It appears that there is a mural  hung outside the Threadless offices that includes my Dead Shred design, I feel so honored! It Makes me want to fly out there just to see it, but it’s way to cold in Chicago! Thanks to Cole Blotcky and his awesome mustache for the heads up! Hey Threadless, how about letting me design a Select shirt!
Here is the video of it being painted!
Saturday morning was a HUGE event for me when I was, as I am sure it was for most of you reading this. I was practically raised by the television and would always hate when my mom would tell me to turn it off and go do something else. TV, and more specifically, cartoons are one of the main contributing factors on how I turned out the way I am today.
Saturday mornings were a big event, I would wake up extra early just so I could watch as many cartoons as humanly possible. It would be 6am, sometimes 5am if there was something I really liked watching. Now, I can’t even get myself out of bed at 10am. Anyways, I am getting sidetracked, back to the point…Saturday morning was a big event, not only for the cartoons that I watched, but I actually enjoyed everything about the cartoon blocks. This includes the bumpers and the commercials. For some reason I didn’t mind when a cartoon went to a commercial break, because the bumpers and commercials where almost as entertaining as the show. It’s something that is lost on me today, when I watch these old shows on DVD. Sure I get to watch the shows, the the whole “Saturday Morning” feeling is lost, and I think it has to do with the bumpers and commercials creating an awesome experience as a whole.
Well, tonight I ventured on to YouTube to try and find some of these things, and I just wasted a few hours of my life doing so. But with that wasted time, I have decided to a new feature to my blog (similar to my favorite shows, inspirations, etc.). The first round of Saturday morning bumpers and commercials comes from the main station I watched when I was growing up…Fox Kids.
These commercials are from 1994, so that would put me at about 8 years old, at my prime for cartoon watching. The first commercial is for a Stretch Armstrong, actually one of the villains called Vac-Man. I always wanted a Stretch Armstrong when I was a kid, but never got one. I remember seeing these Vac-Man commercials and it made me want him and Stretch Armstrong even more, but like I said, it never happened. It’s one of those kids of toys, and we all have these, that always eluded me as a kid.
The Next commercial is for the action figures from the movie Stargate. i don’t quite remember the toys, but man did I enjoy the movie. Watching this commercial makes me wish I had the toys though, because they look awesome! The commercial after that is for some weird light toy from Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon always came out with the strangest toys, and while I do remember this toy, I never had it. I think it might have seemed boring to me, I needed a cartoon or something to get me interested in the toys.
The commercial after that seems to be a promo that is promoting the very first episode of Spider-Man. I am sure I heard of Spider-Man through comics, but knowing that it was going to be an animated show surely made me incredibly excited. I can remember this show being really well animated and the storries were awesome. I have recently watched some episodes from this show and it surprisingly still holds up today and I would call it one of the best animated shows around that time, and the best animated Spider-Man show for sure.
Next is a promo for the Taz-Mania show, which I loved. After that is a Fox Kids bumper that dealt with this super hero guy. I loved these things, and there were well done in my opinion. There are tons of these bumpers that involved this super hero guy throughout the years, and I have fond memories of them. They always placed this Superman type character into funny or every day situations. After that there is a promo for the Fox Kids TV Takeover. I think they had one of these every year, and I believe the viewers got to vote on what shows aired…I think?
Skipping over the Aladdin promo (that was shown on a different station for me), we have a Thunder Strike commercial. This was another one of those toys that I always wanted but never had. It was like a NERF gun but essentially shot ping-pong balls. Skipping over the Topsytail commercial (c’mon, that stuff is for my sister) we have a Cookie Crisp commercial. This is how the commercial should be, not some strange wolf like they have today. No, I want cops and robbers. After that we have one of the many amazing Chuck-E-Cheeses commercials that I saw when I was a kid. This was when that restaurant was at it’s prime, I had a couple birthdays there.
Skipping over Black Beauty we have another awesome superhero bumper followed by a Burger King Kids club commercial. This was the time that Kid Vid and all of his friends were a big part of the Burger King marketing. It’s no secret that I love Kid Vid (I did a shirt for Pyknic and Farewell, you can see it here) Then we have an awesome arcade set commercial followed by a The Tick promo. Then we have a Totally for Kids little commercial. I always hated these things because I knew they were trying to teach me a lesson, so I am just gonna skip over that. Then we have an X-Men promo (another favorite). Then a couple more commercials at the end, one dealing with the awesome Power Rangers.
Oh yeah, there is more! haha! Here we start out with an awesome McDonald’s commercial. McDonald’s was huge, and I think a big part was their commercials, I loved these characters so much. They even advertise the awesome Halloween pails that I am sure all of us had at some point. Then we have an awesome Fruit Loops commercial, featuring Toucan Sam, followed by a Carmen Sandiego and Animaniacs promo.
After that there is a Batman action figure commercial. Any toy that they showed me on TV I wanted. I think I still have one of these toys in storage somewhere. Lets go ahead and skip the Barbie commercial and Bonkers commercial (Bonkers wasn’t on Fox for me), and talk about the Trix commercial. Just another Trix commercial where the rabbit gets to close to getting a bowl of cereal, only to be denied at the end, silly rabbit! After that we have Pop-Tarts commercial, and I swear to you I know every lyric to the theme song, I just sang along to it.
Then there is a promo for King Arthur and the Knights of Justice and Battletoads. Both of these shows were on Sunday for me, I think during the time we went to church. I would fake sleeping in or being sick just so I could stay home and watch these shows, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. After that there is a Lickin’ Lizards commercial, and I remember seeing commercials for this game, never had it thought, looks fun! After that is a Simpsons promo and an Erector Jr commercial, I always had the real Erector set.
These commercials are from 1996, so that would put me at 10 years old…still young enough to watch cartoons. First we have a Fox Kids promo with this guy that falls in the trash. I remember this guy, he was always getting himself into weird situations and would always be followed by his mother saying “Will Be” which I am sure his name was Willbe, and then he would reply “Right Back!” After that, there is a Dannon Sprinklin’s commercial. I loved this yogurt as a kid, everybody knows that when you add sprinkles to anything, it automatically makes it awesome.
Then we have one of the most classic cereal commercials ever. It was like it was World War 3 if you ever ran out of Corn Pops, why would you ever want All Bran. I have a box of Corn Pops in my pantry right now…I gotta have my Pops. After that, there is a SEGA and Fox Kids contest promo. This is what made watching saturday morning cartoons all worth it, the chance to win some cool and free shit! After that, there is a Wonder Wold commercial, this stuff blew my mind as a kid, I always wanted one, but of course, never got one (a running theme). Then there is another awesome Fruit Loops commercial.
After that is a Casper promo. This was about the time the movie came out (I loved it by the way), so of course they needed a cartoon to go along with it, and of course I watched it. After that is another Trix commercial, sorry rabbit! Skipping over the Barbie commercial. After that we have another fox promo, this time the kid managed to get his head stuck in the ceiling. After that is another promo, with this little red head lady. This lady was awesome too, always trying to figure out how to get rid of that pesky fly.
Then there is a Cap’n Crunch commercial. Of course, Cap’n Crunch was always a staple in my house (my Dad loved it, so me and my sister got to reap that reward). And then after that was a classic Wendy’s Kids meal commercial. Flying through the food, I always loved this commercial, and even though the toys weren’t as cool as happy meals, they were still interesting. Skipping over the Scrunch and Wear commercial, we finish with more Fox Kids promos.
Now I could probably go on and on like this all night, but I guess I have to try and find time to sleep, so I’ll end there. This was just a small peek into my mind, and my childhood. I plan on continuing on with this series in the future with different stations, and I am exciting to see what I can find. Until then…
As my relationship with Ruckus Apparel grows, the more freedom they let me have. And with that relationship, the more it makes me want to do much better designs for them. In the past we were able to do some pretty fun and color designs, some of them based off of childhood nostalgia and other fun things. This time around it was a bit different, Josh gave me a brief and that he wanted to do the 4 Horsemen of the apocalypse, and after that, he said I could do whatever I wanted with it. Recently I have been able to have a lot of freedom when it comes to designs and I am able to make things that I, myself, would actually enjoy wearing. This 4 Horsemen series is no exception and I was able to have full creative freedom when it came to the designs.
That freedom boiled down to a more classic approach, that means no colors and that would allow me to put in much more detail when it came to the illustrations. Ever since I did The Horror Club design for Dance Party Massacre, I have changed my stance of borders, squares and rectangle type illustrations on shirts. I used to hate how they looked, and would try and resolve certain issues with a shirt design with negative space. My tastes have now changed and I think that the designs that I have done this time around for Ruckus turned out pretty good. These designs took a long time, over the span of a few months, constantly changing the ideas, adding details, taking things away, etc. I am very much in debt for Josh letting me do what I wanted to do and having complete faith in me. I think it was a much needed creative push in the right direction that I hope to continue into the new year. I even got to design a little “Death Crew” logo for the series. Our original intention for the logo was to just put it on the back of each of the shirts (which was done), but I was surprised to see the logo on it’s own shirt and crew neck.
I am truly pleased to have been able to work with Ruckus again, and I hope we can continue our relationship in the future. And hopefully with this growing relationship we can churn out even bigger and better shirt designs (and maybe some cut and sew items? Eh Josh?) Anyways, you can get the new collection here. And be on the lookout in the next few days for some variations on the shirts (I don’t think I have a picture of the printed White Horse design yet).
I don’t think i’ll get a change to write another blog post before the holidays are over. Maybe I’ll get some free time and do a best albums of 2010 post or something before I go on vacation at the end of the month. But If I don’t, I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday! Stay Warm!
So I guess I lied a bit about not having anything to show you the rest of the year. I totally forgot that the new season of Goodbie skateboard decks was just released! I did this so long ago, I am so happy to see them finally out. It’s crazy how long this whole process takes. A lot of time and thought goes in to skateboard decks compared to t-shirt. Shirts a relatively easy and inexpensive to produce, so you can pump those out quick, but with skateboards it’s a lot more difficult. That goes the same with designing as well, it’s a different shape to work with, and the colors are difficult as well. You don’t have the shirt color to work with, so keeping it 4 colors is very hard.
This season we did a small series for some of their sponsored skaters. We did a series of some famous Greek people/characters. This is the “Greeks Crisis Better” series and features Diogenes (the Dog), Pythia and Socrates showing his party animal side. And then we have the “Anchoron” deck for another one of their pros, and then “The Last Laugh” for another pro. The decks turned out awesome actually, some of the colors have been mudded down, but I think that is for the better. You can check out the full range here as well as some of the wheels they are putting out that feature some of the above designs. I am thrilled to be a part of this skateboard line, and I feel privileged that they boys at Goodbie wanted me to come back and do a majority of the designs for this new series of boards. Lets hope that I will be a part of their next line and we can pump out some different and crazy Greek inspired designs in the future.
On a side note. Goodbie will be putting out a new skate video next year, and will feature the boards I did for them last season. It is pretty amazing to be able to see designs applied to a different product besides t-shirts as well as being able to see how they are used in real life. I couldn’t be more happier with the outcome and all the opportunities that I have been granted this past year. Lets hope I can do a bunch more skateboard work in the coming year.
Well, since I pretty much can’t show what I have been working on for the past few months for a long time, I’ll just keep it up with the random blog posts. Today I will be talking about another Christmas themed episode of one of my favorite TV shows, Batman the Animated Series. The second episode to air for the show was “Christmas With the Joker” and it was the first appearance of the Joker on the show, as well as the first time we get to see Mark Hamill’s amazing voice work as the joker.
The episode starts out with Joker in Arkham, singing a different version of “Jingle Bells” (Jingle Bells, Batman Smells) and then he immediately escapes from Arkham on a rocket powered Christmas tree (of course). Batman and Robyn find out about Joker’s escape when they go sit down to watch It’s a Wonderful Life, but instead of seeing the movie, the Joker has taken over all of the television stations, so that he could broadcast himself all over Gotham City. He has captured Commissioner Gordon, Detective Bullock, and Summer Gleason. He gives Batman until midnight to find and save them
The Joker sends Batman on a wild goose chase all over Gotham City. First to save a bridge, and other places around Gotham. While all this is going on, Batman and Robin are watching the Joker on the television in the Batmobile. Summer opens a present that gives a clue to where the Joker is hiding out, an old abandoned Toy Warehouse. They show up, and of course, end up saving the three at the end of the episode as well as capturing the joker.
In the end, Batman and Robin finally get to sit down and watch It’s a Wonderful Life, feeling happy and safe knowing that the Joker is back where he belongs. Batman the Animated Series is arguably the best animated series that has ever been produced. It’s great to be able to go back and watch these episodes and go through a little bit of nostalgia. This show is what introduced me to Batman and will probably always be my favorite representation of the character (the current movies are great too however). Even though the animation can be a bit off throughout the series, the show still holds up very well and it’s a testament to the great writing that the show had.
If you know me, then you know that i LOVE Pee-Wee. I recently bought the entire Pee-Wee’s Playhouse collection off of amazon, and included with it, was the Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special. I probably haven’t seen this special, in like 15-20 years! The show itself is incredibly weird and it’s a lot of fun to look back on the show, and although it is very dated and sometimes really strange, I still enjoy it. I am incredible happy that Paul Rubens has resurrected the character for a Broadway show, and I think he is doing a new movie too, I can’t wait!
The Christmas Special is filled with all the favorite Pee-Wee’s Playhouse characters, Chairy, Terry, Cowboy Curtis, Miss Yvone, everyone! But there are also a bunch of special guest that make appearances in the show. Magic Johnson has a pretty funny segment where he and Pee-Wee are trying to escape a Polar Bear in the Magic Screen. Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon also make an appearance and teach Pee-Wee how to make Christmas cards. By the way, does anyone else find it strange that I know who these two are? They were famous in the 60′s, way before my time. I remember watching Beach Blanket Bingo and seeing them all over the Disney Channel when I was a kid.
Cher shows up as well to find out what the secret word is. And Pee-Wee teaches Little Richard how to ice skate. There are a bunch of other really weird cameos as well, like Joan Rivers, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Charo and a whole bunch of others. All the cameos seems really weird to me, but I guess that’s just how the show is. The Christmas Special aired back in 1988, I was only two years old, so I guess it’s hard for me to recall who was popular at that time.
But of course, the most important guest of all is Santa Clause. However, Santa has a real bone to pick with Pee-Wee and tells him that his Christmas list is too long and that if he keeps it that way, nobody else will be able to get presents. Of Course Pee-Wee ends up making the right choice and they all live happily every after.
It is crazy to think how popular this show was, I can’t even believe my parents let me watch it! It is far too strange and sometimes a bit adult, but I guess that just was how things were at that time, and it’s one of the things that has made me the person I am today! This was enjoyable to watch and I can’t wait until I can show it to my kids and keep it a tradition that we watch this among my other favorite Christmas movies and specials. You can grab the special on DVD here!
It’s no secret that my life revolves around anything 80′s and early 90′s, and around that time Claymation was huge! There were a bunch of saturday morning cartoons that feature claymation, some specials and a bunch of other stuff. Sadly there has been a huge decline in that, pretty much all that is left of this lost art form is with Robot Chicken. But back in the day, Will Vinton and his studio were a huge part of claymation’s popularity. They would put out a bunch of specials, movies and a lot of other things. They made an amazing Christmas special that I try to watch every single year to get me in the Christmas mood.
There are lots of little segments throughout the special, introduced by a duo of dinosaurs named Rex and Herb. Rex is the more serious of the two, while Herb is more of the dumb fat slob that he appears to be. The little segments throughout the special are pretty interesting and are all set to classic Christmas music. Some of the stories in each segment are classic stories, while others are pretty off-beat and strange. The special first appeared on CBS in 1987 (and I was 1 year old at the time) but re-aired each year for the next few years.
The California Raisins were Will Vinton’s most favorite characters and they even have their own segment in the special. It’s awesome to look back on this part in particular and remembering how popular these singing raisins are. They have the privilege of singing “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in all of it’s soulful glory. It’s a shame that Will Vinton essentially got kicked out of the studio he built, but now has his own studio and has been working in the entertainment industry for a long time.
I’m not usually the biggest fan of christmas, after Halloween I kind of check out for a while, but this is a great special. It’s really cool to see something different, and to throw it in the mix of other Christmas staples I watch each year like Home Alone, Jingle all the Way or Doug’s Christmas Story. If this sparks your interest of nostalgia, you can grab a copy here.
We can all argue about who our favorite TMNT Villain is…there are tons and tons to choose from. For myself, besides the main villains like Krang, Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady…it is Mutagen Man. He made his first appearance in episode 110 “Enter: Mutagen Man”. He started out as a nerdy guy named Seymour Gutz (genius name) who gets hit by a laser and falls into a vat of mutagen (too obvious) and his body splits into a ton of pieces. Krang and Shredder build a special suit to hold his body together, and then they find out that he has the ability to transform the way he looks to anyone in the world, but only for a few minutes. Seymour, or Mutagen Man as Bebop and Rocksteady like to call him, agrees to do a favor for Shredder in the hopes that he will find a way to put him back to his normal form. Of course in the end, Shredder doesn’t follow through with his promise and Mutagen Man ends up helping the turtles defeat shredder for probably the 100th time.
Not only was the episode one of my favorites, but the toy is probably one of my favorite action figures of all time. He looked just like he did in the show, and also had a see-through body that you could fill with water and watch all of his guts float around. I still have this figure in storage somewhere, and it’s still one of the most unique toys I’ve seen. Besides The Masters of the Universe toy-line, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toy-line was pretty inventive with the sculpting and action features of each toy and is still one of the greatest and my personal favorite as far as action figure toy-line’s go (my next favorite is The Real Ghostbusters).
By the way, keep tabs on what I have been talking about in my blog posts, it could come in useful for some contests I have planned for the future.
It’s always nice to get asked by a company that I have done work for, to do something again. There are a lot of companies out there that I have built a strong relationship with, and with that comes more opportunities to do work for them. The newest company I can add to that list is Redemption Brand. The new winter season of shirts just dropped, an although small, there are still some great pieces here. Matt Szymanski also did a great job with the photographs as well. Not only is one of my first designs for them reprinted (this time on a hoodie, you can get it here), but I also got to work on a brand new shirt design, Protect Your Heart.
Working with Tyler is a different process than most. It’s a very collaborative , and each time it’s very difficult to nail down exactly what he and I both would want out of a design. After a bunch of different ideas, sketches and designs that I did, Â I think we did a pretty good job with the Protect Your Heart design. I love doing work for this brand because it allows me to do things that are a bit different that what you would usually expect from me. There aren’t half naked girls everywhere, and there aren’t a ridiculous amount of colors in the designs either. It’s about making something that is wearable for anyone.
Make sure you check out the other awesome new designs by Kyle Crawford and Saintgraphic too!
