Harvey Pekar

October 8, 1939 ––– July 12, 2010

Jay Lynch introduced me to Harvey sometime in the early '90s and suggested we work on a story together. I borrowed Jay's VHS copies of Harvey's appearances on Letterman for reference. We didn't meet in person until at least a year or more after the stories were published. I would fax Harvey the layouts and the inks and then we'd discuss them over the phone. One time Joyce called instead of Harvey and took issue with me for making Harvey look too wild and playing his expressions too broadly. I listened but protested---exaggeration is fundamental to a cartoonist's job. After an exhausting session I hung up in frustration. The phone rang again within seconds---Harvey had been listening in from another room. "Never mind, man. You're doin' just fine." What a guy!

I posted Harvey's story, "Holding On," here,   here, and here.

Sex and Sin and Zen--Oh My!

Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn!

Langorias Reborn

Couldn't resist developing this a bit further. Some of the other Kaiju Comrades pieces are scheduled for upgrades too.

Kaiju Comrades 2

Mark Nagata presents Kaiju Comrades 2 at Design Festa Gallery, East Room #303 Tokyo, Japan from March 12—14, 2010. The opening is only a week away and all my work is finally winging its way over to Harajuku. I'll be sitting this out in Chicago unfortunately. Check out the full lineup of artists and a promo video here and here.

Thanks to Mr. Miyamoto and of course Mr. Nagata for making this all possible! I welcome your feedback on the designs-- I'm ready to start sculpting prototypes of the pieces that generate the most interest.

More Ultra art

As mentioned in the previous post, my first encounter with creating art for Tsuburaya came in 1981. I was creating on spec, the project never went into production, and the originals were lost. It wasn't until 1999 that I was hired by Brad Warner for my first official assignment for Tsuburaya, a "kaiju hell" painting for the Mipcom International Sales Brochure, visible here. From then on, I continued to get the occasional assignment to do licensing art. Below is one such assignment dating from 2002 for Ultraman Dyna.




















Ultraman Dyna vs Demagorg

Monster Attack Team

The long awaited Monster Attack Team no. 8 is coming soon with a feature on the unmade 1981 Tsuburaya Ultraman, Hero from the Stars movie. Here is one of the exclusive images, the first of a series of  designs I made 29 years ago for screenwriter Don Glut.

Dear Mr. Fentency

Our field operatives report that a foothold has been made In our continuing campaign toward global domination. The culture that spawned the famous erotic arts of the Chandela temples of Khajuraho has now welcomed the lowly Hustler and Barely Legal works by your humble correspondent.

A visit to Erotic Art and Fentency unveils a panoply of erotalexia from our salacious and illustratious past. Presented above is one image our Hindi correspondent missed. Enjoy, lotus eaters.