Let's hear it for the arts!

Keep your eyes peeled!

I've owned a sofa-sized, framed mid-century print called 'Metropolis by Night' for about 14 years. It's by an artist named 'Rico'. For a brief period around 2002-2004, I didn't own it, but a friend of mine, coincidentally also named Rico, had possession of it. Once Beebo and I took it back, we remembered how much we liked it.

I got it for $2.00 at a church rummage sale on a coffee break while I was at work--it's one of the best purchases I've ever made. It looks like the kind of painting you see in the background of an apartment or office in a Technicolor™ CinemaScope™ movie of the 50s or 60s.

The other one!

Just today, I've made a shocking discovery--there is a companion painting called 'Metropolis by Day'! I feel like I must have it! Unfortunately, the place where I saw it online is asking $399, which is absurd, no matter how much I like it. If you see it somewhere for under $20, will you grab it for me?

Doodles Weaver

Here's a phone doodle I did while talking to Beebo just now.

Cartoon styles of the decades

I was thinking this morning of how various styles of cartoon art go in and out of style--I'm not talking about things like comic books and comic strips, but the kind of art that gets used for magazine and album covers, and for illustrations in publications like the New York Times. For instance, when I was a kid in the seventies, the art of Seymour Chwast and his imitators was everywhere.

Chwast is still working. It's a style that seemed very clever, but got a little old after too much repetition.

The work of Gary Panter is stuck in my head as firmly identified with the 80s. Panter's background was in the LA punk scene of the late 70s, but he's best known for his work designing for Pee-Wee's Playhouse:

He's also responsible for some well-known album covers:

This is a very Eighties idea of 'hip' and edgy:

The work of Dan Clowes is, to me, very very early nineties, probably because that's when I was really into it. After working on his own comics and commissions for various 'alternative' media,

he was one of the artists (along with Charles Burns) used for the ill-fated "slacker" OK Soda campaign:

Now he's the type of artist you see more regularly in The New Yorker, like Panter and Chwast.


I'm not sure who a recognizably identifiable 2000-2010 cartoonist would be--maybe I wasn't paying attention, or I might need more time to look back to figure it out. My favorite artist now is Michael Kupperman, who has been around a long time. Maybe he's it? What do YOU think?