Back in the early 2000s, I was a moderator at the Planet Tony Hawk video game forum. We had something of a tradition there: when a member would reach 1,000 posts (or any of its multiples), he or she would post something special. One member created an animated Flash cartoon with various members playing on the
Match Game TV show. He did all of the animation and voices. Another member built an entire website featuring humourous notes and inside jokes related to regulars. It was great fun. The camaraderie was a joy. I was older than most of the members and threw together a quick website featuring photos of me skateboarding in the early '80s before many of them were born (some photos, I've shared here). I've only been at this forum for just under five months, but, I feel I'm among kindred spirits. Many of us share the same passions: pipes, cigars, whisky, coffee, craft beer, and the minutiae involved with each. With this post, I go from being
Part of the Furniture to
Lifer. I guess I'm committed to being a part of this community. Initially, I was reluctant to post too much identifying personal info because I now have a 9 to 5 job. Too often, you read about people getting fired for stuff they post online. But, it occurred to me that I'm unlikely to post anything so stupid as to warrant getting fired, so why not share some stuff I'm proud of having worked on?
During my freelance illustration career (before it died virtually overnight with the 2008 crash), I painted 4.1
Sports Illustrated magazine covers. The March 20, 1995 Michael Jordan cover was an overnight job.
Sports Illustrated's schedule worked like this: the staff worked on the upcoming week's issue on Thursday and Friday. News would come in over the weekend, articles updated. The magazine would be put together on Sunday and Monday. The issue would transmit on Tuesday to the six different printing plants around the country, and issues would be in subscribers' mailboxes by Wednesday. At the time, Michael Jordan had left basketball and was playing baseball. News broke that he was returning to basketball. I got the phone call on Sunday afternoon. Most of the magazine staff was on vacation at a theme park in Florida. The magazine has just been given a Magazine of the Year Award and the publisher was thanking the staff for all their hard work. A skeleton crew was in New York. I went to the office, was given photo reference, and worked on a sketch. I got it approved around 7:30 pm, went home, and started painting, stayed up all night, and delivered the finished acrylic painting on Monday. I made a mistake with a line in the road and imaging fixed it digitally before going to press.
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In late November or early December, I was commissioned to do the Art Modell/Cleveland Browns December 4, 1995 cover. One of the art directors said I might be the only illustrator to have done two covers in the same calendar year for the magazine. The Wednesday that this issue appeared, I got a phone call from a radio station at 9:30 am. I was asleep and groggy when I got the call—I used to keep
@JimInks hours back then. I thought it was a joke by one of the magazine's staff, but, it wasn't. It was a two man radio station team and they interviewed me about the cover. I wish I knew what station it was to get a copy of the broadcast.
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I had to repaint the sneakers on Michael Jordan for the March 10, 1997 cover in the office. A fact checker discovered I had been given the wrong reference for the sneakers that were worn in the previous season. I had to fix it, otherwise, they'd get fan mail complaining the wrong sneakers were depicted.
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I include the 2002 Swimsuit Edition cover below because I painted the cigar label to the right of the model and figured that's a nice tie-in with this forum. Plus, I thought most of you wouldn't mind seeing a gal in a bikini.
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I've written about the September 27, 2004, 50th Anniversary Sistine Chapel of Sports cover before in this forum, so, I won't repeat much, other than it took six months to complete, was a double gatefold cover, and is the only illustration for which I've won awards.
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In 2011, the biography of my late friend, Paul Nelson,
Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson was published by Fantagraphics Books in Seattle. My friend, Kevin Avery, wrote the bio and edited the collection of Paul's writing in the second half of the book. It was my great honour and pleasure to illustrate the cover and design the entire book. Joel Sherman, of Nat Sherman, was super cool and gave me the "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" okay to recreate the period correct packaging of Cigarettellos that Paul always smoked on the binding of the book. Here's a link to a
vid on Flickr of someone at Fantagraphics flipping through the book so that you can see some of the interior design. Paul was one of the only critics to defend Bob Dylan going electric at Newport. He signed the New York Dolls to Mercury. He recorded 47+ hours of interviews with the mystery writer, Ross Macdonald, which didn't didn't see the light of day until ten years after Paul's death (in a book I also designed, featuring my personal book collection).
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Below are a few books I illustrated and designed the dust jackets for—it was a big thrill to do the two Larry Block covers, because I'm a fan and collect his books. These were my nods to the designer, Saul Bass (
Anatomy of a Murder movie poster and opening credits fame). The timing for the short story collection (dark grey cover) was amazing. Susan and I had
just taken a lock picking class in Brooklyn when I was asked to do the cover. How perfect is that? I scanned the tools from my class to make vector graphics of the tools for the cover.
It was also cool to work on some books of Fuminori Nakamura, as I collect his work as well. I designed the die-cut cover for
Cult X, but, didn't do the final mechanical—I was moving at the time and the publisher didn't want to burden me.
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If there's interest, I may add to this thread in the future. I was limited to finding things online to post here as I don't have access to my tearsheets or tower computer that has more work.
Anyway, I'm glad to be a member here and part of the community.
work. I'm blown away!
