snakes and ladders

This is an old-time sort of style illustration that Darcy from Top Shelf MF commissioned me to do. The original reference was a snakes and ladders board from England which had a Railroad theme - two children are playing hobo, riding railcarts, falling from tracks and getting misdirected and mugged as they proceed up and down the game board. It's an awefully mature theme for a kid's game, as it seems like an attainable sort of fantasy situation that the children are in; but I guess kids grew up fast during the age of iron and coal.

The theme for this board is 'Always a Raw Deal' - The ladders to all the good things; making out with the girl on the train, relaxing after a long day's work, and cashing in that winning lottery ticket, are broken. Only the bad things; house burning down, getting fired from work, getting mugged, can happen. It's a sad state of affairs for the players in this game.

Fecal Face Group Showpiece, and a word on 'friends'

This is a rather large piece I've painted for a group show (Fecal Face's annual show) at 111 Mina gallery in San Francisco (located at 111 Mina st). The show opens August 2nd. There are 40 artists, and It'll probably be a shit show - like a drunken stumbling people-out-the door party - the show is not actually going to be shit; I think it's going to be very good.

Paranoia Poster

This is a strange one, and you will see it in the Graves zine section of our Fighting website, which will be updated shortly. I think it's supposed to feel old, and a little unnerving, although the rhetorical tongue-in-cheek quality of the text gives the photograph more of a modern, college poster fair sort of flair (if you can call that sort of thing 'flair'). And I guess that's what satisfied me about this piece - that it could act very well as a large glossy poster in a dorm room next to a che poster, a vintage beer add and some other freshman wallpaper that completes the stereotype. This is an altered image, by the way - the shadow man was digitally added to the very dim shot of the hallway in my old apartment. I felt a presence, though, while looking at this photograph of my hall after I'd taken it, if that's any consolation.