” written by Alice McDermott. The story is one of jilted love set in 1930s Brooklyn, back when it was truly the world’s melting pot, and not the new Manhattan.

Anyway, check it out.

Winter Greetings

Who knew that last year was to be our last winter in New York? We may have experienced our last Christmas in a winter wonderland. So this year, while we are cozy and warm in our new home in Atlanta, we greet you from a fantasy landscape covered in imaginary snow. Have a great holiday season!!!

Laura

Got a new illustration coming up in the New Yorker. Cover date will be 02Jan12. This one is for another noir film. “Laura” by Otto Preminger. Apparently I am becoming the noir illustrator over at the NYer.

I have not posted any of my personal work lately, but I plan to rectify that soon. I have several other jobs in the pipeline, but I have a lot of new pages of comics I have not posted or mentioned.

From the end of August to the beginning of November I logged around 40,000 miles of travel. From the mountains in North Carolina, to the river banks of St. Louis, to drought stricken Austin, to the inland shores of Chicago, to the future city of Tokyo, to the magical mystical forests of Oregon. Whew. It was exhausting. And now I am looking forward to a winter holed up and working on some magickal concoctions.

 Until next time, enjoy the illustration.

Faust

The Met is putting on a new production of Faust replete with bespoke suits and atomic bombs. A Faust for the World War eras.

I was in Tokyo last week, but how could I turn down Mr Awan’s offer to do an illustration for this?
I mean, it is Faust.

So, below is what I came up with and it should be in the 14Nov11 issue of the New Yorker.

Black Narcissus

Okay, a new piece coming up in the Halloween edition of the New Yorker. Cover date should be 31Oct11.

This one is for the movie “Black Narcissus.” I have never seen the movie. I didn’t have time to see the movie before the illustration deadline. So, I went solely by the source images Mr Awan sent me.

I hope the movie is as good as the illustration I came up with. Know what I mean?

Southern Comfort

I just whipped up this poster in a two night frenzy.

My good friend Takuya runs a design business in Tokyo. He was hired by Southern Comfort (yes, the liquor company) to do some design work. Part of his job was promotional work for a party they are sponsoring to kick off Design Week in Tokyo, which is 01Nov-06Nov11. Takuya hired me to do the postcard and poster for the party in exchange for a future trip to Japan. So…

Here is the poster:

The postcard is basically the bottom half of the poster, but in black and white:

Festivals Galore

In conjunction with AthensPopFest the fine boys of Fluke have organized an arts and comics flea market of sorts for this Saturday, 15Oct11. If anyone is in Athens this weekend or inclined to come to Athens you can find me and my comics at OctöberFLUKE. It will be held at the Classic Center between 10am-6pm. Man or Astroman and the Dead Milkmen will be playing the 40Watt that night and Masters of the Hemisphere and Olivia Tremor Control will play Friday. So, if you are looking to make a weekend of it in Athens without the fall football crowds this would be the weekend to do it. I hope to see you there!

In other festival news my good friend Gabriella Gomez-Mont recently directed a documentary film entitled “El Hombre Que Vivió en un Zapato” or “The Man Who Lived in a Shoe.” The film evocatively dives into the abysses of a true eccentric’s life in Mexico. By turns banal and fantastic it is well worth a viewing by any of you fascinated by the extremes of the human condition. Well, the film got accepted into an international film festival in Mexico, I am not even sure which one, and Gabriella asked me to do the poster for it. So, below, you will find my very first film poster!