Bad Good Not Bad

At the beginning of the year frequent collaborator and friend Lee Lawson asked me to illustrate and art-direct his latest album release cover art. He filled me in on this project that has been in the works since 2012, a video-game-music-sampled beat album, and he wanted me to create something that spoofs the  iconic as the cover art for the US version of the NES classic Mega Man. Like, the first Mega Man, Mega Man 1. I looked at him and asked, Are you sure? Have you seen the original art to the first Mega Man? 

 

That's the one. I actually had a copy of this as a kid.

 He proceeded to egg me on to just do it and see what I came up with. Well, after some sketching and then the adding of color to paper I have to say it wasn't such a bad idea after all. Take a look:

This is gonna go right in the center of the spoofed cover, just the like in the art above. I  intend to match colors and a similar design to hopefully capture the feel of that old box art, one that raises the question Just what in the hell is going on?

Lawson tells me he's in the post-production stages of this project, mixing and mastering, and he said he's gunning for a an Autumn release. You heard it here first! I don't think he's even leaked this to his followers yet. He said he's gunning not only for a digital release, but one on vinyl as well. Imagine a design like this on a 12" sleeve. I'd love to see that! Stay tooned.

Just a Little

 Wrapped up a commission piece for long-time friend Dirk Strangely. He's dropping a new music project soon and as such he's gathered some artist friends to whip up different pieces of art for different songs.
I got assigned the song "I'm a Little Kinky," with the general direction of 'surround the artist with at least 5 different scantly clad women.'

In black and white

and in Color

Dirk is quite the virtuoso with the guitar and comes from a country & rockabilly background in terms of band-leading & performing. Lately he's been venturing into hip-hop territory, inspired by the likes of Kool Keith, Cypress Hill, and Devin the Dude (which i got him into all those 😉) as well more contemporary artists like Lil' Dickie.

His new project is dropping very soon. Hit him up and follow for the latest details and to see all the other stuff he does! https://www.strangelystudios.com/

Insta: @dirk_strangely

LA Noire

So, where have I been all winter? What have I been working on? Have I been hybernating? Maybe...
Actually I was hibernating, on a certain project for a creative colleague of mine. I took the gig, a 50 something page 2-part comic full of mystery and intrigue, crime, passion, and music. I sat, penciled and inked the first 10 pages and then it just sat on my desk for about a year to be honest. I felt terrible for not getting to it sooner as I wrote and penciled other work, mainly mine. But, sometimes some projects take a back seat to others depending on the frame of mind I'm in. This past January however she gave me a deadline and that lit a fire under my ass. So for two months I was finishing the last 20 pages and putting the book together in time to make it in time for the album debut. And behold, the latest helping from Whitney Mower aka Iva Dawn, True Voodoo!

Cover art (no text)

And there's those snips of some favorite pages without giving it all away. So now go listen to the album:

And of course buy the comic HERE!

Token

Missed a month of September post so I'm tossing this in so I don't miss a month. Next month I'll have the Inktober Art blast but for this month I'm just throwing up a birthday photo (Virgos whats up?).

Also taking this post to plug the podcast my boy Lee Lawson has been doing month to month, check out the Shuffelapod, it's dope! He asked me to do the cover art for each episode and he just said do whatever I want, so the art truly is whatever I want and it works.

They're up for download and/or streaming on his site. Really good mix of music to work to or jam out doing whatever, spans all musical genres. If you're a music lover as I am you'll dig it. 

For episode 5 I literally used a pic from the remains of my birthday dinner. Lee said "fuck it, that's dope. The pope in a glass box, dope..." or something.

For the latest episode, 6, I give a shout to my late Grandfather who recently passed away. I like this old photo of him in the driveway with the family car in the 60s. 

Alfonso Perez Sr, circa age 17.

what a month.

The Metroid 2 remake AM2R is my shit. Been on that the last few months. Highly addictive. Highly recommended. But it's taken down, ya gotta scour the internet underbelly to find a copy. Snag 1.1 if you can.

Be sure to peep my upcoming events, details at the top right spot under "Where to Find Me"

I got a table at a sneaker summit last Saturday in October on the TSU Campus, 12pm to 4pm. I'll be next to Van G. Garrett.

and or course I'll be posting up at Zine Fest Houston 2016 with possibly a new zine. We'll see.

And lastly, my old curmudgeon of a coworker finally retired this month. This was his desk. I took this shot right before he took everything down. This is what we looked at everyday. He drew the stuff.

Okay, That covers the September post. Peace!

Join the Club

Hey, 2016 here we are.

And so is this. The latest compilation of comics from Red Stylo entitled The 27 Club, which is about, you guessed it, those infamous poor souls in the Rock-n-Roll pantheon who didn't make it past 27. It's actually quite a few too, a strange coincidental phenomenon. And this compilation features stories inspired by their brief lives and extraordinary careers.
I contributed art to TWO of these stories. The first is a story about a futuristic beauty pageant based on the late bass player of the band Hole, Kristen Pfaff. If you look into her life story you'll find it ends very tragically. For the final art I also did the colors and lettering.

The second story is a "Jim Morrison: Vampire Hunter" type joint. It weaves in something more mythological and explains why his life was cut short.

The book is available in a beautiful hardcover "Rock Hard" edition as well as a regular paperback. You can also order my stories, digitally, separately HERE for Kristen Pfaff and HERE for Jim Morrison.

 

And a big muchas gracias to Enrica Jang, editor at Red Stylo, for tossing me these opportunities.

You bet there's more to come in 2016.

Scooter Nightmare

This whole holiday season, as I lay up on the couch with my boo watching reruns and holiday specials T-Mobile kept running their "Orgy Wonderland" commercial, well, 4G, but everyone agrees that it sounds like OR-G. I'd always laugh, without fail, at the poor little sap elf who barks "scooter" into the smart phone held by the much-taller, young beauty-of-a-spokes-girl, the kind that wouldn't seriously consider going out with this tiny guy in a million years. And here he is donning a cute little pink mustache and matching outfit, selling himself out to a role of an elf until next Christmas, when he'll be in demand again.

Or, maybe I was reading too much into the damn commercial.

Either way I laughed at this little guy. This is what I must have pictured every time I chuckled at his scooter bit. Watch in HD!

Ancient Nugs / Man Down

My man Lee Lawson's web page is currently down, but he recently started a UStream internet broadcast, spinning out all kinds a slowed-down (or not) tunes. It's just starting out but when he gets a regular schedule going you can tune in right here. Click below.

Here's the link: http://ustre.am/F5n7
Bookmark it! If you follow me on Twitta I'll letya know when he jumps on, usually late night. I'll be tooning in!

In Your Eyes or Your Whiskey Bottle

 

Shot just a few days ago at lunch in Washington Square Park. 

Due to some copyright bullshit, YouTube had to block my video in a long list of countries, including the great land of America. But, Vimeo is happy to host my videos when YouTube gets fussy about my song choices. The end of the video features six more videos I made, designed to be made into links via YouTube's annotation system. But, that's moot. You'll have to get to 'em the old-fashioned way.

Subscribe to my channel while yer there:

http://www.youtube.com/user/toonzday

Morph Balls

Really cool music video I did for DJ/Producer Lee Lawson. The beat samples music from the Super Metroid soundtrack. I used shots from the games Metroid: Other M (which animates events in Super Metroid) as well as Super Metroid itself. And it's available in HD.

Landed on a farm with tall, green leafy Trees

You might have caught wind that I was working on an animation project earlier this year. Kept it under wraps for the most part, but because I'm in the market for more animation-related gigs, I compiled this short two and a half minutes of that project showcasing some of the animation techniques I used. It's a kid's program and a lotta fun. The concept is basically a bunch of aliens in the form of question words land on a farm and meet a smart farmer who fills them in on who they are through catchy songs.  Sure, that sounds a lil' weird, but I like weird, and I'm glad I did this project.

The work was commissioned by none other than Houston funk legend Leon Mitchison. He did the music and voice-overs in the above piece, as well as write it. Basically, he just handed me the soundtrack and concepts. Leon Mitchison of Leon Mitchison & the Eastex Freeway Band. Of Mitchitone Records. Of course, I just found this out because I didn't think to Google him at the time. I'm blown away. Check this out. That's him on the sax.

Pop Lockin' Super Sale

NEW Episode of "Dirk Strangely gets Crunk" series, thrown together by yours truly! 

In other news, I'm temporarily relocating to another city for a couple of months and I've made an astounding realization; I have plenty of books, but not enough cash! So, in an effort to transform some of these books into cash I put together a BACK 2 SKOOL sale! Much like the ones that killed our summer mood every August; much like the ones that kill the summer mood of vacationing teachers every August...

Yes! So from now 'til Labor Day you can get ALL 3 of my latest books - Screw Comics #1, Screw Comics #2, & Enchanted by Darkness - plus a 5x7 sketch of your favorite character...ever (go ahead, TRY to stump me), all for $25! That's a $50 value; you know, all the cover prices of the books plus the price of the sketch. Shipping's only $3, for 3 fat books. What a deal! I've only got a handful of Screw #1's left and the Enchanted's are also dwindling so ya gotta ACT NOW or Soon! Ya got until Labor Day!

Tell you what, you can READ some of the stories from Screw Comics on the Facebook page!

If you click LIKE the page you can get reminded of when this sale ends and other cool deals!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Screw-Comics/157347317654799

One more thing:

 

Just laid down a cover design for my boy Lee Lawson's FINAL mixtape Nuts, Bolts, & Screws.

It's a 46 track mash-up of song-blends, remixes, screw-downs, and beat loops. Lots of tidbits of interesting shit, and really interesting shit if yer a chronic-smoking underground hip-hop head. I'm listening to it right now. Not bad! You can get it FREE via torrent HERE. 

I artistically directed LEE LAWSON's website, as well as designed most of his mixtape covers. Peep it HERE.

He even includes some info on how to download torrents. Cool shit, read HERE.

Okay! Get to it!

Wait, it was Friday the 13th?

Holy Fuck! How come nobody reminded me it was Friday the 13th? If they did I woulda totally freaked out and not done anything fun today. But since I had no idea, and my not noticing the date on my phone right by the clock (which serves as my watch, no less!) I had no idea it was a superstitious day! The quintessential of superstitious days. Is there any other superstitious day? But seriously, it's not like I would have freaked out or anything, I'm not superstitious. Hell, I'm not even religious, which it would take a bit of some the latter to fill out the former. But I can't help but thinking if and how I would've treated the day having known otherwise. I probably wouldn't have had much fun. Sheeeit..today, I had lunch on a patio, then went to the the zoo, then went went crate digging at this local vinyl store right there in second ward. Talk about a fun filled day, even with just the zoo alone. If I would have known otherwise perhaps I would have been looking for slip-ups, bad omens or even glitches within the matrix. Although I said I wasn't superstitious, I have to admit it was a bit thrilling fathoming the thought that one misstep on a hairline fracture upon a sidewalk could shatter your mother's spinal column walking to music class in the 3rd grade (Step on a crack and you break yer mother's back). I understood that wouldn't happen but still I had to watch where I stepped just in case. So nowadays, that's exactly what superstitions are to me today; just a reason to party on a certain day because it is a certain day. That and you can make superstitious people uncomfortable by reminding them to be careful of black cats, walking under ladders, and that lil' guy in the red suit with a pitchfork. In other words, it's a day just like any other day. That's what it felt like to me!

UPDATE: At the vinyl store I scored two 45s; a Mudhoney one, and an ultra rare Tad 'Jack Pepsi' single. Unfortunately, it didn't have the cover to it, the one that appropriated the Pespi logo to say 'Tad' that resulted in a lawsuit. Also, ironically enough, this is my 13th post.

Bake to this on repeat.

Spider-Man's Deadliest Foe

Here's my latest music vid. Combining my two favorite things: Spider-man and Nirvana's music. I've been diggin' on Spider-man lately, ever since I got this comic reader installed on my laptop. I hit up a site and made a few downloads and the next thing I knew I was hooked on old back issues of Claremont's X-men, as well as Romita's Sr. Amazing Spider-man. Really digging Romita Sr.'s art. Also with the comic reader I'm able to export pages, allowing me to make snippets of the old school gag ads or  interesting panels. One of which makes for the Toonzday title card at the end of the vid.
What made me want to do this video stems from reading those old Spidey back issues. Peter Parker attends college, gets his own place, gets a motorcycle, and is caught in this flirting triangle with Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson. I've caught myself really rooting for Pete to get some play with either one, even so much as exclaiming out loud "Diss!" after witnessing Peter getting shot down by a hot blonde or a fiery red head. It's the dilemma of Peter Parker; if he could only explain that HE was Spider-man, then that would clear up the flaky behavior, and the illusion that he doesn't care. That's what I like about this song. I think it captures that angsty feeling of being around somebody new, someone you could possibly care about, someone you would love to tell your secret to. The kind of situation where if you pursued her too hard, too fast, or if you revealed too much too soon she would run. That's a lotta too's.

AD in HD

Okay, maybe not HD. Here's my entry to the Stones Throw Video Contest. Footage is old camera phone videos I took long ago (circa 2006-2008) with my trusty Sony Ericsson k750i. Music is J Dilla's "Workinonit" from one of my most favorite albums, Donuts.

J Dilla - Workinonit from Toonz Day on Vimeo.