SOI 28

It's no secret that I love Richard Scarry. And when I was asked for a quote for the SOI Original Art Show that I was on the jury for, I gave them this.

And I had no idea that they were honoring Mr. Scarry with an Lifetime Achievement Award!

Getting to see some Original Art from "I'm a Bunny" was like seeing my own Shroud of Turin.

Amazing and delicate brush work! I just want to live inside Busytown, those characters just make me happy, they give me good memories of reading books at my Grandmother's house and also playing with Puzzletown (see pic below) at my cousin's house.

2 years ago I managed to get a couple of these sets off Ebay for Teddy and Oskar, ok I admit and for me too! So much fun but man they are pricey!

SWAMP MUSIC

A piece for the new Oxford American Music Issue. Cleveland Crochet and the Hill-Billy Ramblers. 50's era cajun garage-billy rock and roll. Real swamp music. At first, I was trying to get these guys all in the jaws of a giant croc, but then I thought it would be great to have a band on a Croc/Swamp tour boat. Thanks to Oskar for picking out the orange.
These guys have like two songs but  Sugar Bee was a major regional hit and even cracked the Billboard top 100.

As usual for these kind of assignments, except for some weirdo-obsessive music blogs there are hardly any photographs or other evidence these guys existed. These are the two reference photos I had to work with.

Early promo shot of the band.

The bandleader, Cleveland Crochet.

I'm honestly not usually a fan of Cajun or Zydeco music, the insistent oompah beat grates on me after a while. But this early stuff when rock and country and R & B were a little less defined is very interesting. Think a white Little Richard backed with a lap steel, fiddle and an accordion and you got yourself some Hill Billy Rambling jam.

No Fits Nilson News

Received this comp up of the No Fits, Nilson! cover yesterday. Super excited to see this book come together. Also they asked me to give a story about my inspiration for the book in some form for the marketing team. So I sent this little comparsion chart.

The marketing team thought this was pretty funny and asked me to do a more kid friendly version for the catalogue. So I did this one.

The book won't be out until next June so it will be nice to see the catalogue when it comes out. And in case you aren't a Mighty Boosh fan, the "Jazz Trance" is a reference to this.

FACELIFT

Well...Finally finished updating the new website for zohora.com. If I didn't, the Design Police would come and give me a ticket. Now just waiting for the servers/internets to do their thing and bring it live in the next 24 hours or hopefully less...