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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Centipede Scarf

The Santapede card (see previous post) may be sold out, but there's still a way to get one. My good friend Kristian is giving them away as a holiday bonus if you buy his amazing handmade centipede scarf, pictured below.


You can buy it by clicking on the picture or by going to his Etsy storefront. I have a pill bug hat made by him, and I can tell you that he is at the bleeding edge of wearable arthropods.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Santapede cards are no longer available for purchase!

Who's that slithering down your chimney? It's the Santapede, hot off the presses and just in time for Christmas!




I have a very limited number of these, so act quickly. I may do a second printing, but there's no guarantee that a second batch will reach you in time for Christmas. These ones, however, are sitting on my desk and can be mailed immediately.

They are available on a sliding scale based on what you think I should make per card!

If you live in Northampton, MA, and want to save us both some money, let's meet in person instead of through Paypal.

Aaaand they're gone. Thanks, everyone!

Friday, November 30, 2012

The Santapede

I designed a Christmas card!



Would you like some to send to your friends? I am having a bunch printed at the beginning of next week, so let me know in the comments if you want one. Please note: The printed version will be higher resolution and will not have my URL printed on the front.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Toy Store Cartoons and Some Words






So I guess this blog is all just a toy-store-centric Family Circus clone now? Well, sort of. I'm working on a big project for someone else, and that is taking up most of my creative energy at the moment. I'm really excited about it, and will post here as soon as it's officially announced.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Toy Store Cartoons Again






More of these! I hope you like them. The sheep in the last drawing is the amazing 12" Sleep Sheep Pouf by Cloud B. It is the softest plush I have ever encountered, and I promise that you want one. 

Saturday, August 11, 2012

X-as-Y

I have a self-portrait up at X-as-Y, a new blog where Hallie Bateman is collecting artists' imaginings of themselves as another gender.



I'm really excited to see where this project goes! As soon as I started thinking about mine I had a lot of fun ideas about the directions this alternate me's life might have taken. I think maybe she followed my abandoned dream of being a marine biologist.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Work Cartoons


Sometimes funny things happen at work, and sometimes it is slow and I can make quick sketches of them.





Sunday, May 6, 2012

Here Comes Something

Since I sold the last copy of 12 Experiments, all the money I made from it has been sitting in a special bank account. I could have used it on any number of things, but I haven't because it feels like special money. It's money I made with magic. I did something I wanted to do, and somehow at the end there was money that wasn't there before. I still have trouble articulating how strange and wonderful that feels. It may be superstition, but I am afraid to touch it.

The idea has been to invest it in my next project, whatever that might be. I've been circling a few new projects for a while now, and a few nights ago I finally took a step. I ordered all the supplies I'll need for the Next Thing. It didn't spend a ton, but it was more money than I spend lightly.

I started raising money for Twelve Experiments two days after I had the idea. As stressful as it was at times, the knowledge that people I loved had contributed real money to this thing and were expecting something in return was essential. It got me working right away and kept me working through the many rough patches.

This isn't quite the same. This time the investment (at least at so far) is my own money. But it is special magic money I somehow pulled out of the ether, and maybe that will be enough to scare me into committing to this project. I hope it is, because I expect this to take longer and have more rough patches than the calendar. It also has the potential to be way more satisfying. And I know it's a good idea because I am just as terrified of it as I am excited.

I'm not ready to talk about details yet, as it's still in that fragile state where someone blinking too many times during the pitch could convince me that it's a terrible idea. I'll be more forthcoming as the project gets its legs. Until then, please feel sufficiently teased by this picture of some sketches and a maquette I did in preparation.




Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Pill Bugs



When I was a kid I loved pill bugs*, and this week my fascination with them was reawakened when I learned this fact about them. Since then I have talked about them so much that all my coworkers probably think there is something wrong with me. Wooo pill bugs!


*Known in some circles as roly-polies

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Where Chickens Come From




I thought I knew the answer to this question when I came up with the comic, but I was wrong! It turns out the lady on the left is right. Chickens are believed to have been domesticated thousands of years ago from the Red Junglefowl, a southeast Asian bird that basically looks exactly like a chicken.



Buy a print
(framed, 8"x10") - $15

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Monkey Fist

Why yes, I did do the package illustration for the new yoyo from Spin Dynamics!


Image courtesy of YoYoExpert.com

As of last night, the Monkey Fist is now available online from Yoyo Expert.

I was super excited when Nick asked me to work on this project, because this guy is going places. It has been fun to watch his ideas go from paper to metal. I have trouble drawing straight rectangles, so I'm continually amazed by the finesse and precision of Nick's yoyos.

I also drew the box art for the extra-fancy limited Cragan Edition, inspired by the man who came up with the idea for the Monkey Fist.

Image courtesy of YoYoExpert.com


In real life Seth Cragan has two eyes and is not made of rope.


My original 5"x7" pen drawings are available for $35 each, and come framed.

Sold
Sold

Monday, March 5, 2012

What I Remember: Peanut Brittle

          I was probably around five years old, in the bathtub with the door open, when my mom's friend Jennifer stopped by. She and I were close - her son and I were friends, and I spent a good deal of time at their apartment, so it was no big deal for her to show up out of nowhere and greet me in the middle of a recreational midday bath.
         
          Jennifer was excited, and after taking a seat on the closed toilet, she eagerly presented a treat she had brought for me. The momentary flood of excitement I felt vanished when I saw the label on the tin cylinder. Peanut brittle. "Have you ever had peanut brittle?" she asked. I told her I had not, trying to hide my apprehension. I can be a picky eater now, but at five I was much worse. Trying new things was, at most, a semiannual occurrence. And I didn't like peanut butter. Or hard candy. But after seeing Jennifer's excitement, the prospect of disappointing her with anything but unfettered glee was too much to bear. "Do you want to try some?" she asked.
         
          "Yeah!" I said. The tin had pictures of brown, bumpy shards. There was nothing in the picture suggesting chocolate, which would have been an incentive, however slight. I forced a smile and got ready. It couldn't be that bad.
         
          "Here, you open it." She handed me the tin and I moved up onto the edge of the bathtub. I remember struggling with the lid. I may have suggested that Jennifer handle the unscrewing, but the responsibility was ultimately mine.
         
          In an instant, chaos erupted: The lid budged and spun out of my hand. Before I could react a black tube three feet long shot out of the tin, followed by another just as the first bounced off the bathroom mirror. Jennifer laughed. "Gotcha'!" Spring-loaded snakes! The whole thing had been an elaborate ruse!

          As much as I thrilled at the discovery of a new prank to play on my mom and brother, I was secretly just as delighted that, whatever the day might bring, I would not be pretending to enjoy peanut brittle to spare a friend's feelings.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Monday, February 6, 2012

Unicorn Facts



Don't be fooled by its equine appearance - the unicorn is actually most closely related to the Croatian shrieking leech.

Unicorns first came to North America as pests on ships carrying spices from the Orient.

The gestation period of the unicorn is fourteen seconds.

Even with all their magic, there is nothing unicorns can do to prolong your steady march toward the grave.

Friday, February 3, 2012

More A2Z Brain Snacks

With the calendar out of the way, I've been slowly working my way back into some of my other projects, which went neglected at the end of last year. Here are a few new signs I made for work.


I got this idea from The Elements Vault by Theodore Gray. The book is a fancy companion piece to his book, The Elements, and includes a bunch of carefully reproduced postcards, advertisements, and letters related to the history of the periodic table. Both books are gorgeous and well worth seeking out. This image is probably the most pseudo-sciencey thing I will do for the store. I had a hard time finding information about the periodic table that everyone I know didn't learn in high school. But when I read about this concept in The Elements Vault I got excited, and I hope that means other people will, too.



This is a question that just showed up in my head one day. I did some Googling, and found that there isn't really a clear answer, but that it doesn't look like other animals have dominant hands. And no one is quite sure why. One major theory is that it has to do with language, as explained  in this io9 article on handedness by Alasdair Wilkins. But it's far from conclusive. One of my favorite things about science is the way that what seems like a simple question can lead to a million more questions, and the answers are often located far beyond what we currently know. There's so much left to discover in every direction.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Bygone Bureau Illustration

A few weeks ago a friend of mine, artiste extraordinaire and art director for The Bygone Bureau, asked me to do an illustration for an upcoming humor piece. Today, lo and behold, it has been posted! I might be mistaken, but I think this is the first time anything I've made has been posted on a website I didn't make.




You can see the full image and read the article by Jeremy Blachman over at The Bygone Bureau.

I'm also selling the original drawing, so email me if you're interested.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Tattoo Design


This is my first solicited commission ever, a tattoo design for a coworker. To my knowledge it has still not been inked, and may never be, but it was an exciting experience. I can turn art into money, and maybe even into human skin! Woohoo!