Brandon Bird, Painter of Might

A Better House

2010-10-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

I probably won't be updating this blogspot page any longer (not that I've been doing it all that much lately), since I've squished blog/news roll functionality into my main site's home page. So go there for further updates and pictures and words and adventures!

Lennie Lives

2010-07-06T12:06:00.001-07:00

People have asked me what I'm going to do now that "Law & Order" has been cancelled.

How about another group art show?

OLD!!!

2010-06-02T00:55:00.001-07:00

I'm getting ready to post some new stuff, but in the meantime here is something old that hasn't been online in a while:

It is a painting of Ernest rupturing forth from the womb of the universe. It's very thick and texture-y, and after wrestling with some bad scans (too dark, too bright, too flat, etc.), I decided no image of it on the internet was better than a cruddy & misleading image of it. But in the last couple months I've been going through all my boxes of old sketches and material for a secret project and found this slide, which isn't perfect but gets the job done.

I kinda wish I'd saved the concept for a subject more (visually) interesting than Ernest. But this was like 2002, and I was still thinking mostly along the lines of forgotten '70s & '80s culture. You know, before Hot Topic made it impossible to forget anything.

TCAFfeinated

2010-05-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

This weekend I'll be at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, headquartered with the rest of the Topatoco-affiliated people (I think my specific table is #228). The event is FREE but if you feel guilty about not spending any money I will have a portfolio of small and medium prints for sale as well as some Nic Cage sets and one or two or three Topatoco shirt designs.

Oh also a million other cool people will be there.

I'm getting really into this "Doctor Who" show.

2010-03-25T18:14:00.000-07:00

Saint Victims Unit

2010-02-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

Brand-new SVU Valentines. Click on the above images for high-res versions that you can print out and enjoy. The cost to you: FREE.

But, if you are in a buying mood, I have made some older SVU designs into sweet girls' T-shirts.

"Isn't there music within you?"

2010-01-04T15:19:00.000-08:00

If you need me I'll be on Holodeck Four.

2009-12-04T19:03:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week I contributed a guest Riker to the best website ever, which I would have posted about in a timelier manner if I wasn't swamped manning the Nicolas Cage Colorform apparatus. It's actually a ten year old acrylic painting I had completely forgotten I ever did.

Also in news I should have mentioned a good long while ago, I have some prints for sale in the Giant Robot print show in San Francisco this weekend.

If Adventure Has a Name

2009-11-23T04:20:00.000-08:00

It must be Nicolas Cage. All I can say about this one is, I hope enough people buy it because I can't wait to start on the sequel.

The Norton Itch

2009-11-21T23:30:00.000-08:00

I put up a new painting, Fortean Norton. And by "new" I mean I started it 2006, had it in a storage tub for two and half years, showed it in an unfinished too-green state at the Gallery 1988 show this summer, and now after a bit more tinkering it's maybe possibly completed (there's another painting from that show I have yet to put online; it's also being reworked). The inspiration is a tremendous drawing of Edward Norton my brother Darrin did many years ago:

I wanted to see if I could give that sketch dimensionality, and also get out of 'gluing celebrity heads onto funny bodies' mode and try out an outsider art/horrible-drippy-people style. Parts of it were really fun to paint but I'm not sure if those parts ever came together into a confident and resolved painting.

The fox mask is something my friend Alexa made in real life, and the little gremlin faces--representing trophies from Norton's globe-spanning travels--are knickknacks from her parents' house. The picture of Mothman, well, that's just a picture of Mothman.

In One Week

2009-10-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

I'll be at table 258 at San Francisco's Alternative Press Expo next weekend. APE is just like a comic book convention, but with lots of new art & comics to sample and no cosplayers or movie studios. So I guess it's nothing like a comic book convention. It runs Saturday October 17th from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm, and Sunday the 18th from 11:00 to 6:00. Admission is ten bucks or something, or completely free if you have your pass from this year's San Diego comic-con.

I'll have a bunch of T-shirts, posters, prints, and cards for sale at reduced prices (I've got to make room for new Christmas products), and I'll be around to sign stuff the whole time. Just a few tables down will be a bunch of bros from Topatoco as well (see map above).

It sure is fun to meet people!

Cited!

2009-10-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

p. 88 of this:

p. 91 of this:

It feels good and tingly to look in the index of something and see your name and then a number.

I have the previous book by (one of) the authors of the SVU Guide, and it is super-informative and kinda dishy with its interviews. So I expect the same from this one.

The TV Guide Special contains a lot of endearing Jerry Orbach stories, and some swell photographs a certain artist will be stealing for future projects. I got mine at a Target.

I would say both are essential reading for critical minds.

Happy 20

2009-09-25T05:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight, at 8:00 pm EST on NBC, "Law & Order" enters its twentieth year. I'll be celebrating in my own little way, by making fantastical new L&O art all year long.

Like this Jack McCoy shirt, which I think I'm going to order up and then it'll be available on brandonbird.com in about 2 or 3 weeks.

What a scoop!

2009-09-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

I don't have any artwork ready this week, but here's something I've been sitting on all summer, waiting to confirm with my Hollywood sources. Finally, I can announce the full cast of Star Trek 2: The Next Generation:

I've also heard rumblings of Tom Hanks as the film's Romulan villain.

Twisted, Mutated Freaks

2009-09-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

Against the Brotherhood of Mutants! This was the first concept I had for the Stan Lee show, before deciding to go with a duck-laden Magneto. Maybe not my most brilliantest concept, but after having it rattle around for a year it was sort of like, "Yeah... this still amuses me for some reason. I guess I'll have to paint it."

I also wanted to do a trial run for this style, in preparation for another, larger thing I'm working on. It's basically one of the horrible pop-art paintings I made in high school but done using oil instead of acrylics: instead of having the colors be flat and static, there can be subtle wet-into-wet effects, and instead of having all the lines be solid black they can vary in weight and translucency. The downside is having to wait a million hours for each layer to dry.

Everything Lost and Wonderful and Sad

2009-09-02T02:52:00.000-07:00

It's 3:00 a.m. and I've spent the last few hours flipping through a collection of pictures of Risley, the arts dorm at Cornell where my artist-in-residence adventure took place. I don't even recognize half the people in the photos, and Lord was that place covered in nerd (the SCA practiced on our lawn!), but right now, sitting in my hermetic LA loft with the windows clamped shut to keep out toxic flame ash, I somehow smell autumn and rainstorms, and I feel in my belly a bit of that manic excitement you have when everything in your world is still new and unfolding.

Here would be a great place to write something about the effect of other people's nostalgia and make a clever segue to this:

Years ago I had the idea of making dozens of plein air Sears paintings. Searses of all shapes and sizes, showing the differences in landscape and architecture. I tried a few experiments that didn't quite feel right, before realizing, No: It shouldn't be about capturing the realness of Sears, it should be about creating that one perfect Sears, the Sears you see in your mind, the Sears that's more Sears than Sears ever was. So here is A Perfect Moment Braced in Time, Like Falling in Love. Click through to see all seven feet of awesome beigeness.

It's one of my paintings from the "Monsters of Pop" show, which is still up at Gallery 1988 through this weekend. I'll roll out the others over the next week or so as I finish scanning and cleaning them up, and I've got some other drawings and such waiting in the wings as well. It's time to breathe some life back into the ol' brandonbird.com.

Art on the Way

2009-07-30T23:07:00.000-07:00

I don't even know what happened to June and July; I've just been barreling towards this show, hoping to get some amount of paintings done in time:

"Monsters of Pop"
Brandon Bird, Kiersten Essenpreis, Dave MacDowell, Netherland
Opening Reception Tuesday August 11, runs till September 5th
Gallery 1988
7020 Melrose, Los Angeles CA

If you can make it out, please do.

And then... I think that's going to be my last gallery show for a while. It's cool they've helped raise my profile & selling price, but they're also anathema to how I like to exist. I feel I was at something of a peak from 2003 to 2006 or so (curiously, when I wasn't so much self-employed as unemployed). I'd think of something--a Law & Order coloring book or what have you--and then just... make it. Now it's more like, "Shit, I just got the best idea ever, but I have to paint Magneto tonight and the next night and the night after that." So I don't mean I'm not going to exhibit, just that I'm not going to commit to any long-term, outside deadlines, and be more open to possibilities as they crop up. Does that even make sense?

Speaking of wich, here's some stuff that's cropped up or in the process of cropping up: I'll have a table at APE in San Francisco in October. I also met the Topatoco dudes for the three hours I was at Comic-con; they're getting a hugemongous booth next year and I'll be there to join in the hoe-down. I might sneak in to some of the East Coast cons, too.

Dream Cast

2009-05-22T05:49:00.000-07:00

Man oh man I can't wait for Star Trek 2: The Next Generation.

Die Walken

2009-05-21T07:08:00.001-07:00

I'm not too surprised by this, because if you really think about, if you have college students pretend to be kids writing Christmas letters to Chris Walken, it's pretty much inevitable that someone is going to take the text of one of those letters and transform it into a smashing opera piece:

"An Acquaintance" by Ryan Walker, based on "An Acquaintance?" by Ming Doyle.

VDO as DV

2009-05-06T20:54:00.001-07:00

I would like to share something I came across in my continuing "Law & Order" research:

Wow.

Fucillo! HUUUUGEST!

2009-04-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

"Gawd, can't you do prints any bigger?" people bark as they spit on me in the street. Well, now you can order enormous prints (some three or nearly four feet long) at TopatoCo.com! Prints are unsigned and come on semi-glossy photo paper, or can be upgraded to textured fine art paper or super-premium canvas (they even varnish it!). They also have a couple new, exclusive T-shirt designs like the one above.

When you order through TopatoCo you're buying from a real company with fast shipping and an excellent record of customer service, and you can combine your order with any of the other hilarious products they offer from other web artists.

All my signed & limited stuff will of course continue to be available through brandonbird.com. But now you've got more options!

From the hell inside Germany

2009-04-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

My second hate mail in six years:

"hello, brandonbird,
I´m from germany, i have so much so problems, problems from where you´d never think, it is possible.
and............................i want to tell you only something...............you are a bastard. your picture is
a lie and you know it. but why you made shit like this? ron l. hubbard, was a man, who had a heart and mind you never reach it. i love him, until he is dead, i know, but its the same as with jesus...............his ideas, his thougts, his understanding, about human being, still lives on and on and on and with your fucking bullshit picture, with your lie about r. l.hubbard, i hope your go to hell, as soon as possible. with love and hope i send you greetings, from fucking germany, hamburg, the hell inside germany, bye bye, i hope, i never met you. silvia klein"

A Party Ends in a Quadruple Homicide

2009-03-25T00:47:00.000-07:00

Descriptions of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" episodes from the DirecTV guide:

Seduction of stepson.
Little girl is a victim.
A sadist tortures a senile old woman.
Girl's body is found on a bus.
Rape/murders launch a manhunt.
A woman falls to her death.
A killer has a foot fetish.
Young murder suspects.
A homeless man is a suspect.
Rapist attacks a patient.
Victim steps off a subway platform.
Subway commuter is mutilated.
A child is poisoned.
A woman commits suicide.
A pediatrician is murdered.
A cocktail waitress is murdered.
A Bronx DA lies strangled.
A psychiatrist is found murdered.
A man handles his own defense.
A killer spouts religious rhetoric.
Club-goers accused of murder.
Criminology leads to murder.
Sexual re-education poster boy is slain.
Expectant mother.
Boy is abducted.
Ball players are murdered.
Death of a bully.

I Love Art

2009-03-23T21:18:00.000-07:00

http://badpaintingsofbarackobama.com/

The Human Adventure is Just Beginning

2009-02-25T14:08:00.000-08:00

I have a wacky interview up at Tor.com.

This month has been crazy and weird and scary. I went to New York and saw some of my more favorite people whom I hadn't seen in a while:

(Doyle signs alongside legendary comics legend Rob Liefeld)

(Alexa, confused man, me)

(Here's a link to Nick's drawings)

I also upgraded from my dank Valley apartment and to a superenormous loft headquarters:

I'm still unpacking and getting things in order. Here's my pal Brad sticking some daylight-balanced fluorescents to the ceiling:

2008 caught me off gaurd, in that my best laid plans actually worked out and I ended up making a very respectable and grownup amount of money. I realized, "Wait, maybe this art thing is not a hobby, or a sideline, or something that's going to just dry up. Maybe I should actually invest in having the light and space to get things done."

Having said that, and done that, I am now of course terrified at having raised my rent and expenses so dramatically. I'm not really sure what the correct response is right now (for the world or myself), but I'm pretty sure doing nothing and slowly crenating is the wrong choice. Getting to work and making new stuff seems like the way to go.

New York City's War on Crime

2009-02-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

To Dana in the comments who asked for some Noth, here's a sketch from long ago of Logan and his pixie-partner:

I totally forgot that I was going to the New York comic-con this Friday and Saturday. I won't be signing or anything, but if you hunt me down, I will give you a Valentine. Hint: I look like the guy in that box over there.

SVU and I are going steady

2009-01-21T06:56:00.000-08:00

I realized there was one Valentine I hadn't released as a folding card (Capt. Cragen), so I drew up four new images, and now there's a new set of five SVU cards, available here. There's a slight discount if you buy all three sets, and all Valentine orders will be sent Priority mail in the US (2-3 day delivery).

Sometimes I think maybe I'm running this "Law & Order" thing into the ground, but you know what? Fuck that, I love "Law & Order" so darn much. And Bob Saget probably needed to find his way into my ouvre somehow.

I've also added prints of this old GI Joe/Guernica bit of silliness:

I don't really know how I feel about this one. It was a commission, and I don't really like directly referencing famous art (too easy of a joke). But other people seem to like it, so here it is.

The poster/shirt megasale is still going on, and I've knocked a few dollars off mini-prints, too. And here's a link to Valentine art prints, since I'd semi-vertantly let that disappear for a while.

Bigfoot Sightings

2009-01-13T07:40:00.000-08:00

Several years ago I visited my sister when she and her husband still lived in the Ballard section of Seattle. She took me to a little breakfast-y diner place (Aunt Hattie's? Something like that).

Dana: Once Andy and I saw some famous actor here. I wish I could remember what his name was.

Later:

Dana: Hey Andy, what was the name of that actor we saw? Dinglebert Pimplypuss?

Andy: Ray Liotta.

*****

Here is a list of all the vaguely famous people I've seen in the wild this past year:

1) Veronica Mars (almost smashed into her at the post office)

2) John Landis (three separate sightings in three separate cities)

3) Darius McCrary (buying cases of water at Ralphs at 1:00 am)

4) Ray Park (with his family at the Burbank Toys R Us, immediately after I put down a Darth Maul figure thinking, "God, what a horrible likeness!")

5) Lewis Black (screaming into cell phone)

6) Warren Beatty and Annette Bening and their many children (sat behind us at a sushi place).

7) Seth Green (twice because some pals work on his show, once at an art show, once at a crazy Halloween party. Each time I get the stink eye).

8) John Francis Daley (again, this is a cheat because I was visiting my friend who works on "Bones")

9) Seth Rogen (leaving comic store)

10) Deidrich Bader (entering comic store)

11) Harry Hamlin (came into the AM/PM, browsed snacks, left with a look of extreme disappointment)

In conclusion, it is fun when you see people you recognize from the TV.

New Year's Steals

2009-01-02T13:51:00.000-08:00

To clear some space and gear up for moving, I'm putting all my posters and t-shirts on sale through the 15th. I've got a restock on Devitomon and Crimefighters shirts coming in about a week, in case you don't see your size right now.

I'm also putting certain prints of all last year's new paintings (Sir Ian, Nat, Mr. Noodle, Pax, Spidey, Hoffman) on sale. 2008 was three or four times more productive for me than 2007, and my goal for '09 is to push it over the top, rip it up, take it to the x-treme, and so forth.

What T-mas Means to Me

2008-12-25T11:49:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows T-mas as a strong-selling greeting card, but did you know it is also a semi-real holiday? It was invented by my sister Dana in 2004, and appreciates a dedicated following. Here are some tips and suggestions, from my family to yours, on how to have that perfect T-mas:

1) T-mas can be celebrated on any day of the year, but a few rules apply. No one can speak ill of one's mother, and if any mother is disrespected, T-mas must be cancelled and held on another date (remember, when you put down one mother, you're putting down mothers all over the world).

2) The construction of wooden 'fools' dates back to the Middle Ages, but that practice, of building a large fool in the town square and lighting it ablaze at twilight, can be brought into the home using craft or popsicle sticks and any variety of classroom art supplies.

3) Perhaps the most important activity of T-mas is the Pity List. Make a list of all the individuals from the past year whom you have reason to pity. Don't share your list with anyone. Instead, cast it into the fireplace, and if the ashes are carried up through the flume and caught by a north-blowing wind, then perhaps a certain someone will hear your wishes, and take it upon himself to pity those fools...

How is T-mas celebrated in your house? Perhaps next year we can add to these traditions, together.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2008-11-12T04:20:00.000-08:00

I made a new painting, "The Darkness and the Light:"

If you're thinking, "Hey, that would make a swell greeting card to send my friends and family," well then you sir or ma'am are in luck.

A neat trick for creating darkness and night is to paint full-value/daylight, let that dry, then cover it with a layer of sticky black and use a rag to rub out the highlights and midtones. You get lots of little subtle transitions, but unfortunately a lot of that doesn't always show up in a digital file. Perhaps you will just have to see the painting in person at my solo show in Los Angeles August 11, 2009.

I've added a bunch of other products to the site, too. The full listing (I think) is: Noam Chomsky posters, Cone Dog posters, restock on SVU Valentines, lil' Devitomon prints, Zugzwanged! prints, Bob Ross surf dog prints, Teshh!! prints, X-Files prints, and some cheaper/smaller prints of things that used to be only big (Jen Sisko, King of the Cage, Two Warriors, Jabba, a mini Bajor set), and a few bigger things that used to come only small (Norton by Bird, giant Crimefighters).

A lot of these are standard frame sizes, like 11" x 14", meaning if you bought one you wouldn't need to then spend a bunch on a custom frame job. In general, I tried to add items that are more affordable but still smack of value. Is that the way to go? I always want to hear input about what kinds of things are missing from the store, what could be better, etc.

"Mr. McCoy, is it true you've been asked to join the Obama administration?"

2008-11-05T23:20:00.000-08:00

--actual, clearly overdubbed line in tonight's rad "Law & Order."

My Soul-Thought Twin

2008-11-04T01:14:00.000-08:00

"In today’s world, in today’s media climate designed to foster the fear our leaders like us to feel because it makes us easier to push around; in a world where limp, wimpy men are forced to talk tough and act ‘badass’ even though we all know they’re shitting it inside; in a world where the measure of our moral strength has come to lie in the extremity of the images we’re able to look at and stomach; in a world, I’m reliably told, that’s going to the dogs, the real mischief, the real punk rock rebellion, is a snarling, ‘fuck you’ positivity and optimism."

I appreciate the writings of Grant Morrison, if I have not already made that clear.

Bird O'Lanterns

2008-10-31T18:40:00.000-07:00

From Rachel Sanford:

Andrea Jones (carver) and Samuel J. Struckhoff (photo-taker):

So Wizard!

2008-10-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

I got a little mention in Wizard, the Guide to Comics #206:

The Magazine of Gary Burghoff

2008-10-27T17:10:00.001-07:00

I have an illustration in the newest (and, wtf, possibly last ever) print issue of RADAR, for an article on the de-volution of the leading man, from Cary Grant to Seth Rogen. I feel a little bad, since the point is that Seth Rogen is a big fat slob, but I saw him in real life a few weeks ago and he is actually quite trim and svelte.

Here is Rock Hudson, and you can see the other portraits by finding a RADAR with Shannon Doherty on the cover and turning to page 42:

I love you, Grizz. I love you, Dot Com.

2008-10-23T15:54:00.000-07:00

They put the 30 Rock third season premiere online right here a week before it'll be on TV. Watch the other episodes they have too, because it is a very good and hilarious program. It's sort of like Arrested Development, but 20% less plot-dense and 10% more sitcomy. And for some reason it makes me really wish I'd moved to New York.

"Mythic Hyper-Dad of the '50s and '60s"

2008-10-21T21:58:00.000-07:00

Grant Morrison on Superman, part 1 of 10.

Continued on Card #7: "You Turkey!"

2008-10-17T15:33:00.001-07:00

Danger!

2008-10-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

"The arts are more dangerous [than other professions] because they require sensitivity to a large extent," he said. "If you go too far you can pay a price -- you can be too sensitive to live in this world."

Not to belittle his point which he belittled through hyperbole, but the illustration should be a bunch of artists leaving earth on a spaceship. Punch it, Jasper Johns!

Don't gi' me no more of that ol' Crystal Head

2008-10-06T12:54:00.001-07:00

November 7th, Philadelphia

2008-10-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

One of the gallery founders is Jon Halperin, friend, generous benefactor to contemporary art, and owner of an enormous John Tesh. Delivering the painting to his home was like stepping into the tomb of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who'd chosen to be buried in an issue of Juxtapoz.

So I'm betting it'll be a lasting space with a lot of strong shows. I think for this first one I'll be sending them Spidey.

Sequel to "The Little Prince"

2008-09-23T03:43:00.001-07:00

I found it!

"Ask him, if he is not a hobo, why does he have a bindle?"

2008-09-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

Continuing on the theme of comic-related things that are good and you should read, here is Snake 'n Bacon's Cartoon Cabaret by Michael Kupperman. My copy was a b-day gift from my sister years ago, and now it's been passed around and dog-eared to the point of exhaustion. It's been a big influence on me in the field of semi-literate absurdist art, being that it is the most literate and most absurd.

It's a collection of his work ranging from one-panel comic book takeoffs:

To recurring strips following the well-spoken title characters ("Hssssss." "Wipe me with a paper towel to remove excess grease."), Roger Daltry's sex blimp, Twain and Einstein at the planet's core, and a belligerent Pablo Picasso threatening to break adversaries "into the leetle cubes!":

He's released newer material as Tales Designed to Thrizzle from Fantagraphics, but Snake 'n Bacon is the true perfect nugget of unstoppable hilarity.

SUPERMAN DEFEATS LUTHOR!

2008-09-18T03:17:00.000-07:00

The concluding issue of All-Star Superman, issue #12, is finally out in stores. If you have no idea what I'm talking about or haven't read issues 1-11, don't buy it. Instead, order the first collection (issues 1 -6) right now, and pre-order the second (7-12). All-Star Superman is not really a retelling, not really a re-imagining, it is simply the best and most powerful version of the myth. If you are a human being drawing breath on this planet, you will like it.

Grant Morrison keeps every preposterous idea from Superman's silly history, ditches any irony or nostalgia, folds it back in a way that it becomes awesome, and plunks it into a larger story fueled on pathos, genuine humor, and hope. This is the thing that comes after Post Modernism.

Some for instances-- there's no longer a ridiculous giant key to the Fortress of Solitude:

Or how about Zibarro, the bizarro Bizarro?:

Morrison also has the best and most sci-fi-ingly elegant answer ever for the question "How come we don't see Superman stopping Hitler/9-11/some other real world problem?" Which I don't think I can succinctly explain, let alone spoil, here.

The art is also, um, the best. Frank Quitely gets flak for drawing purse-lipped mush-faces, but his layouts and sense of space make up for it just a little. If I have a child, I am painting this on the nursery wall:

Perhaps you read something in the news today that made you feel ill about humanity. Well, All-Star Superman is something clever and good that might make you feel okay.

From the Makers of "Why Kids Love Green Arrow"

2008-09-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

Go Slugs!

2008-09-10T22:56:00.000-07:00

My friend and fellow alum of the prestigious UCSC painting school John Olsen has a show of paintings in downtown Los Angeles right now. Here is his painting blog and here is the show info.

He also co-updates with our co-friend Jeff a blog about good art that they like. I figure you'll double-appreciate that link if you're anything like me--a surly and isolated artist who likes other art but doesn't follow anything that's going on.

The Universal Language

2008-09-03T22:13:00.000-07:00

Twelve more to go!

2008-09-02T05:13:00.000-07:00

Law & Order Season 6 is being released on DVD December 2nd. I believe this includes the episode where Briscoe and Curtis drive around with a comically oversize TV aerial to triangulate a cell phone signal. And also "Aftershock," the bizarro installment where no crimes are solved and main characters are given histories and arcs.

For me, mid- to- late nineties "Law & Order" is the show at its creative zenith, with the absolute nadir being the the Arthur Branch years. Now it seems like it could be entering a new golden age: I like Batman's pop well enough, but Alana de la Garza is their secret acting weapon and the strongest ADA character ever. I also wish we'd had 1,000 episodes of the Lupo/Green team (two cool dudes out solving crimes, one of them owns a dog), although Hilarious Fatso from Transformers seems to be an okay replacement.

Free Art

2008-08-28T19:55:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night I'll be helping out at this event at my favorite LA comic store, Golden Apple. Sloshed out of my mind on my usual half a beer, I will be vulnerable to sketching you a free Batman or Ninja Turtle head.

It used to be (and largely still is, although this is changing) that comic artists, and commercial artists in general, worked under freelance work-for-hire contracts with no health or retirement benefits. Which meant you could design half the X-Men team and still end up near-penniless and crippled by medical debt in your later years. The HERO initiative exists to help out artists in that type of situation, and that's who the event is raising money for.

"Crazy-eyed G4 girl"

2008-08-28T02:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't watched this, as I'd like to continue to operate under the assumption I sound exactly like Lance Henriksen.

Norton the Hero

2008-08-28T00:08:00.000-07:00

An authentic marine biologist I know corrected me about something inane I wrote a few posts back:

"From your Blog: "No one (I'm pretty sure) will ever live or die by anything Edward Norton says or does."
Well if by "no one" you are referring to people, your comment may be true. But if you generalize to marine life, Ed Norton has done a lot for our scaled and slimy friends. He narrated a documentary called Strange Days that was produced for one person. It was shown to Arnold Schwarzenegger the week before Fish and Game voted on the marine protected areas. It worked, the appropriate back door shenanigans were pulled to set up the preserves. Hooray!"

Is there anything he can't do?

I am the Night

2008-08-24T23:51:00.000-07:00

Over here at my real website is my newest painting, "I am the Night." It debuted in the real world last Friday at Crazy 4 Cult in Los Angeles. I suppose I should have blogged beforehand to tell people about the opening, but I was pretty crushingly exhausted from trying to get it done in time, and also I'd just be telling you, "Hey, go wait in a huge-ass line for two hours." Here's a good recap of the opening, and the show is up till September 12th, so you still have a chance to check it out if you're in the area.

The inspiration behind the painting was Halloween 1986 when I went as Metroplex. You could tell who I was because the costume had a picture of Metroplex on the chest and said, "Metroplex." My first impulse was to paint a child's Lennie Briscoe costume, but I've played the Lennie card perhaps too often. Who, I asked my soul, is the grossest and least appropriate subject for a mass-produced child's Ben Cooper costume? And Soul replied, "Philip Seymour Hoffman."

I started by looking through old family photos for shots like these to use as reference:

While sketching it out, I considered adding other kids too:

I decided against that because 1) I did not want to look at that crayon kid's face all the time, and 2) I decided I wanted more of a lonely/creepy vibe, and the extra kids cluttered it up and made it more of a "Which of these things is not like the other" piece.

I hope you enjoyed this peek behind the making of this important masterwork. I also hope you will take a look at my other updates, which include some wacky new shirts.

Two Words

2008-08-24T22:05:00.001-07:00

Art

2008-08-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

Steve Schofield, photographer.

Politics

2008-08-07T00:51:00.000-07:00

I've been asked a couple times in the past week whether I'd be making any Obama/McCain art (okay, two people have asked me). I guess if I started now I could totally have some kickin' election paintings ready by mid-November, early December. Which is exactly why I think politics is a pretty bad subject for art--it's too of-the-moment and easily dated, and yet, completely weighty and consequential. One of those guys is going to end up improving life for certain people while making things worse for some other amount of people, and any image of that person will carry whatever reverence or hatred or love a viewer brings in his or her heart. I'd rather paint people of absolutely no consequence; it makes it a lot easier to create content around the subject, rather than have the subject dictate the content. No one (I'm pretty sure) will ever live or die by anything Edward Norton says or does.

Somewhere, at some point, I read a really good description of what makes art bad or good (at least I think I did, since I can no longer place the source; I want to say it was Joseph Campbell quoting someone else). It concerned 'fast' and 'slow' art (I might even be wrong about these terms, since I don't get anything Googling fast+art+Campbell). Fast art moves you towards something, it wants you to make a judgment on its subject matter, to take action, to want or need or possess something. It's advertising, it's pornography, it's the art you made when you were in high school and angry. Slow art exists for the aesthetic experience. There can be content and meaning and message, but while you're looking at/hearing/watching it, that should be the only thing you ever want to do. I guess what I'm saying is, that slow art is the kind I'd like to make.

Comedy

2008-08-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I took a break from my sleep/eat/paint paradigm to catch a comedy show with a few of my pa ls. For five dollars I got to see Sarah Silverman, Janeane Garofalo (tiny!), and Bob Odenkirk try out new material they'd obviously written on bits of paper backstage. All the acts who weren't the host were pretty good, and the real standout (to me) was a guy named Arj Barker. Nothing on his site is quite as funny as his set that night, but if he breezes through your lonesome town, give him a shot. He's in the style of Mitch Hedberg without being a Mitch Hedberg clone.*

*I saw the real Mitch Hedberg in Scranton, PA a few months before he died. So I should clarify that I mean he's like the earlier, able-to-stand-upright version of Mitch Hedberg.

This is what happens

2008-07-21T04:26:00.000-07:00

when you let your pal hang onto your sketchbook as you visit the National Museum:

Heads up, Canadians!

2008-07-11T05:25:00.000-07:00

I have an interview in the newest (Summer 08) issue of your Naked Eye magazine, available in stores now and possibly on their website at some point.

Continuing on the theme of Canada, my half-Canadian best buddy has some pieces in "Crazians," opening tonight at the World of Wonder gallery in Hollywood. So I'm going to check that out, and perhaps you will too now that I've told you about it.

Those updates of which I spoke

2008-07-01T04:26:00.000-07:00

Here's the first:

He's my entry in "Nonpareil," a toy & sculpture show in Nederland, CO opening July 4th. I had a friend who works on "Robot Chicken" cast a few duplicate heads for me, for when I want to make Ninja Fury Lennie Briscoe, Lava Explorer Lennie Briscoe, etc. Maybe I will try sanding down his nose a bit next time (I was just amazed I sculpted something human, let alone vaguely Lennie-like).

Technological Innovation

2008-06-30T18:42:00.000-07:00

Christmas 1997 I asked for a modem, which I had heard was a machine that brought rumors about Star Wars into the home. "A modem? Whaddaya need that for?" my dad asked. "I've read about them, and really, I don't thing we need that." Our family had never been on the frontier of progress--our first computer had been an Atari ST purchased off a family selling everything to become truckers--but I was pretty sure he was incorrect.

So now, here is my blog, a good four or five years after I should have started one. I can't say how often this will get updated, but it'll probably be more often than the real website. And now you'll have something else in those months between paintings. I won't bother listing updates to this page on brandonbird.com, but I'll post here when I've updated the main site. I think this thing has an RSS feed, so that's one more way to know when there's new art and whatnot.