Just posting this old Lizard drawing I did a few years back. I don't think I ever posted it here. If I have, I apologize for the repeat. It's one of my favorite drawings that I've done. I drew and colored most of it sitting at the bar at Bob & Barbara's by the light of the old tymie cash register.Throughout my life, I’ve been super lucky to collaborate with a lot of people – from co-workers to lifelong friends to other cartoonists and artists, even with students of all ages. I love mixing up work with folks and seeing what comes out in the end. There is always something to be learned. It is especially decent when you have a collaborative experience that flows seamlessly. Recently, I had an project like that.
A friend I work with, Mike Giacopetti, had ideas for a couple t-shirt designs. Mike is a good designer, and we have the same taste in teevee shows. He talked to me about collaborating on a “Sons of Anarchy” tribute shirt and a “Breaking Bad” themed shirt. I was eager to work with him, given the ideas. I’ve been watching Breaking Bad since it first came on. Sons of Anarchy is a show I just started watching that Joannie and her kids are really into. Tuesday has become our “Family Teevee Night” at 10 PM, especially since I never have work on Tuesday nights.
Mike came up with the concepts for both. He also designed the logo for the Chicken Brothers shirt. I did the illustration work using ink, Bristol, and tracing paper. I then scanned everything in and laid it out on the computer. All I had to do then was design a background (reminiscent of busted glass) and drop in the logo Mike designed:
As far as the S.O.A. fan art design, Mike did everything except the crow skeleton illustration. He designed a parody whiskey label reminiscent of the “Old Crow” bourbon label. If you click here, you’ll see he’s pretty dead-on. I did my ink illustration during Sunday’s Eagles game. Then all I had to do was scan it and drop it into place using Photoshop:
I am not sure if these shirts will ever get made, but it was fun working on them.
Think I've finally got Star Wars out of my system for a while. While finishing this drawing last week, I had Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi playing on my computer. It was neat visiting those movies, like seeing an old friend. It's been a really long time since I've watched any Star Wars movies. I forgot what a big part of my childhood it was, how huge those movies were.
In 1996, when I was attending Temple University’s film school, I didn’t sleep much at all. I don’t sleep much now, but back then, I was averaging about two hours per night. Needless to say, a good bit of my college memories are a blur. Some are very crisp, vivid, and intense though, like when I created the character Petey MacDew. Initially, I drew Petey in my sketchbook in 1996 while hanging out with Joe Wichert. Joey worked a night job with me at a bank Senior year. He also attended Temple U with me, but I don’t really remember which years we were at the school together. I just remember hanging out all hours of the night. After we’d knock off work, Joey and I would hang out drinking beers, bumming around, watching movies and cable access teevee. When I look back, even though my lines were shaky and crunchy, my life was like a constant stream on inspired work. I think my college years are when I started to feel at home in my own shadow and understand who I really was. This is when I realized I wanted to draw silly cartoons for the rest of my life, no matter what else I was doing.I toyed with the drawings of Petey in the sketchbook. It was a rough draft of a story. For some reason, Joey was very encouraging of this idea. I am embarrassed to say the name Petey came from an Alec Baldwin SNL skit, a soap opera spoof with twin brothers named Pierce and Petey.
In 2002, four years after I shelved Petey, I read about the Xeric Foundation (please click here to read more if you are a self-publishing comics maker). I couldn’t believe that Peter Laird (of Ninja Turtles fame) was giving away money so people could create independent comics. My mind was grasping for ideas until I realized that I have a project that could be reworked into a comic. I took Petey off the shelf and spent a month redrawing panels, scanning the original art, laying out the images as comic panels instead of full pages. Between 1998 and 2002, I had learned a lot about Photoshop and other digital art programs. I used everything at my disposal to make a 32-page comic book, and I gave it the uplifting pieces it needed to not be completely downbeat as Sonia suggested years earlier. Also, a few artists and writers helped me with language and pacing. Lucky for me, members of the Philadelphia Cartoonist Society were nice enough to give me pinup pages to fill in the extra space I had (thanks, Andrew Hart, Andrew Hoffmann, Chris McD, Bob Dix, Scott Derby, and Alan Thomas). I whipped together my six proposal copies, got a price quote from a local printer, and sent everything off to the Xeric board.
Unfortunately, I was declined for the grant. Could be my print quote was too high. Could be my work wasn’t good enough. Whatever it was, I didn’t make the cut. When I inquired about it, I even received an encouraging phone call from A.C. Farley at Mirage Studios telling me not to give up. So I didn’t. I asked around all the indy companies about the least expensive place to get comics printed. Drawn & Quarterly turned me onto Westcan printing in Canada. Back then, in that economy, Canadian printing cost a fraction of what it cost locally. So I decided to go with Westcan and self-publish. My Dad was nice enough to lend me the dough for printing cost, (and I paid him back the day I got my check from Previews, the comics distributor). A guy named Chris Young worked with me to make printing my first comic go very smoothly. 
I was about to send everything off to the printer, but almost didn’t when I saw “Goodbye Chunky Rice” in Fat Jack’s. I thumbed through the book and saw a turtle with a bindle leaving home and looking for love, and Craig Thompson did it brilliantly. Luckily, I was with Alan Thomas at the time, who ripped the Thompson book from my hand and told me to read it after I made my own book. Alan said that I’d worked too hard on this since college. He was right. So I sent it to print. I dedicated the book to my parents and the kids and staff at the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center. My buddy Rich Marcej let me put the book on his Baboon Books imprint so distributors would carry it.
When I opened my first box of books – I’ll never forget that smell of fresh ink being unleashed from the box. It might be my favorite scent of all time (maybe even better than my Mom’s cookies or Christmas trees).
Sonia endorsed the book when I had a local release party, which made me feel pretty good. I officially released the book at the first annual Toronto Comic Arts Fest in 2003. I did okay with the Petey. It went to second printing, and eventually I even ran out of those doing festivals, conventions, and kids workshops. There was a time for a few years when I cringed every time I read it. Some of it is so young and so awful. The work shifts so drastically at parts because I took such long breaks in getting it to its finished state. But a few weeks ago, I looked for a copy and realized I had none left. I had to order a few from Mile High Comics. It’s been a couple years since I have seen the book, and I will tell you what – when I got that package in the mail, I got kind of psyched again. I didn’t cringe. I didn’t hate any parts of it anymore. It was my first solo book. I was proud of it, even with its bits of awfulness.
More than anything, Petey reminds me that I should be making another book.
Rushmore has some great subtle humor and dry wit. It’s still hands-down my favorite Wes Anderson movie, and always makes me laugh every time I watch it. If you have seen it, you probably get the jokes incorporated into the shirt design. I tried to incorporate some signature visual elements from the film, like the colors of the Rushmore Academy uniform, Max Fischer’s glasses and beret, and the style of lettering from the signage on the school’s fence. I threw all this stuff into a drawing with Mount Rushmore (which actually has nothing to do with the film except the name of the school) and used the words “Sic Transit Gloria”, the only Latin that Max knows and uses to try and pick up a teacher.
Rushmore is a great “Back to School” movie, and one of Bill Murray’s best performances. If you haven’t seen it, you ought to check it out.
Like the last “Falcon Beach” t-Shirt, this shirt was made in partnership with my family at the Spirit Newspapers. My cousin Tommy from the Spirit is also a proud Falcon. I have been drawing and writing for the Spirit for years. This neighborhood paper really captures the heart of Philly’s Riverward Neighborhoods (Fishtown, Northern Liberties, Port Richmond, Bridesburg, etc). It’s a very family-oriented paper and business run by the Milligan and Westfield families, two of the best families in Philly. My Mom was a Milligan, and my Dad always said he was very glad that he married into this family. Anyway, I think my Mom would be proud to know I found a way to use my art to work with her family. She loved the Milligans so much. Every time I write a story or draw a cartoon for the Spirit, I feel like I am making her happy. So I am really proud to partner with my cousins on these shirt projects. I have the opportunity to work with my family. Also, in my own way, I get to carry on the spirit of the school that was my home for so many years. Plus my cousin Gene coached North Baseball for years, as did the legendary Larry Conti and my buddy Tim Murphy. But if I were to say anyone inspired this, it would be my grandfather Jim "Pop" Kilpatrick. Pop was a ’37 graduate who lived for North Baseball.
