Lou Brooks at Drawger.com

Taking Flash to the Edge with Steve

2009-06-11T21:15:39+00:00

How many of us feel that chasing and catching up with Adobe Flash is like running after the Bullet Train you missed? I'll bet it's that darn Action Scripting, isn't it? I'm not pimping Adobe, but this offering from Odopod San Francisco is a great example of The Art of Flash. If you really have to sell tea-flavored water, why not have a ton of fun? I admit that I'm a gamer geezer, but it almost makes me miss advertising! A few of you might think, "Crap! Another nail in the coffin of print," but, lets make some lemonade with those lemons.

Go try a hilarious and ingenious example of hidden persuasion at Steve's Awesomeness Testing Facility.

"Hollywood Art Attack" Alert!

2009-01-28T23:20:44+00:00

Don't miss this one! Not Martin & Lewis, but the original "Artists & Models" (1937), which hasn't been shown on the tube for decades, as far as I know. And it's just never been available on DVD or tape (believe me, I've tried!). But that all changes this coming Sunday, February 1, when it airs on TCM at 2 pm ET. Where else do you get to see Russell Patterson, Peter Arno, McClelland Barclay, Arthur William Brown, Rube Goldberg, John LaGatta and a host of other real illustrators and cartoonists in a Hollywood movie?? A testamonial to the days when illustrators and cartoonists were as celebrated as movie stars. Yep, you heard what I said. Hard to comprehend, huh?

Jack Benny plays an advertising exec trying to hold on to that big account. Meanwhile, the agency's hot but swell model, Ida Lupino, longs to be Queen of the Artists and Models Ball, but... sorry, Ida... it's open to snooty debutantes only! Andre Kostelanetz (long before he brought unto us all that elevator music) plays the orchestra conductor. Always the pinnacle of integrity, Hollywood removed a scene of Louis Armstrong and Martha Raye performing together in order to appease some southern US distributors.

A touch of synchronicity one again: I mentioned this movie to Murray Tinkleman a couple of weeks ago, and he pushed my envy button by saying he owns a 16 mm print of it. Then wham... here it is for all of us to see.

"Hey, Mister... Back Off!"

2009-01-28T22:48:01+00:00

These days, there's a magazine for everybody. Security Management out of Alexandria VA (right up the road from our government) is a magazine offering information and good sound advice on, well, just about every paranoia that you can think of. I recently got to work with AD Roy Comiskey on this month's current "office harassment" cover, and was thrilled to be reminded that there are still art directors that fight for a clean well-designed cover with minimum call outs. Thanks, Roy!

Take This Advice Today!

2009-01-20T01:52:30+00:00

I'm a crumb who barely squeaked through high school ("Lou would do so much better, if he'd just apply himself"), so when Dartmouth University recently called, I pictured them sitting there in their caps and gowns... and it got this Prof. Wagstaff thing going in me, which made me want to start a pie fight.

The cover story for the current issue of Dartmouth University Alumni Magazine features 25 essays of advice from 25 of their top alumni. The roster was pretty impressive, and the advice ranged from a simple little thing like "baking an award-winning cupcake" (bakery owner Norrinda Brown '99); to "nailing a perfect field goal" (NFL place-kicker Nick Lowery '78); to "packing for Everest base camp" (adventure photographer Peter McBride '93); all the way through to "living a more meaningful life and dying happy" (former United Nations assistant secretary-general Kul Gautam '72).

AD Wendy McMillan wanted me to illustrate four of the 25, plus the cover. I felt from our first conversation that both she and her editor had a pie fight or two in them, which prompted me to give it my all. It's wonderful when that happens. It all resulted in me choosing four essays I liked, but applying my own harebrained idea to each very serious essay. There's some synchronicity here also. The alumni board of directors was dropping by for final approval after all was finished, which concerned me a bit. But the alumni editorial director turned out to be James B. Meigs, editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics, and he loved everything I did. Such magazines as PM have inspired me for as long as I can remember to build that plywood roadster in my basement and win the Indy 500 with it. So, in a way, we all had just a great great pie fight and a lot of fun. Here's to Prof. Wagstaff, and thanks to everyone at Dartmouth U.

Run Rudolph Run!

2008-12-20T03:31:05+00:00

Who knows why I've been fascinated by this photo for years and years? The far-gone look in his unfocused eyes. My Uncle Al seeming to give a hearty "amen" to the guy while sitting back there by the door. The very tilt of the room, signifying some sort of Caligari inebriated atmosphere of eery wild abandonment. No matter... it's an excuse for Clare and I to wish all Drawger members and their families -- as well as all Drawger fans -- the happiest of holidays and peace on earth. Mostly, peace on earth (please, Santa). May all your Drawger dreams come true!

Run Rudolph Run

(Chuck Berry)

Out of all the reindeer you know you're the mastermind,
Run, run Rudolph, Randalph's not too far behind,
Run, run Rudolph, Santa's got to make it to town,
Randalph he can hurry, he can take the freeway down,
And away went Rudolph a whizzing like a merry-go-round.

Said Santa to a boy child "What have you been longing for?"
"All I want for Christmas is a Rock and Roll electric guitar"
And away went Rudolph a whizzing like a shooting star.

Run, run Rudolph, Santa's got to make it to town,
Can't you make him hurry, tell him he can take the freeway down.
And away went Rudolph a whizzing like a merry-go-round.

Said Santa to a girl child "What would you like most to get?"
"I want a little baby doll that can cry, scream and wet"
And away went Rudolph a whizzing like a Saber jet.

Run, run Rudolph, run, run Rudolph, a running like a son-of-a-gun.

That #%*?!! Router!

2008-12-17T22:57:20+00:00

Here's an illustration for the current issue of Macworld. I was reeling under a few heavy deadlines at the time of the assignment, but AD Rob Schultz was wonderful in giving me the go-ahead to completely re-do a piece from way back. I never was crazy about ther older piece, but I love this one, and enjoyed the make-over immensely. Once in a blue moon, I guess you can go home again.

"Give 'Em Wet Fur, Davy!"

2008-11-30T05:54:03+00:00

I've never been to San Antonio and I've never been to the Alamo, except when Disney aired "Davy Crockett at the Alamo" as the third installment of the "Davy Crocket: King of the Wild Frontier" trilogy in '55. Friends who have been to the Alamo have always seemed underwhelmed by both it's tiny size and it's location smack in the middle of downtown San Antonio.

Texas Monthly commissioned me to illustrate an article in the November issue about how the sacred ground of Alamo Plaza -- the very spot where most of the bloody fighting took place -- has over recent years deteriorated into a sweat-shirt-and-flip-flops family tourist trap of fast food, video arcades, Haunted Houses, a Tomb Raider 3D ride and other commercial junk. Hey... wait a minute! Isn't that what's happened to every place on the planet??!!

As a footnote: in the final massacre scene in "At the Alamo," Davy's dying loyal sidekick George Russel (Buddy Ebsen) gasps "Give 'em wet fur, Davy!" I was 11, and for some reason, I pictured Davy dipping his cap into the water barrel and slapping the enemy silly with it. Years later, I found out he was saying "Give 'em what for!"

Tura! Tura! Tura!

2008-10-18T22:50:01+00:00

Tura Satana, the amazing bitch queen goddess of Russ Meyer’s 1965 classic “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”, will be appearing live in person at Chicago’s Tattoo Factory Gallery on Thursday, October 30 – the night before Halloween! -- for the opening of the gallery’s group exhibition “Tura! Tura! Tura!.” The show features over 50 artistic tributes to Tura by such artists as Shag, Travis Lampe, David Cowles, Mitch O’Connell, Megan Besmirched, Elizabeth Carroll, Jorge Alderete, Extremo the Clown, Vicious Velvet and... yes, even Yours Lou-ly! You're allowed to miss a lot of things in this world... your spouse's birthday... the suit at the cleaners... even your rich aunt's funeral. But DON'T miss seeing the original trailer to "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!". And a lot more about Tura here.

The evening will include a live performance by burlesque showstoppers “The Flaming Dames,” and DJ Joe Black’s midnight spook show. Part of the proceeds will benefit The Apna Ghar Domestic Violence Shelter and The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Think you can stand even MORE fun? The gallery event takes place in conjunction with a special screening of “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” on Wednesday evening, October 29, at Chicago’s Music Box Theater. Tura will be guest of honor and answer questions from the audience after the screening.

Both events coincide with the finale of The Chicago International Film Festival. At the Festival, cartoon buddy and Zipatone pal Bill Plympton will be showing “Idiots and Angels”, his newest animated feature film.

Tura! Tura! Tura!”” at The Tattoo Factory Gallery, 4443 N. Broadway. Opening reception: Thursday October 30, 7-11 pm.

“Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” one night only, 8 pm, at The Music Box Theater, 3733 N. Southport.

"NowBrow" Show opens in LA

2008-09-18T03:32:49+00:00

Brad Benedict's latest Sideshow gallery extravaganza "NowBrow" moves into town this weekend with an opening artists' reception this Saturday night, September 20, 7-11 pm at Wal-Art Gallery in LA. The show features three of my new paintings shown here, along side the art of 35 other artists, including Dave Calver, Everett Peck, Brian Zick, and long-time friend and former illustrator Miriam Wosk. The show is a joint venture with world-reknown print maker Richard Duardo, and film producer Jamie Beardsley, whose credits include Reservoir Dogs and the upcoming Not Forgotten.

The above painting -- "You Always Were a Lousy Shot, Harry" -- is my first attempt at bringing a dangerous weapon into the process as another art tool. Unfortunately, this one ended up being a sort of failed attempt. To get the entrance holes the right size, various tries at "shooting" my art with large-caliber handguns resulted in basically blowing a lot of expensive maple to unusable smithereens. Which was, in a way, strangely fun. But as time ran out, I ended up using a simple Skilsaw one-inch hole cutter on this one, which I like, because it goes with the precision of the way I work. But ultimately, I also like the idea of a splintered violent intrusion upon the precision of a careful and precious painting.

The remaining two paintings are traditional acrylic on stretched canvas. Wal-Art is located at 1639 South La Cienega Blvd. (between Pico and Venice) in LA. Tel: 310-274-9055.

Eating the Funnies

2008-09-13T01:53:56+00:00

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are." -- Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

I didn't ever get to "study" art. I grew up reading the funny papers, so I still have it somewhere in my head that every artist can draw and write -- even though I know now that some of them can't do either one.

In first grade, we had Mrs. Fleece ("Old Lady Fleece/fell in the grease/help, call the police!"), who tortured us with "Dick is in the garden. Jane is in the garden. Dick and Jane are both in the garden. They are both in the garden together." Further along, Jane says: "Yes. I see Dick in the garden," or something like that. Needed a little Jacqueline Susanne.

She didn't like me because once I crapped in my pants right there at my little weathered oak desk. It was after this large third grader named Mickey Puzzulo had made it clear that the next time he found me alone there in the boys' room, I wasn't going to have to take a shit because he was going to beat it out of me, and he punched me a few times. So, she sent me home for the day, which the rest of the class was grateful for. But I think what really pissed her off was that I already knew how to read by the time I was four, thanks to newspaper comics, so she couldn't really be of much use.

Every day, prostrate as a bhikkhu monk, two whole newspaper pages opened like a prayer scroll before me upon our parlor carpet. Down there within the warm and lovely sunny dust were the fragrance of feet -- of life coming and going. And me tearing off a little perfect triangle of newsprint from the left page corner, like a farmer dipping into his day’s first plug of Red Man. In my mouth the little piece of soft newsprint would get all juicy and pulpy and gray.

And there it would remain while I worked my way down the page, my nose only this far away from those mysterious Ben Day dots. How did they do that? The carefully inked line of Fritzi Ritz. The seemingly reckless brush strokes of Dale Messick. Every artist’s signature it’s own masterpiece. No reason to really rush when you’re four. Have another chaw! And how far from my neighborhood was Dogpatch anyway? I wanted to go there. Could my parents possibly know the Winkles? The Palookas??

I didn’t ever actually swallow the paper wads — okay, okay, maybe just a few. With enough oatmeal, I probably could have wallpapered over half my digestive tract. Old Lady Fleece had somehow gotten the word and took me aside one recess. “You know, there was this boy who ate paper, and died!” She shook me by the shirt on the beat of her words, and with each beat, my face took a blast of what I was to learn years later was Lavoris. “And when they opened him up, you know what they found in his ap-pen-dix? She held her hands around an invisible basketball. A solid rock of newspaper this big!” She really didn’t like me.

It didn’t matter though, because I couldn’t help myself. A child takes in the beauty around him somehow. Eating the funnies was my first addiction, I guess, not counting being breast-fed. My father must have never understood why the page corners were always missing. And tree pulp in those days was probably no harder on you than Grape Nuts. So, on to the right hand page, and The Phantom and The Witchmen of the Oogooru and just one more little triangle before dinner…

“…atop Doom Peak, weird bluish fire glows when the Witchmen gather! ‘Magic Dust – a poison the Witchmen throw – to breathe it means death,’” ponders The Phantom. So sayeth The Ghost Who Walks!

Totally Irresponsible Science

2008-09-09T06:21:51+00:00

Beginning of the summer, Robb Allen at Workman Publishing invited me to illustrate "Totally Irresponsible Science," It's a book crammed with 252 pages of science experiments guaranteed to turn any well-adjusted kid into Victor Frankenstein, and maybe even send a parent or two running for their lives. Sandwich bag bombs, giant air cannons, home-made lightning, backyard volcanoes -- well, you get the idea. A great book for getting kids away from the computer.

Come to think of it, when I was fourteen I would have given absolutely anything to be Victor Frankenstein just for one night! So, as far as I was concerned, it was a perfect match all around, and Robb and editor Raquel Jaramillo were a dream to work with.

Aside from the full-color cover art shown here, I got to tackle all of the inside chapter openers -- quite a challenge for me because I was limited to black and a second color (yellow). So, I found myself suddenly being swept along for the first time through Photoshop's Multichannel mode via the channels palette, which was all very mysterious to me. But deadlines prevailed and I stayed afloat without going over the falls, thank God.

Best part of all, though, was that I got to focus on an experiment of my own choosing for each chapter opener, and then got to take my writing and art as far out there as I wanted to take it. A dream job and, as they say in LA, "way cool!"

Up here in the Northern California hills, I had nothing to do this summer anyway, what with just hanging around feeding the wildlife while CalFire worked at putting out the 2,000 raging forest fires that were threatening to burn the entire state to the ground. So, besides taking my mind off of the constant smoke and red skies at night, the project was a lot of fun. It seems to be all under control now.

Anyway, some of my favorite inside art from the book follows below...

An "Illustrator" Comes Home: Part 1

2008-08-26T02:18:52+00:00

Successful freelance illustrator Larry pays a Christmas visit to his sister Eunice and the rest of her mean-spirited family. It's been five years since they've seen him. To them, "freelance New York artist" really means "unemployed nancy-boy". Having dealt most of my career with my own nightmarish blue-collar family, the episode's hilarity-sadness combo floors me every time.

So, here's a little Christmas in August for you. Dig the details... Eunice's apron, Ed's tie, the curtain angel, even the avocado chair. I saw this the night CBS first aired it back in the '70s, and I swooned. Be sure to catch Part 2, where they give Larry the perfect gift for the "creative sensitive man." Can you guess what it is?

An "Illustrator" Comes Home: Part 2

2008-08-26T02:02:01+00:00

"I have a skylight studio with easels and bottles of ink and pens with their own individual points and everything!!" This is just the beginning of Larry finally losing it. After giving me a wine-making kit during a Christmas visit to my New York loft in '78, my mother finally ran out of gift ideas. From then on, she mailed either a $25, $35, or $50 check each Christmas. Beats me how she calculated this. She used to say: "You're so hard to shop for, Lou-ass. You're so creative!" For some reason, she always pronounced "Louis" as "Lou-ass." My own mother, fer Chrissake. Made my blood run cold at the time, but pretty funny now.

Happy Birthday, ENIAC!

2008-07-29T05:12:51+00:00

On this date -- July 29, 1947 -- the world's first general-purpose electronic computer was booted up at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. Named ENIAC (short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), this sucker weighed in at 30 tons, took up 680 square feet of office space, required over 17,000 vacuum tubes, and contained 5 million hand-soldered joints (wow, smoking just one makes you sleepy, don't it?). It took more than four years and a half-a-million bucks to build ENIAC, and what did we use the thing for? The calculation of artillery firing tables, of course.

So, the next time you find editors or marketing veeps saying, "Hey, we don't need no artist, we can make this picture ourselves!"... raise your iPhones on high and shout: "Thank you, ENIAC!"

"Son of Sinbad": Why Howard Hughes Made Movies

2008-07-08T00:41:40+00:00

I've been waiting over a year for Turner Classic Movies to re-run "Son of Sinbad" (1955) so that I could hand it over to all of you... it's in a bizarre class all its own. A cult movie waiting for its cult (which could be YOU!). So, set your Tivos for tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 8:15 AM sharp on TCM.

In 1948, Howard Hughes bought RKO Pictures for the same reason that Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992... to meet girls. Come to think of it, why does any guy in Hollywood want to be a producer? At least for Howard, it worked out pretty good... he had that thing going with Jane Russell. And he got to achieve a level of creativity that most of us can only imagine, like designing that special bra for Jane to wear in "The Outlaw." Stuff like that.

Although Ted Tetzlaff is credited as director, "Son of Sinbad" has the Hughes touch all over it. He wasn't exactly a Fritz Lang. Imagine smashing Ed Wood together with Hugh Hefner and you got it.

He must have promised a part in the picture to every stripper from Hollywood to Vegas, because they're all in it... all 127 of them (!!). Look fast, and you'll see Kim Novak in possibly her first bit part as "harem girl". And Howard's "bevy of beauties" is headlined by none other than Vegas's own Lili St. Cyr. Why did Howard do this? Because he can.

But the jaw-dropping uniqueness of "Son of Sinbad" is not limited merely to Howard making a casting call to every strip joint in the West (even though he makes an historically accurate statement that the women of ancient Persia used the same bump-and-grind dance style that 20th Century strippers used). No, there's much much more: the casting of TV Western star Dale Robertson as an Oklahoma-drawling Sinbad; an over-lisping Vincent Price as his wisecracking sidekick Omar Khayyam (!!); and the fact that Hughes insisted on spending a fortune cashing in on the 3D craze, not realizing that it had been over for two years. As a result, the film was never released in 3D, although there is a 3D version of the trailer available online. Nonetheless, the 3d "effects" are wacko and many (don't miss the big flaming-trash-can-lids finale). Then there's the blinding garish color. And dialog that's right up there with "Manos: The Hands of Fate."

And keep the Tivo smokin'. After "Son of Sinbad," and all through the day, TCM will be running Disney's greatest non-animated film, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", followed by a couple of great Italian sword & sandal movies: "Hercules, Samson & Ulysses" and "Terror of Rome Against the Son of Hercules". Ray Harryhausen's "Jason and the Argonauts" completes the list. A whole day of strippers AND greased-up guys from the Lido!

Sorry to have posted this so last minute... I just found out about it. If you're unfortunate enough to miss "Son of Sinbad," you can get a taste over at YouTube.

Art Supply Museum Tops '100' Mark!

2008-06-27T00:35:03+00:00

As of today, our modest little Museum proudly boasts a permanent collection of over 100 studio bullpen artifacts... 102, to be exact, and counting! Seems like yesterday that we opened our Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies doors with a mere handful of proportion wheels and ellipse templates. The latest relics come from long-time terrific friend and pop culture aficionado David Burd.

Below are a few of my favorite exhibits along with original comments from each contributor. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to post so many gems on here. Like rust, obsolescence never sleeps, so I'm looking forward to many more!

You and Your Turntable

2008-05-30T05:58:12+00:00

Usually, when someone calls with a dry-tech assignment for an article entitled "You and Your Turntable," I start thinking about whether I should have lunch at the diner or bust open a bag of instant ramen again. But at Sound & Vision Magazine, the editors and AD Jose Trujillo were more than willing to let me change the title into something a lot more jazzy. While traveling the often rain-swept road of our careers, some of us may have noticed that not a lot of editors are keen on the illustrator trashing their ho-hum title for a snappy one. It's like you were caught doodling on the Dead Sea Scrolls. So, I was impressed with Jose and the guys.

I'm not saying I do this every time... but once in a blue moon -- if I think the client can take it -- I'll ask them to turn their souls over to me for a better and happier tomorrow. Mother knows best.

"Moods for Moderns" LA Opening

2008-04-29T01:59:44+00:00

Hard to believe that "Sideshow: Moods for Moderns" at LA's Robert Berman Gallery has ended already. A whole month has gone by! Here are some images of opening night and some faces you may recognize. Some say I was there and some say I wasn't, and most don't seem to give a frog's ass whether I was or not.

Photos courtesy of Mark Weston, Chris Crites, Hi Fructose, and PortugePunk.

Death Draws the Line

2008-04-24T01:45:30+00:00

Every reader of this book must have been thinking, "Now she bends over him in that red cashmere?? A little late for that, isn't it, lady?" Peter Hoey recently turned me on to this exquisite 1949 paperback, which I then promptly ordered from a used book site. When I get around to reading it, I'll let you know who or what killed the poor cluck. An unreasonable editor, probably.

The back cover blurb reads: "Death mysteriously strikes down a top flight cartoonist -- twelve unpublished comic strips disappear -- a nude woman holds a supernatural rendezvous in a dead man's studio... purpose: death for two -- and murder strikes again and again in this exciting mystery which reveals some unusual trade secrets of the men who create newspaper comic strips."

Well, I'd sure like to know about those trade secrets, wouldn't you, Drawgerers? Especially the one about how to get a nude woman to hold a supernatural rendezvous in your studio!

The cover of "Death Draws the Line" was illustrated by paperback artist Harry Barton, but the inside "comic strips" were ghosted by none other than a young Roy Crane, perhaps the most overlooked of all comic strip artists from the Golden Age. Many of the adventure comic and strip artists from back then have pointed to Crane as one of their biggest influences, if not the biggest. Crane created "Wash Tubbs" and "Captain Easy," but was probably best known in the '50s for "Buz Sawyer." For a warm and wonderful tribute to Crane, visit Canadian cartoonist Michael Cho's blog at Michael Cho's Sketchbook.

Jack Iams was a novelist, magazine editor, and TV critic who wrote 13 books, including this one, "Do Not Murder Before Christmas," and "Girl Meets Body." They just don't think up titles like that anymore.

Lawrence Welk Does Sonny Bono

2008-04-18T05:25:13+00:00

My parents missed a lot of things, but I don't think they ever missed The Lawrence Welk Show. They were torn between Welk and Mitch Miller Sing-Alongs. The Sing-Alongs happened consistently at cocktail parties, and I remember falling asleep in my little room many times to the strains of thirty or so suburbanites belting out "Sheee's the sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knewwwwww...!"

But this isn't about Mitch. This is about Lawrence Welk. Excuse me, I mean, Mister Welk!

A Genius Ahead of His Time

2008-04-07T21:16:40+00:00

I've been a nut about Django Reinhardt for quite a while, but I've just recently discovered the amazing Oscar Aleman, shown above in a screen capture from Oscar's video that I've posted here. His talent and ideas preceded the likes of all the Little Richards and Bill Haleys and Elvises of the world by at least 25 years. If you don't believe me, just watch the video below -- but turn the sound up first, and rock it, baby!!

Originally from Northern Argentina, he was an orphaned street performer by age ten after his mother died and his father committed suicide. By the '30s, having discovered American Jazz, he found himself in Paris as bandleader for Josephine Baker and The Baker Boys. Eventually, he formed his own nine-piece band which played nightly at Le Chantilly, across town from where Django played at Le Hot Club de France. He and Reinhardt became good friends, but never got to record together.

Oscar, where have ya been all my life, you beautiful little mind-blowing genius?? If you snoop around the web, you'll find less than a small handful of CDs of this man's incredible guitar playing. He seems to me to be pretty much forgotten.

"Hollywood Art Attack" Alert: Sh! The Octopus

2008-03-28T00:06:03+00:00

I love haunted house movies. "Sh! The Octopus" (1937), one of the truly strangest films to ever come out of Hollywood, airs Friday night, March 28, 1 am ET on Turner Classic Movies. Even though it's sort of about an artist (played by John Eldredge, co-star of "I Married a Monster from Outer Space") who buys a haunted lighthouse with the intention of turning it into his studio, the real "art" here lies more in the actual making of this surreal indescribable one-hour gem.

"Sh! The Octopus" stars Warner Bros. second-bananas Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins. It's unclear as to why producers thought this movie would make them into the next Abbott & Costello. But everything in this movie is unclear. Plots get abandoned as quickly as they're introduced. Even though we're not sure who they are, characters come and go while reciting information that has nothing to do with the movie. Villains have no motives. The "monster" is a rubber octopus running around on "all eights," opening and closing and locking doors. A sea captain with a "hook" for a hand goes criminally berserk whenever he hears a ticking clock. Why? No particular reason. When the same actor carries a swooning woman over to a chair, his rubber hook obviously gets caught between the chair seat and her ass, and the actor has to stay in that position until he can get the hook back on. When the artist asks a logical question about it all (nobody never tells us nuthin', huh?), someone says, "Why don't you just stick to your palette!"

But if you're still reading this, chances are that you're with me... I love this movie! It's so incompetent, yet it moves so fast in its dreamlike stream-of-consciousness absurdity that it becomes irresistible entertainment. Right up there with anything Wood and Fellini have ever done. And Jeezus, that title!!

Hugh Herbert's fairly long career at Warner's, usually as a rich dim-witted skirt-chaser, included his trademark "Woo! Woo!" after every line, and it was eventually the inspiration for the voice of Daffy Duck. Allen Jenkins played a zillion gangsters, taxi drivers and cops, usually supporting the likes of guys like Bogart and Cagney. Later in his career, he was the voice of Officer Dibble on "Top Cat" for Hanna-Barbera.

"Moods for Moderns" at Robert Berman Gallery in LA

2008-03-24T21:00:01+00:00

"Brad Benedict's Sideshow: Moods for Moderns" opens Saturday, April 5th, at The Robert Berman Gallery in LA. The show features 35 artists, including myself and fellow Drawgerers Chris Buzelli and Nate Williams. Here are a few of the paintings I've done for the show. As Ralph Kramden once said, "I am humbled!" that I've been included with such artists as Robert Williams, Colin Christian, Sam Gambino, David Buckingham, and all the rest.

That's Brad on the left, next to my ol' studio partner, Todd Schorr. To tell you everything I'd like to tell you about Brad would take up a few computer monitors. But here, I'll just say that he's often reminded me of a Henry Geldzahler for newer generations. If you picture Geldzahler taking it way beyond art, you have Brad. Never stopping to consider what's art and what isn't, Brad has spent his life thinking nothing of throwing the Mona Lisa together with Russ Meyer.

You can catch a sneak preview of the show at The Robert Berman Gallery web site. The site also features an article about the show in the current issue of Juxtapoz.

Avoiding the "Dry-Tech" Assignment Blues

2008-03-07T00:40:42+00:00

Now and then, I get a call for what I call a "dry-tech" assignment... one that's so technologically dry and boring, the editors scream, "God won't help us... maybe Lou will!" Such was the case when I was recently contacted by AD Jose Trujillo at Sound & Vision Magazine. After a lengthy pleasant chat about the project, Jose was comfortable with letting me at one of my favorite indulgences... The "Ads-in-the-Back-of-Popular-Science" Technique! I just can't seem to get enough of that stuff, and I enjoyed every minute of the project, including my involvement in the design aspects.

The moral of the story, maybe?... When everybody remembers we're supposed to be having F-U-N, the consumer/reader will probably take at least a gander at all those paragraphs concerning the thrill of 4K technology and how it's applied to home entertainment systems.

The full-page feature opener is shown above, and several of the smaller illos. follow.

"Electronic" Invention Spells THE END for Animation Artists!

2008-03-06T04:23:58+00:00

Last week, the motion picture industry demonstrated a new "miracle" innovation that they say will entirely eliminate any need for artists.

Farewell, Polaroid...

2008-02-13T20:53:27+00:00

As reported today on DART: Design Arts Daily, Polaroid has announced that it will end its 60 year-long production of instant film cameras. The company had filed for bankruptcy as far back as 2001. So, next time you old-skool illos. step up to the bar, lift your glasses and perhaps shed a tear for Harvard drop-out inventor Edwin Land and his amazing camera... it served us well!

"Hollywood Art Attack" Alert: Nightfall

2008-01-20T00:47:13+00:00

Get your Tivo's ready and don't miss this one! Seeing Nightfall (1957) should be mandatory required viewing as part of the Drawger Secret Initiation Ritual. And it's on Turner Classic Movies this Wednesday 11:15 AM ET.

I swear to God, in this rarely-seen noir goody, raspy tough guy Aldo Ray plays.... a freelance illustrator on the run! Yes, the same psychotic, brutal, loogy doofus that maimed, killed, machine-gunned and bayoneted his way through Battle Cry, Men in War, The Naked and the Dead, The Green Berets, and all of those other great war movies. Aldo has to run for his life right in the middle of a rush deadline for a big time NY ad agency... and as if that wasn't trouble enough, a couple of really scary bank robbers are convinced that he has their loot, so they try to put his drawing arm through a snow plow blade!!

Prize for the Best Line Ever in an Art Movie: On their first date, when Aldo tries to convince beautiful fashion model Anne Bancroft to pose for him by impressing her over dinner that he's an artist, she fires back with: "What kind... sunsets or soup cans?"

Based on the pulp novel "The Dark Chase" by one of noir fiction's strangest writers, David Goodis.

Poor Aldo's career hit rock-bottom in 1978, when he appeared in the hardcore porn flick, Sweet Savage, with Candy Conners.

Lou's Time Cover Hits the Streets

2008-01-19T02:08:23+00:00

It was last Friday. I was coming down off of two weeks' worth of continuous late nite deadline jag. Just as I put my feet up on the desk, the phone rang and it was Arthur Hochstein himself with a Time cover assignment (hey, I'm beginning to sound like Mickey Spillane here!).

Not only did he easily convince me to take on the assignment, but Arthur's a dream-come-true art director. And best of all, there were no assassinations or nuclear wars this past week, so damn if the thing didn't hit the newsstands this morning! And thanks to Arthur and I being so much on the same wave length, I'm really happy... not only with the way the art looks, but how the whole package looks as a magazine cover. A lot of illustrators like to turn in a picture to a client and that's it. But I enjoy rolling my sleeves up, getting in there, and futzing around with all of the elements and design problems myself. And Arthur and I seemed to just naturally work really well together in that way.

I've done Time covers before, and the same thought always occurs to me at least once while I'm working on one: "Gee, Queen Elizabeth is probably in the Royal Bathroom right now sitting on the Royal Throne looking at my cover." And I bet she was, too. That's BIG TIME, baby!

Too Wise for Love!

2008-01-18T04:50:53+00:00

Yes, Drawger readers... it's time once again to wring our handkerchiefs in anticipation of another freaky deaky True Artistic Romance, torn from the comics of yesteryear -- the ones we weren't supposed to read. In this weepy, we'll find true artistic romance taking place even in the loftiest offices of Manhattan's chi chi publishing empires. Even back in 1945.

Get set, though... in "Too Wise for Love", you won't find any artist in the story until geeky art director Larry Hawes shows up on page seven -- only to get his block knocked off on page nine by Mark Wayne, Edith's jerk-of-a-husband.

"Why, you rat... I've seen better men than you lying dead in foxholes!" says Mark before he knocks most of Larry's teeth out. What kind of office behavior is this, folks? Hey, can you spell L-A-W S-U-I-T, Mark?

Think editors having the final say by totally sinking their meddling teeth into every visual aesthetic of every issue from cover-to-cover until it's ruined is something new?? Think that editors imposing their mediocre artistic taste upon each and every layout was just invented, oh, say... yesterday? Well, Drawgerers, better find a nice sofa and get out some ice and a fresh bottle of Bushmill's... you got quite a tale ahead of you. Enjoy the entire nine pages in Lou's True Artistic Romance Gallery.

On the other hand, if I worked for an editor that dressed like Edith, well... I'd have to think about it.

"Too Wise for Love" originally appeared October 1949 in Vol. 1 No. 1 of Darling Love Comics, and is probably drawn by L.B. Cole, the Edgar G. Ulmer of romance comic book artists.

The Magic of Deal-Making

2008-01-05T00:49:03+00:00

When it comes to big time world finance, better leave me home. To me, a merger is something you do off of the freeway entrance ramp. In spite of this, Larry Gendron, AD for The Deal Magazine, recently asked me to illustrate the strategy of "M & A" (mergers and acquisitions). I said, "All that Wall Street stuff is sort of like a magic trick, isn't it, Larry?" And Larry said, "Perfect, Lou!"... or something like that. Larry seems to always remember that we're supposed to be having fun at this, so he's a delight to work with, and, by the way, is no stranger to either Illoz or Drawger.

When an art store was an ART STORE!

2007-12-29T03:02:04+00:00

Them was the days -- not that long ago -- when you could walk into most any Manhattan art supply store, and find the good funky stuff... like Gary, here, copyright 1967. I think I found him at A.J. Friedman's, next to the clip art sheets.

The back of the package reveals that not only is he educational, but he's also the baby sitter's friend. And a delightful gift for shut-ins. You could also "create new hair styles," an application that pretty much went right by me. But, boy, did Gary get me out of a lot of all-nighter deadline jams. Below is an example, also from the package back, of one of the "1,000 natural poses" that Gary is able to do for you.

Cezanne's Greetings from Lou!

2007-12-25T06:26:32+00:00

Cezanne's Greetings to all my Drawger pals.... and warmest wishes to everybody for a terrific year to come. May all your dreams come true!

Going to the Movies: 2028 AD!

2007-12-20T03:20:25+00:00

TJ Tucker at Texas Monthly always lets me have fun with an assignment. This latest one is for a Christopher Kelly essay on the scary state of current mainstream movie entertainment, and where it might lead us in 20 years.

I admit that for the past five years or so, I haven't watched a movie made more recently than Blaze Starr Goes Nudist (1962). So, titles like Sin City, 300, Beowulf, and Apocalypto (I thought it was a Harry Belafonte version of Apocalypse Now) sent me running to IMdb and YouTube, where I spent a whole afternoon watching trailers and scenes for all the films Kelly mentions. Amidst all of IMdb's 100 plot keywords for Beowulf (eaten alive, burned alive, disembowelment, sliced in two, impalement, crushed head, arm ripped off, stabbed in the throat, stabbed in the eye, burnt face, etc.), my favorite is still "nude fight scene," because that's the one I figure The League of Decency would really really make a fuss over.

I was exhausted by the end of the afternoon, and decided to simply illustrate my take on wholesome family entertainment for your average teenage comic-boy... for which, I think, we don't really have to wait around till 2028, do we?

"We're Living Like CLOWNS!"

2007-12-01T06:43:01+00:00

This next True Artistic Romance from Lou is actually titled "Two Loves Have I". But "We're living like clowns... always joking! Always cloaking our true feelings with a WISECRACK!"... It's just the very tip of the bizarre, sordid and often puzzling dialogue that you will find infests every lovely squalid panel. Heed my warning, Drawger readers, and especially you, Alex Murawski, for "Two Loves Have I" will take you to depths of moral depravity you thought never possible! Read the entire story at Lou's True Artistic Romance Gallery.

Dean rescues Ellen's hat on a windy day, and aggressively puts the moves on her while telling her she's going to have coffee with him immediately. "You're CRAZY, but nice!" she replies. On the way to the coffee shop, he demands a date for that night. "You're a MAD character, but you talked me into it! It's a date!" As the story unfolds, Ellen Thomas will find out just how true her first impressions of Dean were!

"Two Loves Have I" first appeared in Vol. 1 No. 1 of DARLING LOVE, published in 1949 by Close-Up, Inc. Just the publisher's name gives you that uneasy feeling, doesn't it? Close-Up and other second- and third-tier romance books were to comics what Poverty Row movies were to Hollywood.

The naive art and script just knock me over. This one is possibly drawn by L.B. Cole, my favorite comic artist besides Bill Ward, but I'm not certain. I recently read that Cole is Robert Crumb's favorite comic artist of all time. It figures.

"A Heart Must Lie!"

2007-11-28T23:23:38+00:00

How do you tactfully tell the man you love that his art really sucks the old canal water? Apparently by being a mouthy, self-righteous, know-it-all pseudo-intellectual named Tina, that's how!

Let's try to follow the logic here, shall we Drawger readers? Enjoy the entire seven pages in Lou's True Artistic Romance Gallery, and cringe as Michael Adams' hopes and dreams of a life in the world of art are completely destroyed by this manipulating bitch. His rationalization in the final panel will leave you gasping.... and maybe wishing that you too had an uncle in the building business.

Drawn by the inimitable Tony Abruzzo, the king of '50s and '60s romance comic art.

"I CONFESS" Part 2: ReadersVoice.com Interviews Lou

2007-11-05T22:02:13+00:00

Forget the documentary on the dangerous life of David Choe! ReadersVoice.com has posted the second half of Lou's dangerous life for their November issue. Following here is an excerpt from Part 2. Go to Readersvoice.com for "the whole nine yards" (whatever that means).

READERSVOICE: How did you meet cartoonists like Bill Plympton and then come to form Ben Day and the Zipatones?

LOU: After moving to Manhattan in ‘77, it seemed there was some sort of arty soiree at least four or five nights a week. Makes me wonder how we all had time to do the art! I met Bill Plympton at some cartoonist reception -- I don’t remember exactly which one. He was a syndicated political cartoonist at the time for The Soho Weekly News , which doesn’t exist anymore. That same night, coincidentally, I met Harvey Kurtzman for the first time. I was in such awe, he finally had to ask me to let go of his hand. I linked up with Mark Alan Stamaty at some other party. Elwood, I had met through Michael Doret. Skip Johnston, our drummer -- he popped up at some party or another -- and was Lampoon AD at the time. Everybody was always running into everybody.

Bill was having frequent Friday night parties at his Lower East Side apartment. Lots of artists and musicians would show up, and you never knew who else to expect. I remember the late Iris de la Cruz, a founder of P.O.N.Y. (Prostitutes of New York), arriving late one party with her pet ferret, which immediately jumped down the shirt of cartoonist David Chelsea. We all tried to catch the ferret, and it was like we were suddenly in a remake of Willard.

The Zipatones sort of just came out of those parties. I came up with the name: Ben Day and the Zipatones. Three of the women at Bill’s parties could sing like angels, so they became The Zipettes. One of them, Debby Sheward, was married to the lead guitarist from Hall & Oates, so he’d show up at the parties when he wasn’t touring. I wrote a lot of comedy songs about art, and Mark Alan used to do this Elvis impersonation thing in a sort of parallel universe way. Hard to explain.

The first place we performed at was a tiny club called Bond Street. The ceiling was about seven feet high. A real fire trap. We jammed a couple hundred people in there, and it’s a wonder that we all made it out alive. But that was our first performance in public, and we went on from there. We eventually played Irving Plaza to 1,500 people. A big venue for us. The same stage and dressing rooms used by by James Brown, the Dead Kennedys, and many others, as they say.

RV: How did you come to meet Soupy Sales and spend an evening swapping jokes with him? What was he like?

LOU: Film producer Jerry Lieberman and I had become close friends by working on animation projects together over the years. He had been working with Soupy on a television project, and arranged for Clare and I to have dinner with Soupy and his wife, Trudy, at Jerry’s loft in Tribeca. Trudy used to be one of the June Taylor dancers on The Jackie Gleason Show. The whole evening turned into a joke marathon between Soupy and me. I was very leery about going up against a joke king like Soupy, but he just kept egging me on. He was very sweet and kind to us, treated us like we had been his friends for years, and he was simply fall-off-your-chair hilarious. At one point, he chased Clare around the room while doing White Fang. Only Soupy fans will know what that is, and that’s fine. One of the greatest evenings of my life.

"I CONFESS" Part 1: ReadersVoice.com Interviews Lou

2007-10-12T03:29:33+00:00

“I’ve been carrying this around for so long!” sobs Lou. “It feels so good to finally get it off my chest.”

ReadersVoice.com offers monthly interviews that ask what artists, writers, cartoonists, and other misfits are reading -- but interviews can easily go beyond just books. Past interviews include Gary Taxali, Dan Clowes, Kaz, Gary Panter, Yuko Shimizu, Bill Plympton, Jeff Soto, Peter Bagge, and Mark Ryden. According to ReadersVoice guru Simon Sandall, Lou’s is the first to which the site is devoting two entire issues. The second most extensive was with Dr. Demento.

Following is an excerpt from Part 1 in the October issue. Click here to go to ReadersVoice.com for the whole shebang.

Note: The recent site melt down has allowed me to repost this article with several more images.

READERSVOICE: Could you give a bit of a history of your reading, if you can recall, say from when you were 18 on? Any authors or significant titles or waves of books you can remember?

LOU BROOKS: On a recommendation from my fifth-grade teacher, my parents gave me a big old used Remington typewriter, a Roget’s Thesaurus, and a Webster’s Dictionary for Christmas. Great presents! I’d write little stories. “Jules Verne” kind of stuff. Haha! And the teacher would read them to the class. Then, as I hit my teens -- for some reason -- I started doing a lot of shoplifting. My Charles Starkweather/Elvis years. I was pretty good at it, and the easiest things to slip down my pants were paperback books from the drugstore. The trick was always to buy one, but steal three. Mostly science fiction and horror: Bradbury, Del Rey, Sturgeon, Wells, Kornbluth, Bloch, Sangster, writers like that. I think they came mostly out of Forry Ackerman mentioning them in Famous Monsters of Filmland, the greatest magazine of all time.
Occasionally, I’d lift other genres just because I could, like maybe Max Shulman or John Hersey stuff. I remember grabbing Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Peyton Place. I’d just skim to the hot parts. You’re only 15 once.

I also had this aunt -- Aunt Clementine. She was probably the greatest family influence in my life at that time. Her first husband drove a car made out of cement, but that’s another story. I used to live with her off and on for years, mostly summers, whenever my folks got too worn out by me. She lived in a nice little house trailer. Everybody else lived in houses. And she was always bringing me books as far back as I can remember: Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Robinson Crusoe, Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Black Beauty. I was reading before I got to the first grade because of her and newspaper comics. One summer, Aunt Clementine took a job as a ticket taker at the Ringling Bros. freak show. The circus had just moved up in the world from tents to arenas, so they rented out the sideshow for the whole summer to the local amusement park, which was a bicycle ride away. I’d hang out at the freak tent when I wasn’t off riding the roller coaster and bumping cars. Once she took me into the House of Mirrors and convinced me that we were never going to get out!

RV: One bio said that you were totally self-taught. How did you teach yourself to draw and get the smooth lines in your pictures?

LOU: From six until about ten years-old or so, I was a devoted weekly follower of Learn to Draw with Jon Gnagy, the first TV art instruction show. I still have my Jon Gnagy kit. At that time, my parents were also dropping me off at Mrs. Shaefer’s Saturday art classes. She was a very nice gray-haired lady in a big Victorian house. She had us all working in charcoal and pastels, so at the end of each class, we’d be blowing spray fixative with all our might through one of those little mouth atomizers. We’d all be doing it at the same time in the same upstairs room, even in the winter with the windows shut. The high, as I recall, was substantial -- the first buzz I think I ever got until I took up model airplane building.

That was the extent of my “art training.” But my father was a big influence, at least in spite of himself. As a young man in the 1930s, he had his heart set on being a cartoonist. But he met my mother, and they got married and had me, and then he got drafted into the war, blah, blah, blah... and he ended up spending his whole life as a bean counter at a rail car factory. He turned very resentful toward my career and success, which was a problem for me up to the day he died. I couldn’t figure out why he was so pissed off.

I have all of his comic strips and sketchbooks. He was very good and had some good ideas. I can’t imagine what kind of hell it must have been to keep all of that stuff inside himself for an entire lifetime. I think he channeled all of it through me, along with a tremendous amount of emotional angst and self-doubt. Neither of my younger brothers have ever even had a career. One sprays water on parsley at a supermarket. Don’t ask me. My father eventually turned into a bitter, hard-drinking, chain-smoking man. It was like he’d shot himself in the head, only the bullet was taking a few years to get there. But I guess there have always been bitter, hard-drinking, chain-smoking cartoonists also.

So, here was all of this abandoned art paraphernalia lying about the house. An easel that my father had made himself, his plywood drawing board (he had been nailing the Christmas tree stand to it each year), t-squares, bottles of india ink, pens, brushes and so forth. I just started using the stuff. I think my mother felt it was a “creative” way to keep me occupied.

I learned to draw on my own mostly by copying the newspaper comics. Newspapers, comic books and television were really my only reference to any kind of art. The first newspaper character I ever drew was the father in Penny, a comic strip by Harry Haenigsen. He had a way of drawing his characters mostly in bold brush close-up profile, so I found it pretty easy to copy. Then, when ABC started airing Disneyland every Wednesday night and Mickey Mouse Club five afternoons a week, my life was transformed. I started picking up this animation vibe, and made a cardboard sign for my bedroom door that read: “Brooks Studios, Burbank, California.” I made the two “O’s” into eyeballs, something I had seen in one of my father’s sketchbooks....

Joan Crawford Art Gallery

2007-09-10T04:17:31+00:00

Funny, I was watching this Joan Crawford movie, "Queen Bee," one late night last week. It was made during her BITCH years -- around '55, i think -- before she moved on to her final "Straitjacket" and "Trog" period. Being Drawger's number one vintage film addict and historian (along side Mr. Kroninger), I was all over the Net as usual the next morning, reading whatever I could find out about it... and I stumbled upon an amazingly jam-packed web site that features... a Joan Crawford art gallery! It features over 60 images of illustrations, portraits, cartoons, sculpture, and fan art.

To see the entire gallery, as well as the mind-boggling site itself, go to The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia

Good question, Ms. Nancy! Francesc d'Asís Xavier Cugat Mingall de Bru i Deulofeu (also affectionately called "Cugie") was not only a master caricaturist -- as pointed out by the learned Professor Kroninger, and as demonstrated by his breathtaking self portrait on this 1941 record album cover (art directed by Alex Steinweiss) -- but was also genius enough to have sex with Abbe Lane AND Charo in one lifetime! They were #4 and #5 of his five marriages. No wonder he died of heart failure at 90!

The 1000 Journals Project

2007-08-15T02:16:02+00:00

Chronicle Books has published some of my favorite books (and some awful ones too!), but "The 1000 Journals Project" by Someguy is jaw-dropping in its beauty -- both as a book and as an idea. Seven years ago, Someguy created a thousand blank journals out of ordinary 5" x 8" sketchbooks, and began to distribute them around San Francisco. He left them in cafes, bar bathrooms, buses, handed them to friends as well as total strangers, and, well, you get the idea. Each contained instructions inviting participants to contribute something, then pass it along to someone else. Each featured cover art from a varied list of artists, including Drawgerer Gary Taxali.

"When I started this projects," writes Someguy, "I had no idea if the journals would ever return... With each journal I released, there came... a fear that I'd never see it again." But many of them have somehow found their way back to Someguy, after being passed around the world to remote mountain tops, taken on tour with bands, surviving wars, being abandoned at airports, and having even been stolen at gunpoint.

Someguy adds: "I imagine that twenty years from now, there will still be journals floating around, trying to make their way back home."

"The 1000 Journals Project" startlingly mimics the look of one of the real journals (including an authentic cardboard leatherette sketchbook cover), and features 212 pages of carefully chosen actual pages from the journals returned so far. Some surprises are also included: real sewing machine stitching on some pages, as well as follow-up stories from some participants about their journal experience.

The forward is written by Wired magazine guru Kevin Kelly.

Someguy and Chronicle didn't even come close to blowing this deal, and I'm going to pray that there'll be more of 'em!

"Hollywood Art Attack" Alert: The Man in the Net

2007-08-11T05:02:29+00:00

THE MAN IN THE NET (1959) is airing 3 AM early this coming Monday morning August 13 (or late Sunday night, depending on how you look at it) on Turner Classic Movies. The plot involves a nightmare that I'm sure each of us here at Drawger has had over and over again: a commercial artist being chased through the Connecticut suburbs by a blood-thirsty vigilante lynch mob! Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Get ready for one of those "Who the hell slashed my PAINTINGS!" plots. Alan Ladd has left his successful mediocre agency art director job in New York in order to pursue his rural dream of being a successful mediocre "fine" artist in Connecticut (at one point in the film, he wins an award for his paintings of children). But it doesn't take long for his alcoholic nympho wife, Carolyn Jones, to drag him into more and more trouble, until... ?

The great Charles McGraw ("Narrow Margin") plays an artist-o-phobic local sheriff who spends a lot of the movie sneering at Alan's artwork.

Don't look for the campy fun of "Bucket of Blood" in this one. But a tight little noir movie anyway, in spite of Ladd at his wooden midget worst. And, to me, Carolyn was Queen of the Hot Babes back then, even if she did eventually piss me off when she married Aaron Spelling.

Thanks to a reminder today from Stephen Kroninger, my ever-alert pop culture blood brother... here's another Drawgers-Gotta-See-This movie!

Original Design Gangsta

2007-08-11T02:48:16+00:00

Jump start your tired and discouraged little artistic heart with a shot of O.D.G. by illustrator Kyle T. Webster. See more at his web site.

It's a Big-Ah Big-Ah Hunk-Ah Elvis-a-thon!

2007-06-27T00:35:43+00:00

Be a "Flaming Star" and "Follow that Dream" to our ELVIS-A-THON! Originally written and illustrated for Blab! #11.

We're Having a One-Day-Only Year-Long Garden Sale!

2007-06-27T00:29:41+00:00

See Cute Fornicating Ceramic Lawn Elves! Originally written and illustrated for Blab! #12.

Attack of the Giant Buttocks People

2007-06-24T04:44:08+00:00

esus H. Chee-rist! Get that sonofabitch recharged, Doctor Cory,” Colonel Sanders yelled. “That’s the biggest ass I’ve ever seen, and it can definitely cut the cheese!” The night air of the California desert reeked of eggs, and the army-issue M-99 clothes pin that clamped shut the Colonel’s nose made him almost impossible to understand above the flatulence that surrounded us all.

The Colonel had faced the Nazis. He had faced the Commies. He had even faced the hookers that hung out behind the PX in Fort Dix! But the closest he had ever come to facing an ass this ugly was when he once barged in on Mamie Eisenhower changing her underpants after a White House golf tournament. And even that couldn’t prepare him for the waddling mass of flesh that towered over him and his men.

The Pentagon had named me, Doctor Matthew “Crash” Cory, their own Level-1 scientist-in-charge. Leave the fighting to the guys like Sanders. It was '58 and everything was science now. So here I was, dug in, one bunker over from the Colonel — my sensuous but efficient next-in-command and fiancee, Doctor Ginger Baker, by my side. She was indispensable, as far as I was concerned — intelligent, educated, beautiful, sophisticated. And who doesn’t enjoy making love to a woman who leaves her lab coat and stockings on?

Sanders hated Ginger or any woman being anywhere near the business end of a good fight. But Ginger was really the only one in my Special Scientific Personnel Unit that I could trust. I got my way about it, and that was the deal.

“Hurry, Cory!” urged the Colonel. “If it breaks wind at us again, I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it!”

Ginger fed me the payload and trajectory data as I nervously recharged the experimental Atomic Cork Launcher. The cork looked like a rubber bathtub stopper, only about the size of a truck tire. We had greased it up, and goosed it into the Launcher’s breech.

I kept trying to forget the big lousy lugs were trying to fart us into green compost, as they had done to others before us. Just a squeaker or two, and I’m an instant Giacometti. Instead, I strangely found myself wondering what the “H” in “Jesus H. Christ” stood for. Sort of corporate, maybe. Or, at the carpentry shop, was it just “Call me Happy!”?

Another fiery blue ray of methane erupted like a crazy Gene Krupa solo from between the creature’s leviathan cheeks, knocking the Colonel’s helmet completely cockeyed on his head and snapping my awkward scientific train of thought.

“God, I’m swearin’ off pork and beans!” gasped the Colonel.

Lit from below by military floods, the dozen or so hulking creatures on all sides of us were just plain too close. And the one right over us was a lot taller than the fifty or sixty feet most of them seemed to be. Its legs were pretty scrawny for the bulk of flabby wrinkled buttocks that heaved and swayed upon them. Someone in our bunker made reference to Kate Smith's ass on Howdy Doody.

That’s all there was to these monsters, really — two legs and a big ass. Only difference between us and them was that the ass was on backwards, so it faced front. And, except for the two eyes — red and piercing and beady, one on each buttock — that was it. No upper torso at all. You could just about put a hat on one and hang a necktie from it, then it would be Mister Asshole to you, pal.

“Prepare to fire cork!” I ordered.

“Prepare to fire cork!” echoed the gunner, kissing the crucifix that hung from his neck.

“We’ll be serving these mothers up with some Buttocks Helper before you know it, boys,” I yelled, removing the clothespin just long enough to holler and not blow my ear drums out. “Here’s a good case of irregularity from Uncle Sam, you gluteous bastids! Fire cork!”

“Fire cork!”

We all dove for the dirt as the Launcher’s barrel compressed, working up some muscle. It fired and recoiled, sending the cork at rocket speed right up where the sun don’t shine.

“Fire in the hole!” yelled a voice from somewhere. The greasy projectile found its target with enough force to pretty much glue itself there. In the midst of all that uproar and confusion, everything seemed to stop for a few seconds as we all waited.

The creature’s knees buckled. The mighty cheeks of its ass tensed up and its red eyes crossed as they tried to focus upon what had just landed between them. It jumped in the air a few times, shaking the earth for miles around, then reared itself toward the heavens above us, letting loose with a real sheet ripper that sent the cork whistling over us like some UFO from Planet Farto. It bounced along the ground behind us, like a tire that had come off a hundred-mile-an-hour semi. The creature just sort of shook its flabby self off.

“Good Lord! It wasn’t affected by the Launcher at all!” shouted Colonel Sanders. “Just like when we tested it on Kate Smith’s butt!”

The creatures were alarmingly agitated now, clumsily crashing into one another as they came toward us. The Colonel ordered his men to pull back, but I squatted down in the ditch, cursing the still-smoking Launcher. Soldiers ran past me and over me.

“We don’t stand a chance!” the Colonel shouted, letting go a long round from his Thompson.

I was about to yell something to Ginger, when I felt my face being driven deep down into the dead hot sand. I tried to breathe, then felt myself swirling into total blackness.

As I felt consciousness dizzily begin to wash over me, I wondered if hours or days had gone by. For a moment, I imagined I was back at the Hottentot Club in Baltimore, sitting in the front row, holding that popcorn box on my lap, the one with no bottom. The girl in white suspended above the stage seemed to be dancing — or was she struggling? — shouting in my direction, only I could hardly make sense of it.

Some sort of slimy bubbling and gurgling. “Call the plumber,” I thought I mumbled.

Then a deep menacing voice, closer to my face, yet so far away. “So happy to have you with us, Doctor Cory.”

I tried to move my arms, but found myself tightly bound to a chair, my wrists lashed to the arm rests. I squeezed my eyelids open and shut... not the Hottentot... a large dark, room... the girl on the rope still a blur.

I finally managed to talk. “Say, what is this!”

“After five long years, how interesting we meet again, Doctor Cory. Sorry about one of them stepping on you, but it’s hard to get good help these days. Squashed you right into the sand, and just about ruined all my fun. I was surprised I found you alive. Your cretinous Colonel Sanders and his men left you for dead on their way out of there. I gave you an injection, then ‘borrowed’ a jeep to get you back here for the Big Atomic Baptism you so deserve... so soothing!”

As my aching brain sharpened, I suddenly recognized him. We first laid eyes on him back in ‘53 when the government had money to burn on all those A-bomb tests way out here in the big hot nowhere. Back then it was the Fourth of July at least once a week. And we all got to wear those cool goggles.

Crackpots came and went. We were getting them from all over — some from Germany, some from those weird trades our boys would make with the Soviets, and some from right here in the States. From the minute he arrived, he carried on about us taking over the world. There were about a dozen or so other crackpots there who also wanted to take over the world, so we didn’t pay much attention. Frankly, I don’t think he could take the competition. It was a crowded field of crackpots.

Then we found out he wasn’t a doctor of science at all, but a doctor of podiatry. You heard me, pal — podiatry. The government... what can I say? So, we had to let him go. Not much call for a podiatrist way out here. But I do recall him vowing vengeance.

“Good Lord! Doctor Jablomey -- evil podiatrist!”

“I’m afraid it’s Swami Jablomey now, Doctor Cory.”

Haywood Jablomey was crazy. Having that name all through high school will do that to you.

“Look at me,” he commanded. I was forced to stare at a face from hell. He was hardly recognizable — gaunt, satanic, not the demented foot doctor we once knew.

"Look at me! What do you see?” he asked.

I took a long look. "I would say alcohol poisoning."

“No, besides that. I’ll tell you what you see! You see the face of a man forced to wander the desert until the Lord God Almighty led me back here to the very place I started from. The place where you and your kind tempted the treacherous atom five long years ago.”

The battle between Sanders’ men and the creatures sounded a lot closer now. Jablomey raved on, as my clouded, aching, hung-over brain labored to comprehend his tale. He told of returning to the atomic test site long after we had all abandoned it, and finding what he called the Holy Spring — a gurgling, seeping fountain of something that had seemed to uncannily spring up from the dry sands of the California wilderness. Right where we had been detonating that big mushroom in the sky. Nature had made the Spring a restitution for our unholiest of endeavors. And Jablomey its Enforcer.

“I, Swami Haywood Jablomey, but a humble podiatrist, called upon by the Lord to build this temple over the Holy Spring itself. Imagine that! To invite all sinners to sit their tired fat sinful asses down in the therapeutic holy slime and be born again!” As he spoke, he did a little happy dance.

“What is this, one of those hot spring health resorts I’ve read about in those nudist magazines?”

“Really hot, you might say, Dr. Cory... radioactively speaking.”

“But those hideous creatures...”

“You mean those poor thirty-ton overgrown rear ends? Righteous sinners, right off the bus and looking for redemption. ‘Enjoy the soak!’ I told them!” He howled and thrust a simple letterpressed pamphlet at me:

“And Joseph Layeth Down with His Ass...”

Just as You Can Layeth Down with Yours
At Swami’s Holy Hot Spring Resort!

Souls Restored

“This is insane!” I insisted.

Outside, I could hear the shrieking of jets and the rattle of tank tread. It all sounded so close.

“Genesis, chapter six, verse four, Doctor Cory: ‘There were giants in the earth!’” Jablomey announced. “‘Course, I had no idea that when they would be born again, they would look like a walking potato with no pants on. And that they would be so — so large! — let alone so damn clumsy and stupid. Imagine my surprise.”

“And don’t forget ‘hideous.’”

“That too. So, I had to ask myself — what have I ever done with my life anyway? I was never crazy about podiatry in the first place, waiting around for a major breakthrough in corns. Why not take over the world?” He paused. “Not with this bunch, though. I need to introduce some brains into the family, and you two will do. Excellent physical specimens with Ph.D’s coming out of your ears. The Adam and Eve of my new giant race of super heinies! Just a squat in the old bubbling slime with your pants off!”

I forced myself to look down past my Fruit-of-the-Looms toward my argyle-clad ankles and Florsheim wing tips, and realized that besides being tied to a chair, I was missing my tailored blue serge pants.

“Help!” a woman’s voice cried out.

I strained to see the bubbly, churning pit, then looked up. There, tied by rope no more than five meters above the unholy waters was the girl in white.

“Ginger!”

She had shamelessly been stripped down to her bra and underpants — the ones I had given her from the Sears & Roebuck catalog.

“We’ve got to stop those repulsive giant buttocks creatures, Crash!” Ginger cried out. “With them, Swami Haywood Jablomey means to rule the world!”

Jablomey doubled over, laughing. “You expect me to take over the world with them? You must be kidding! They’re the poorest excuses for scary monsters I’ve ever seen — right off the tour bus.”

“What do you expect from a busload of American tourists!” I nervously kidded, stalling for time.

“American tourists?” he laughed. “I’m afraid it’s much worse than that — they’re from Los Angeles!”

As he ranted on, I couldn’t help but notice Ginger as she struggled. Her ample firm breasts strained at the ropes as she arched her back in defiance, twisting this way and that, causing the fabric of her flimsy Sears & Roebuck panties to stretch significantly. I suddenly felt I needed to take a good, long, slow look at her in this situation, so as not to endanger her in any way. This was not a time to rush, and I forced myself for quite a while to watch her try to wriggle from the taut ropes that bound her. “Take your time, Cory!” I kept thinking, over and over.

Good Lord, could it be that a certain stirring in my loins seemed to perhaps be loosening my bonds? Yes, as I squirmed in my chair, my bonds were loosening!

“Crash, be careful!” Ginger screamed, as I sprang from the chair. My fist caught the madman square on the jaw, sending him staggering backward toward the pit. As he fell to the floor, he flashed the cold steel of a .45 automatic. I was on top of him — one hand at his throat, the other grappling for the gun. If one of us was going for a swim, it wasn’t going to be me. He desperately tried to kick and claw his way toward the rope that held Ginger, determined to send her plunging to her fate.

The desert had made him agile and wiry. He landed a good kick to my ribs, sending us both sprawling while the gun spun wildly across the floor toward the pit. We both lunged for it, but I got there first and found myself clamoring to my feet with the gun aimed right between the Swami’s eyes.

“Don’t shoot!” he cried.

“If you’re looking for sympathy, Jablomey, you’ll find it in the dictionary between ‘shit’ and ‘syphilis!’ We’re going to get Doctor Baker down from there, then you’re going out that door with us!”

He laughed crazily. “Nobody’s going through that door,” he said.

“Glad you think so!”

“I’ve got the door mechanism rigged so the whole floor will open up. There’s enough of an ever-expanding radioactive spring under this floor to turn us all into permanent assholes.” He noticed my glance toward poor Ginger. “Including Doctor Baker. So, go right ahead, Doctor Cory — unless you’d rather me do it!” He carefully gestured toward the door.

“Get back, you crazy fool!” I shouted, cocking the automatic. “Don’t be ridiculous! After what you just said, what dim-witted, feebleminded, moronic idiot would ever want to walk through that door?”

Suddenly, there was a heavy noise from the door itself, as if it wanted to explode, as if somebody was trying to break it down.

“No! Stop!” I yelled. Jablomey twirled himself about, laughing even harder than before.

The door crashed into splinters. Colonel Saunders, his Thompson jammed against his thigh, straddled what was left of the frame, rubbing his shoulder. His men piled in behind him.

“We finally got those big-assed motherfuckers under control. A little air power was all we needed,” he said, spitting the last half inch of his live stogie to the floor. “Looks like you need some help in here. In the name of Nebraska, what the--!”

The floor began to shift and rumble, as if someone was slowly pulling a carpet out from under us. The entire room started to cave toward the pit in the center, and we all braced ourselves, struggling against our grisly destiny. I watched in horror as several of the Colonel’s men were sucked screaming into the angry pit. As Jablomey’s eyes burned into mine, he clutched at passing furniture. Then he was gone, swallowed up by the steaming green water.

More soldiers poured through what once was the door, sweeping Sanders along with them while his Thompson fired wildly into the air. The pit must have them, and it swished them around like a toilet at a Bavarian knockwurst bakeoff — faster and faster, widening its spinning quagmire every second.

“God help us!” Sanders cried out, as he went under for the last time.

As the water kept rising, Ginger’s rope seemed to slowly lower her like a fishing worm. There was no time left. The building was coming down all around us. I hurled myself toward the pit, leaping the whirling abyss onto the rope that held her.

“Hold on, I’ll try to get you untied and see if we can climb up to the top!” I hollered, although our faces were inches apart. The rope began to stretch.

“It can’t hold the two of us, Crash!” she screamed.

“Sure it can! don’t panic!” I yelled back.

Then the rope snapped, sending us both down into the oozing maelstrom.

It was a crisp sunny spring morning in the sleepy little California desert town of Vista Nada. Out on the front porch of our modest ranch-style house, my wife, Ginger, gave me the customary peck on the cheek — always the right one for luck.

“Have a wonderful day at the office, dear,” she smiled. “I’ll have dinner ready for you when you get back.”

I patted the kids on top of where their heads should have been. Soon it would be summer — time for vacation and Little League. Gee whiz, they were getting big now. It seemed like not that long ago that they were only twenty-five feet high at the most. I used to mark it on the kitchen door frame. Now, Bud and Kathy seemed almost as tall as their mother. I chuckled to myself. How quickly they grow up. It wouldn’t be long before Bud would be the big butt of the family, I guess.

“Good morning, Colonel,” I beamed, as Colonel Sanders wobbled down from his two-story colonial across the street to meet me at the curb. “Ready to take over the world today?”

“I’m game if you are, Doctor Cory. Looks like it’s going to be a pretty nice day. What say we walk to work?”

“Sounds great,” I replied, as we were joined by our fellow buttocks people. Conversation was light-hearted and cheerful that day. Life was good. We rocked slowly side to side as we walked up the street — like walking potatoes with no pants.

"Shore 'Nuff": Best Texas Beaches

2007-05-21T06:23:35+00:00

My recent Texas Monthly assignment for the "Best Texas Beaches" summer issue gave me the perfect reason to assimilate a whole bunch of girly travel decals. Even this opener of the map seems as if you should apply it to the window of your Airstream.

See all seven Texas beach "decals" at my Hot Off the Drawging Board gallery.

My Funny Sketchbook

2007-05-21T05:12:19+00:00

In bed at end of day, something like one or two in the morning... when my brain slides over to give my spirit some room... that's when I often draw in my sketchbook or write in one of my notebooks until something really sends me into hysterical laughter, or I just fall asleep. I figure it's better, than drawing or writing in the bathroom (like some artists do), where if either of those things happen, you could hurt yourself.

In the case of the sketchbooks, I've never planned on anyone else ever seeing this stuff. A lot of it seems to me as if someone else did it. A bit of Enos in there somewhere. The hand just moves, and eventually the little character will say something to me, which is most times unexpected. I write in what they say, using that odd and very bad printing. It's for my own amusement, really.

See more at My Funny Sketchbook gallery

Lou's Strange Hair Net Collection

2007-04-17T22:53:14+00:00

Hold on, these hair nets have a story to tell. In New York City, both of the buildings that I lived in had a notoriety of sordid depraved sex. Like most buildings in New York, only more so. My first was a top-floor illegal loft at 26th and Lex , a neighborhood that was called by some at the time "The Illustrators' Ghetto." In just a couple of blocks, you could hit an illustrator with a stick (and I heard that people used to do that). Jim McMullan, Doug Johnson, Michael Doret, Doug Taylor, Elwood Smith, Marvin Mattelson, Todd Schorr, Kenny Knietel -- lots of them. Izzy's Messenger Service was kept hopping 'round the clock. Turns out that my loft had been Charlie White's famous Fluid Drive Studios, where '70s chrome-and-palm-tree air brush art was pretty much invented. The wooden floor was mostly Dr. Martin's cerulean blue and magenta.

What a crazy house that building was. When Graphis did an article about Fluid Drive, they called the piece "Life Above the Secret Life," because the floor below was The Secret Life Massage Parlor that Gay Talese wrote about in "Thy Neighbor's Wife." Our bathroom was in the hallway, and hookers were always hanging around the stairs. We got to know some of them pretty well. A few times, nice little businessmen from the burbs asked us if Clare was available, but we said she wasn't. A couple of years later, the chef from the expensive restaurant next door was tied up in his own neckties, murdered, and dumped on the skylight right over our bed.

Our second loft was a Hell's Kitchen co-op on West 55th. But before it was a co-op, it was a six-story big time pornographic film studio until a TV news expose' caused it to be busted. So, there we were. The basement was a maze of editing machines and film production rooms, and in one dark room way up under the sidewalk, there was this pile of "stuff." All of my neighbors in the building were, oh, let's just say: grown-ups. People that worked at banks, or law offices, or Exxon. They just never wanted to play.

But I thought "There has to be good stuff down there!" I did find one box of 8 mm porn reels. A small box of unmentionable props. Another box of fairly boring ladies' underwear. And one more box that was filled with... with... hair nets. Many made from human hair. Different brands, different vintages, each in its pristine package, each a chapter in the history of hair net art.

I've never been able to figure out what the connection was between folks like John Holmes and Linda Lovelace and these hair nets. Years later, when I watched "Boogie Nights," I didn't hear one mention of hair nets. I love that they remain a mystery, and I'll always love the graphic beauty of the little envelopes.

See the entire collection at Lou's Strange Hair Net Collection gallery.

Step-by-Step Journalism Assignment

2007-04-15T00:51:06+00:00

Milton Glaser assigned me this one, and I thought I'd share some of the process with my Drawger brothers and sisters. The project is a large newspaper-sized ad for the School of Journalism at Stonybrook University. The campaign is designed to convey how the school teaches "good old hard-nosed reporting in a newsroom of the future" -- to quote from the ad copy.

The first ad used a painting of a 1930s reporter that Jim McMullen had done originally for the Broadway show, "The Front Page." The client felt that the next ad should show a female reporter of the same "classic" sort. They liked Milton's suggestion of a Lois Lane-type, and we were on our way.

My first concern was not getting sued by DC Comics, so from the get-go, I worked up someone who would have the tenacity and old-fashioned "nose-for-news" of a Lois Lane reporter, but without looking like her. Milton, Designer Deborah Adler, and I also agreed that the art should seem lifted right off the page of an old comic book.

Milton quickly emailed me a PDF of a thumbnail rough along with the first Jim McMullen ad to show art and copy position.

In the layout, there was hardly any wiggle room at all to change the reporter's pose. So, I first shot a few studies of Clare to get the posturing just so. You can catch a glimpse here of a constantly disheveled unglamorous studio in the background, including some Bob & Ray tape cassettes. We've moved so many times, corrugated cardboard is my life.

All of my sketches are pretty tight ones. I just can't seem to help it... something to do with the absence of any communication at all in our family when I was growing up, and my subsequent lifelong frustration with being clearly understood. Also, I avoid throwing a lot of different thumbnail ideas at a client, such as many illustrators seem to do. I've been burned too many times by clients picking the weakest and worst idea.

I had intended the art to look like it had been "stolen" right out of an old comic book. So, instead of inking a slick black line, I cleaned up the pencil drawing just enough in Photoshop, which turned out to take longer than inking would have. But I'm happy I did it.

The final art at the top of this article shows all of the parts Photoshopped into place, although a lot of the individual elements were beaten with chains, backed over by my pick-up truck, then given briefly to our relentless cats. Which element got what done to it is still my secret.

The Perpetual Cow

2007-04-14T23:05:56+00:00

Texas Monthly is one of my favorite regular clients. T.J. Tucker and Rachel Wyatt give me lots of room to often expand plain illustration assignments into a wacky multi-layered universe. Such was the case with the already-routine subject of animal cloning for their latest issue. I thought: "Hey, wait a minute... , if you do this right, you should still have a cow left at the end of this scientific process!"

"Hollywood Art Attack" Alert!

2007-04-04T00:43:14+00:00

"Bucket of Blood" (1959) is an amazing film that Roger Corman made in five days, and is way high on my list of "Drawgerers-gotta-see-this" movies. And guess what, Brothers and Sisters?? It's being shown THIS FRIDAY NITE (April 6, 2 am Eastern) on Turner Classic Movies. Crisp, intact and letterboxed. If some suit at Time Warner ever screws around with TCM, I'm throwing my TV away, swear to God.

In "Bucket of Blood," beatnik sculptor Walter Paisley resorts to murder to perpetuate his success as Greenwich Village's newest bohemian darling. Plenty of hipster "jive" with poetry 'n' bongos flying all over the goddamn place! With Burt Convy in one of his earliest bit parts as "Lou." A favorite line: "Life is an obscure hobo, bumming a ride on the omnibus of art."

"Hollywood Art Attack" is a section of my own web site devoted to fun oddball films about artists... people just like you and me! So, "Agony and the Ecstasy" need not apply. Whenever an "Art Attack" gem is going to be aired, I shall beam the Drawger Signal over Gotham for all to see.

A Picture For Randy

2007-04-01T02:49:33+00:00

Mr. Randall Enos openly admits right on his web site -- in plain sight for all to see -- that he's had a secret crush on my wife, Clare. If you don't believe me, go and see for yourself. There it is, right on his "Links" page. He doesn't mention a crush on Elwood's wife or Gary Baseman's wife... he specifically says that it's on Lou's wife. I'm sure this would hold up in any court of law.

Actually, a lot of guys have had a crush on Clare, and a few women, too. Hey, to be honest, I've got a crush on Clare! But, truth be told, Clare and I have always had a crush on Randy. We both love him. Or, as Woody Allen said in "Annie Hall," we don't just love him... we LORVE him.

So, this photo of Clare is for you, Randy. This was taken outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art when she was a dancer with New York City Opera. In the ballet world, she was known for her jumping, so if I mention the year, she might hurt me. She can kick as hard as any blue-ribbon mule.

More Clare imagery -- from the strange to the beautiful -- coming soon at Lou's My Girl gallery.

Movies by Lou: Now Playing: Louie-ville!

2007-03-31T00:58:01+00:00

It's the opening Flash animation to Louie-ville.com, and the last remaining movie I have to show for now. But the others were so well received here in Drawger-ville, I thought I'd give this one a go, too. Grab some of those goldfish things and a couple of quarts of Wild Turkey from our family snack counter, then turn up the volume and click here! Mr. Happy recommends it.

Girly Cards from Hell!

2007-03-22T22:37:34+00:00

This is one of several playing cards I wrote and created for Blab! Magazine a couple of issues ago. The cards are so perfectly sordid, I could cry from satisfaction!

Be sure to see Carlotta and her friends: Sara Ann Rapp (The See-Thru Girl), Helena Handbasket (Take a Gawk on the Wild Side), Dory Ann Gray (She Drove Oscar Wild), and finally, Reginald... who finds out that mere champagne cannot buy a woman's love. All in my "Girly Cards from Hell" Gallery.

And leave it to a dame like Carlotta to spoil a Royal Flush!

"Girly Cards from Hell" Gallery

Movies by Lou: Selected Short: "Same Dream as Before"

2007-03-17T03:48:48+00:00

Click here to see "Same Dream as Before" on our large screen. I called up Marshall McLuhan about the meaning of this film, but found out he was dead.

"So arty, you're gonna think you STEPPED in it!" -- Some idiot

Movies by Lou: Special Added Attraction: The Artist Mesmerizer!

2007-03-16T21:49:35+00:00

Drawgerers... Tired? Tense? Pissed off? Nerves a-jangle from drawging all night for an ungrateful client?? The Artist Mesmerizer actually sends soothing alpha waves right from your computer screen to your brain. Millions of Artist Mesmerizers are already in use in the Far East , Senegal and Connecticut!

Click here to feel fresh and creative once again!

"Better than Kubrick's landing on Jupiter!" -- Some idiot

Movies by Lou: Now Playing: "Art for Art's Sake!"

2007-03-16T03:43:30+00:00

Click here to see "Art for Art's Sake!" on our new large screen. Turn the sound up... Art for Art's Sake!" is made possible through a generous grant from Madam Mimi's Beret Grease.

Movies by Lou: Now Playing: "Kiss My Ass!"

2007-03-16T02:57:59+00:00

Click here to see "Kiss My Ass!" on our new large screen. Turn the sound up... wrapper rustling, popcorn box sailing, and constantly kicking the seat back of the person in front of you is encouraged.

Hot Off Off the Drawging Board: Taxibus

2007-03-15T23:30:38+00:00

As I sit here allowing the rippling waves of Al Anthony's "Ebb Tide" to pass over me, I am reflecting back upon the fuzzy wonderfulness of the past week and various things that I have done. One is this illo. here that I finished late last night for Plenty Magazine (a detail follows). Another is my willingness to be seduced forever and ever into the welcoming clutches of Drawger's salon, where no one really ever seems to tire of giving and getting inspiration. You're a regular Gertrude Stein, Zimm!

Everybody Loves Randy

2007-03-13T01:58:50+00:00

Has anybody ever had a bad thing to say about Randy Enos? Well, there was that ONE time he and I were at Peepland, but I don't believe Randy wears that stuff anymore.

Needless to say, everybody here at Drawger loves Randall, but I probably have you all beat. I've been crazy about the guy going way back to the '70s. I would basically buy The National Lampoon back then just to get my monthly fix of "Chicken Gutz." This guy Enos had to be nuts. Huge influence on my funny bone to this day. I even tried to draw like him for quite some time. The doctor said I had Enositis.

I was just starting out, and I somehow got ballsy enough to send him a fan letter which explained all of this as best I could, along with a bunch of xeroxes of my stuff. This was in '76, when I was experiencing this depression and inferiority that only living in Philadelphia during The Bicentennial can give you. To this day, if I see any man dressed up as Ben Franklin, I run over and beat the crap out of him. I can't help it.

But this here amazing drawgering is what he sent back to me at the time. Among other things, this lovely original piece of art was pivotal encouragement for me to get the hell out of Philly, Jake -- which I did the next year.

Suddenly, I was doing stuff for the Lampoon too, and Randy and I met at the big Village Gate cast party for Animal House, and we went crazy together along with everybody else there, while Joey Dee and the Starlighters played the whole night long. And we've been great friends ever since.

I don't quite understand how it works, but he's been able ever since to send me to the floor in fits of laughter just by looking at me. One of those guys. You only get a couple of them in your life, if you're lucky. My two, coincidentally, both came from the Lampoon... Randy and B.K. Taylor (remember "The Appletons?"). They could both send me to the ER to get the grin off of my face.

Go Left, Young Man!

2007-03-12T22:08:36+00:00

Now and then, I'm even going to post some of my ART on here, by George.

Along with other east-to-west transplanted illustrators, I was recently invited by Joe Kimberling and Rhonda Rubenstein to contribute my interpretation of a Left Coast beer coaster to the premiere West Coast issue of the Society of Publication Designers newsletter. We were allowed to do anything we wanted, so I threw in my own copy and headline, which I always love to have a crack at.

Ever since my very first visit to LA, I've always had a fondness in my heart for the LaBrea Tar Pits. There, dying a slow death in the pit among the mastodons and saber-toothed tigers, was a Ralph's shopping cart.

Y' know, Gary T., I could get me one of them there GOCCO printers and print me up some real coasters! Hmmm.

My First Paying Job

2007-03-10T08:51:01+00:00

The Junior Reporter Club letterhead alone is worth it, am I right? I still have my "press" card someplace. To be honest, I have little recollection of the actual coloring experience, except that it was near impossible to get anything going with a set of those hard Mongol pencils on cheap newsprint. Back in 1959, I'd shoplifted a ton of art supplies from our Levittown art supply store (mostly just a paint store), but I just hadn't discovered Prismacolors yet. I guess they didn't carry them.

Still, I won the sucker. Twenty-five bucks. I forget what I spent it on. Nothing in particular. I pretty much shoplifted a lot of the cool stuff I wanted, which made it even cooler. My room was just crammed with 45s and paperbacks.

Welcome to My World... Won't You Come On In?

2007-03-10T07:06:05+00:00

Welcome to my world. Won't you come on in? You know... the Eddie Arnold song?. Same guy who sang "Make the World Go Away." It seemed appropriate and clever for my first ever Drawger post. Not "Make the World Go Away," I mean the other one. At first, I was going to call it "Lou is in the House (and He's Come to Measure the Drapes), but I thought it would come off like I was trying to be funny or sumthin'. No matter.

Anyway, here I finally am on Drawger... home at last, HOME AT LAST, and feeling a lot like Miss Mary Ann and her Romper Room Magic Mirror. From here I can see Zimm and Nancy and Elwood and Bob and Randy and David and Edel and Laura! Oh, and there's Gary and Zina and J.D. and Susan and Joe and Frederico and Tim and Mark and Christian and Noah and Steve and...in fact, right now, I can see one of you scratching your... but it 's okay for artists to do that, so I'm told.

It's really quite an honor and distinction to be included in such a coterie of amazing arteests such as this. An illustrious distinction, you might say. During my New York City daze, I'd find myself at such a stellar gathering in some dim firetrap of a loft or another (and the renovation was only ever HALF done), and think, "God, if anything happens here, there are gonna be an awful lot of blank magazine pages on Monday morning!"

So, here we all are now at this moment, spread out all over the wide wide world of art. So much talent here, that it's hard to comprehend... SCARY, huh? It is to me. But we're all over the place, so let 'em crash down the house -- what the hell. A bunch of us will make our deadlines anyway, and there will hardly be ANY blank pages on Monday. Maybe none at all.

Miss Mary Ann used to say, "Do be a Don't Bee," or "Don't be a Do Bee"... or sumthin' like that.