We have a monster of an episode this week! Two weeks of stories jam packed into one awesome episode with the entire crew: Stephen, Rob, & Pat. We talk about an email exchange between a writer and a producer, Glen Keane’s new animated short “Duet,” and some kid made a Kickstarter campaign to make potato salad and for some reason has earned $70,000+ (as of this post). Oh also, Rob met Shaggy and made a new animated short (not related)! Enjoy this delicious 2 hour episode… we hope it’s as fun to listen to as it was to record!

Annotations:

 
BATMETAL

 
Rob Yulfo’s new short “Wait for it…”

 
Guillermo del Toro’s Special Message about Pacific Rim

 
Glen Keane’s new animated short “Duet”

 
Asterix & Obelix teaser trailer (in French)

 
Check out more of your hosts:
Stephen Brooks (@RubberOnion)
Rob Yulfo (@RobYulfo)
Pat Ryan (@TheBadPatRyan)

And please Rate/Review us on iTunes
… and Rate/Review us on Stitcher while you’re at it! (=

The post Writer VS Producer, Glen Keane’s new animated short “Duet,” and Kickstarter for Potato Salad appeared first on Artiholics.

New York – Thursday, May 8, 2014

The lesson for today kids is as follows:  Stealing, lying, and turning innocent bystanders into criminals (as well as snitching on your friends) will not only reward you tangibly (free stuff) , but will also make you more popular among your peers.  This has been a message from the Public Broadcast System PBS -The More You Know.

BROKEN DOWN:

• A) If you find something (in this case money) on the floor of your school that clearly isn’t yours, keep it.  Do not turn it in. Be careful to take only what you want of it (enough to buy that thing you wanted), and give the rest to all of your classmates.  This way, if caught, you don’t have to be the only one taking the blame.  The odds of being turned in should also significantly decrease because all parties will have an equal share in the crime, and would be implicated were they to tell.
• B) If the actual owner comes to claim the lost item (the lost money), remain silent – and trust your co-conspirators will as well.
• C) If and when someone else points the finger at you, then and only then should you admit guilt.
• D) Your mom will for some reason happily pay double whatever money you were accused of misappropriating, and you and all your friends will go unpunished.  You will in fact be rewarded with the items they as well as yourself purchased on somebody else’s dime.  Nothing feels better than going on a shopping spree with money you didn’t earn.

I did like that the principal’s face was composed of my pen name for some reason.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

via Youtube Nation

The post This PBS Educational Cartoon Might Be Missing It’s Mark appeared first on Artiholics.

New York – Saturday, February 15, 2014

Ellen Page came out as a gay woman at the Human Rights Campaign’s THRIVE conference benefiting LGBTQ youth in Las Vegas last night (via. the hollywood reporter). 

This just makes her even cooler, and is huge for the LGBTQ community.

I have personally never met Ellen Page.  She is a good actress, (Trailer Park Boys, Juno, That one with the dream within a dream and a spinning top).

If you really like her, you can actually BE HER if you have a playstation or xbox  in BEYOND Two Souls, and by “be her,” I mean help her take a shower.

She hates me.

Ok, this might be a little over dramatic.  For anyone who is an oldschooler and followed me on this site’s parent blog ArtSucks.com back in 2010, you might remember an article I wrote titled:

“KNOCK KNOCK. . .WHO’S THERE? . . . JUNO. . . JUNO WHO? . . . DID JUNO THAT ACTRESS ELLEN PAGE HATES ME?”

ArtSucks had the unique distinction at the time of being the only art blog that was in TMZ.com‘s blogroll, which was in the sidebar of every page on their site. That being the case I did try to have some celebrity art content at the time to appease the massive TMZ traffic I was getting.  This lasted for a few years until I tightened my focus far more on fine art and less on pop culture.  They got a TV show, grew to enormous proportions, and abandoned having a blogroll.

As I’ve mentioned before (as well as in the article I’m about to repost for you), one of the beautiful (and sort of fucked up) things I learned during that time about the internet and having a popular blog is that if you mention an artist or celebrity, you will likely be contacted by that celebrity within a few weeks.   Ellen is no different. 

I had to go though the currently offline archives of ArtSucks.com on my computer that haven’t been reformatted to WordPresss (which is 95% of the site right now) to find this strange little gem, so I’ll republish it here on Artiholics, because of it’s weirdness. Now enjoy this odd bit of unintentional Trolling, from an article originally published on ArtSucks.com on October 11, 2010. <<<

The post Juno Actress Ellen Page Is Gay, And She Hates My Guts appeared first on Artiholics.

If The Metropolitan Museum of Art is doing away with their metal admission badges on Monday in conjunction with their new “Open Seven Days A Week” viewing hours, as this New York Times Article claims, they forgot to tell their marketing department.  The iconic architectural M tin badges are the crux of their ad campaigns in this week’s NYC’s Coolest Museums Revealed issue of Time Out NY.

I know art lovers and collectors who on a day off of work will run their own personal art gauntlet, collecting buttons, and stickers on their vest like merit badges. They try to take in as much culture as possible, almost like a scavenger hunt: Guggenheim, MoMA, Whitney, PS1, etc…  You see these people at the end of the night at a random art opening, exhausted, but proud.  You can trace their patterns by the various affixed baubles, and the metal Met circle has always been a must.

Time Out NY Spotlights the various museum badges.  Uncool fact…they are becoming extinct, forcing TONY to a post a bummer blog update.

The metal badge costs maybe 5 cents max for them to have made overseas, but people (tourists who don’t know better) are giving the museum a “suggested donation” of $25. So $24.95 isn’t enough of a profit I guess? A badge people will continue to wear throughout the day, pretty much like a badge of honor, showing the world that they indeed “support the arts” and are “worldly.”

A badge they will have taken home to their podunk town as a memento of their trip to the big city, where their podunk friends will see it, be jealous, and they themselves will dream of one day affording the luxury of taking their own big trip, to the big city..  A dream experience to be added to the bucket list, the feeling of they themselves being able to feel “worldly”  and well traveled.  A member of the “frivolous day trip to some of New York’s larger art and cultural institutions” club, of which The Met is the largest, and like all good cub scouts, returning home with a badge upon their sash.

But like the Times article said, the price of tin went up, so FUCK YOU hillbilly, enjoy your twenty five dollar sticker.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

[via NY TIMES via Time Out NY]

The post I Hope You Have A Collection Of Metal Met Badges, Because On Monday They Are Going Bye-Bye appeared first on Artiholics.

Los Angeles, CA – Thursday, June 27, 2013

In an article a few months ago about possibly the best celebrity (mostly horror) sculptor I’ve ever seen (Artist Mike Hill Brings Long Dead Horror Movie Monsters Back To Life- Artiholics) I mentioned Madame Tussauds sculptors as being a bunch of “hacks.” Of course I was almost immediately contacted by sculptors who trained at Madame Tussauds and were critical of the article (and rightly pissed off).

I must now apologize to all of you.  There can be only one wax sculpture museum with the moniker of  “worst” (much like highlander) and Madame Tussauds is far from it.  VICE writer Jamie Lee Curtis Taete has stumbled onto and photo blogged it in his Open Letter to The Worst Wax Museum in America- Vice.  The museum in the hot seat? The Hollywood Wax Museum in Los Angeles, California.

“Beyond just looking really, really, really, really shitty, your waxworks have a larger issue: you have, without exception, managed to depict each celebrity as a character in their least memorable movie.

For instance, you chose to depict Adam Sandler, star of The Waterboy, Big Daddy, Happy Gilmore, and dozens of other films that people have actually seen (or heard of) as his character from the movie where it rains gumballs. Google tells me, it is called Bedtime Stories. –Jamie Lee Curtis Taete – Vice”

Emo Conan The Barbarian.

Tom Hanks’ legally blind brother Hanksy Magoo (he lives in the basement).

Matt Damon?

The Vice Article is a great read, with 17 other pictures, including captions, and hilarious commentary about Jamie’s experience in the museum.

Hollywood Wax Museum has satellite branches in Branson, Missouri, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  The Tennessee museum I’ve actually walked past multiple times when I’ve been up in the Smokys for New Years. I’m kind of sad that I didn’t pony up the $17.95 for admission, seems a cheap price to pay for the belly laughs, and hours of enjoyment you and your Facebook friends would get out of snarkily ripping the ass out of the pictures of yourself in faux interaction with these bizarre mongoloid versions of celebrities depicted in their least famous films

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

[via Vice]

The post My Apologies To Madame Tussauds, We Have A New Winner For Worst Wax Figure Museum appeared first on Artiholics.

I just saw this one minute car commercial and don’t know what to make of it…it seems flawed (above).  I saw it on The History Channel tonight, and found it online with only 98 views, so it must have just launched today.   It starts with a dopey 30-something-year-old white guy opening his eyes to his birthday surprise present from his wife.

What other uses are there for easels?!

The dopey husband whom is obviously an “artist at heart” and must have previously revealed to her some secret desire to plein air paint is in such awe of how perfectly insightful she was to have given him this gift.  He reacts as anyone would.

The classic “I accidentally clicked on 2 girls 1 cup while eating chocolate pudding” expression.

Thus begins a montage of the husband and wife team driving in their Subaru Outback to various out of the way locations so she can sit around in the car humoring him as he “follows his passion.” Allowing him to set up his easel and paint in nature.  We can only assume she waits devotedly in the car with her smart phone to keep her company, building up “comment karma” on reddit while reconnecting with old high school ex boyfriends on facebook.

Good thing they have that $23,495 station wagon.  If they had any other car, he wouldn’t be able to get to all of these exotic locations (which are all accessible by roads) or be able to lug around THAT GIANT “PAINTING EASEL”

Painting at the swamp.

At the beach.

In the rain while in a forest.

In the mountains, pretty sure he had to climb up there, the car ain’t that good.

But what you don’t see is the guy setting the easel up in these locations.  That’s because it would blow the illusion.  The premise of the commercial is flawed, in that you would need the big car to lug around big things in order to follow your passions (or help your mate follow their passions while you sit in the passenger seat playing virtual solitaire).

There is a reason plein air painters have special easels for painting in the outdoors.  They are collapsible for easy portability.

That’s right my friend, they fold up into themselves making a solid wooden box.  The easel itself weighs just over 10 lbs, collapses down to box which you can carry over your shoulder in a bag (which it comes with), or by the handle which is built in.  It stores all your paints and palate safely, brilliant invention really.

   It holds canvasses no larger than 34-1/2 inches max. So basically, instead of dragging his wife out to the hinterlands in that tank, he could have gotten a smart car, a mini cooper, a VW bug, or just rented a zip car.

While in the rain, in the woods, the sun breaks through the trees.  This moment strikes him with inspiration, and he paints his first abstract painting, smash cut to husband and wife having coffee at home in front of a wall of his mostly figurative work.

The punchline to the commercial comes with the BIG REVEALl…He doesn’t know how to paint “realistically” after all.  You assumed he needed to be in these extreme conditions to be able to pull the raw realism out the environment.  Something that is hard to do when painting from pictures alone.

His Art Sucks, but it’s only a BIG REVEAL to US.  It’s no surprise to the wife.  He hasn’t been hording all of his work in a locked box, not letting her get a glimpse until he would unveil a fully hung exhibit.

No SHE actually HUNG ALL OF HIS WORK UP.   How do I know? Because she hung his most inspired piece UPSIDE DOWN!

She doesn’t care about his work, or if it’s good or if it’s shit.  She will pat him on the back and hang them on the wall of their dining room salon style as though it’s a giant refrigerator door.  Like a mom displaying her child’s elementary school crayola doodles.

His wife knows his art isn’t great, knew it from the first painting.  This bitch has been humoring him (while secretly resenting the decision she made in choosing that “painting easel” as a gift), yet still accompanies him on these “painting adventures.”

She does it because…

“It takes him places he’s always wanted to go.  That’s why we bought a Subaru.” – Wife

She “LOVES”  him – the key word , (as if we couldn’t tell by her condescending voice the entire time).

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post A Car Commercial That Humors Your Shitty Art World Dreams appeared first on Artiholics.

New York, NY – Monday, May 13, 2013

Artist Takeshi Miyakawa was arrested and sentenced to five days at Rikers Island and mandatory psych evaluations for hanging some plastic “I Love NY” bags with battery-powered lights, sparking a bomb scare on Bedford Avenue two Fridays ago, and is now free according to Brooklyn Paper.  I wonder if Milton Glaser will be implicated?

As we learned last month with the arrest of Kenny Scharf, just a little spray paint on a building will get your ass thrown in the slammer.  If you are “highbrow designer” who is “above spray paint” and are thinking about doing some illegal art installations involving electronics, you better think again.  Unless you are commissioned by the city, or at the very least have permits, people who see bulky battery packs and taped wiring strapped to trees in their neighborhoods will tend to get a bit jumpy (we are conditioned to be jumpy).

Street art involving electronics in a post 9 11 world (especially in a major city like New York) will alert the nearby citizens who have had  “any package left on a subway is a threat- report it” drilled into their heads for over a decade, and have them dialing the cops before you can connect the batteries to the bulbs. You won’t have to worry about climbing down the ladder, you’ll be getting cuffs slapped on your wrists and be pulled down the ladder.  Either that or the direct route, a nice paralyzed fall onto pavement after being tasered off the ladder

Best to learn the lessons of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force light bright bombscare in Boston a few years back, any street art visible to the public involving electronics in a post 9 11 world will get you locked the fuck up.  We are our own big brothers.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

[via brooklynpaper]

The post Unsanctioned Street Art Involving Electronics Will Get You Locked Up appeared first on Artiholics.

Some cultures think it is good enough just to plant a nation’s flag when they discover a new territory.  Not good enough for America, we (like that kid in SuperBad) can’t put wheels to dirt without drawing “big veiny triumphant bastards” all over the planet’s surface.  How’s that for marking our territory? One small step for man, one giant leap for man meat.

If you think this image is funny, it gets funnier when you pull back and get a better look at the whole image from a higher vantage point.

The classic New York D!©K style, erect-penis-in-mouth of the face on Mars.

Now you can see what these wannabe graffiti artists over at NASA were really trying to accomplish. Advertising dick-in-mouth defacement is nothing new for most NYC subway riders who see this sort of tag every day on movie and theatre posters while straphanging.

Anyone who lives in NYC and says they haven’t seen this Mamma Mia poster defiled is a damn liar.

Although all joking aside,  even though this penis drawing on Mars is is an unintentional fluke, we’ve already set a precedence for dick-bombing the universe back in the early 1970s.  Twice we purposefully shot our “junk” out into the far reaches of space.  The Pioneer Plaque featured a line drawing of an athletic nearly hairless man and woman, fully nude.

We come bearing dicks…and in peace.

Dick and balls were displayed (and fully shaven I might add).  The humans were depicted with 70s hair styles, as this was drawn and mailed skyward on Pioneer 10 in 1972, and pioneer 11 in 1973, yet their clean shaven genitals were decades ahead of their time.  The woman was drawn with zero pubic hair, and much like Barbie, had no indication of a vagina.  I guess Carl Sagan didn’t want to give the aliens any perverted “ideas.”

Keep that finger to yourself E.T.

Simple line art diagrams which we assumed an alien could somehow decipher, much like the drawings on the Voyager Gold Record.

Which also represents all of Earth and human kind with a few simple line art illustrations, on the B-side (like a vinyl record) it also has actual audio recordings cut into gold.  The ultimate single edition any hipster would want for their collection.  Not only does it demonstrate the various animal, human, and nature sounds of earth, it also has a copy of Johnny Be Good (Just in case the aliens happen to be at the Fish Enchantment Under The Sea Dance and need to play it in order to make sure their parent’s kiss).

The aliens will be no doubt be disappointed there are no dicks on the gold record, and no gold album cover either (which lowers the value substantially).

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

[PopSci via NASA via Reddit]

The post New NASA Photos Reveal A Rock Hard Martian Manscape appeared first on Artiholics.

Yesterday they posted their definitive list of the The 25 Coolest Snack Mascots Of All Time (Quisp, seen above- did not make the cut).

Sadly, as cartoons and animated films are becoming more 3D based, and as “reading the funny pages ” isn’t as easy to do because dad can’t rip newspaper sections out of his iPad, most kids prime interaction with line art, illustration, and traditional cartooning comes from either the front & backs of their cereal boxes, or their drinks & snack packs.   This prompted me to make an Artiholics list of The OTHER 25 Coolest Illustrated Snack Mascots Of All Time for those classic & cool mascots who didn’t make the Complex list.  Let’s begin with:

• 25  Uncle Ben

If you’ve watched the documentary Pururambo (Netflix streaming) you will learn that there are some tribes in New Guinea where the people live high in trees and have never seen a white person before.  I would imagine that back in the 1940s when Uncle Ben’s came into being, there were some parts of the United States where white people had never actually seen a black person before.  Their only experience might have been the smiling face on the box of Uncle Ben’s in their local market.  Is Uncle Ben the Jackie Robinson of food?  He was making rice cool 40 years before Ally Sheedy was eating warm sushi in The Breakfast Club.  I’d say yes, Uncle Ben is cool. Also, check out that bowtie, he was wearing one 65 years before Questlove brought it back, that’s an OG original pimp accessory.

• 24  Larry the Quaker Oats Mascot

After 135 years they gave old Larry some lipo, but didn’t change the powdered wig or garb.  That’s fucking badass.  This dude is so cool, he waits 135 years before hitting the gym.  He hits the gym hard, comes out with a tan, and a six pack, but doesn’t change his style. This guy can raise the frame of a house before sundown, and still have time to microwave you up some instant oatmeal, all while getting his lats back.

• 23  Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo

Cracker Jack’s trusted mascots for 95 years, they have evolved only slightly with the times, becoming line drawings and getting more streamlined, but if you get taken out to the ballgame, these little fucks will show you the light at the end of a long boring tunnel.  The model for the brand Robert Rueckheim, sadly died a few months after he posed for this mascot from pneumonia.  Luckily for us his legacy lives in that shitty 1908 song, as well as in his shitty bottom-o-the-box prizes, and the tooth-ripping-corn-kernel-husk-stuck-in-the-back-of-your-throat goodness.  Bingo we have a winner nearly 100 years later.

• 22  Land O’Lakes Maiden

Brown & Bigelow illustrator Arthur C. Hanson painted this illlustration for Land O’Lakes butter, which I learned in an old Beavis and Butthead comic book, and as you can see demonstrated in this video, has a (NSFW) secret behind the butter.

• 21  Aunt Jemima
  Take it from your Aunt, Atkins and Gluten Free breakfasts are for pussies.  You need some syrup, and pancakes.  Yes she started out as a racist character in a minstrel show, but she evolved into the Rosie the motha fucken Revieter of pancake mix, syrup, and BACON (fuck you eggs).  Look at that hipster bandanna, and that neckerchief.  Both of those vintage duds in Brooklyn would set you back at least $200 a pop.  She also looks like she’s been using some teeth whitening strips, R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

• 20  Wendell The Cinnamon Toast Crunch Baker

Ok, let’s step away from the Realism, which were what the last five Illustrations were done in, a Realist style.  The next characters are more classic cartoon / animation styles.  Wendell and the other Cinnamon Toast Crunch bakers (who were never given official names) are what would happen to the Rice Crispy elves if they got old and fat.  I remember liking this character because he was like Santa but delivered me candy in a bowl every morning disguised as cereal.  They along with loony toons, and  Maurice Sendak (In The Night Kitchen)

etched into my brain “What a Cartoon Baker Looks Like” which is most likely what 19th century Bakers looked like, and were what artists drawing in the 1940’s remembered bakers looking like when they were children – so this odd – misshapen ideal is carried on to today via syndication and reruns because the cartoonists of tomorrow are still eating this cereal today.  He also reminds me of the Old’ Timey Pepperidge Farm Guy mixed with a little Wilford Brimley.

• 19  Charlie The Tuna

A “hep-cat” without being a cat fish, Charlie was a beatnik from way back.  He chills back in his Newsey hat, with thick framed glasses.  He sometimes wears shades underwater because his eyes are a little “sensitive”, probably has something to do with all that seagrass he’s been buying from the puffer fish.. But don’t worry, he’s too cool to be eaten.

“Sorry Charlie, only the finest prime tuna is good enough for Star-Kist”. If he didn’t talk in a groovy bebop beat-poet slang, he would be named “Lunch.”

• 18  Mr. Pringles

This little barber shoppe quartet looking Smiley had the ironic moustashe before it was cool.  You could call him a hipster, but he actually hates hipsters even though he lives in Williamsburg, wears skinny jeans, and carries his chips in a tennis ball container shaped tube instead of a shitty mylar bag.  How do you stand out in a market full of bagged, oddly shaped chips?  Create an entirely new and fun container that stacks chips like pogs, playing cards, or comic books.  And the chips can even be turned into sculptures, if you are creative enough.

Reinventing the wheel.

• 17  Fun Dip

Fun Dip was the precursor to Crystal Meth (on left – blue Crystal Meth decades before Breaking Bad).  If they look like three fingered Muppet Whatnot faces stuck on little piles of drugs, then they are doing their job.  If you don’t remember these from your childhood, you are experiencing the same feeling as ex-hippies who don’t remember the 60s, you probably OD’d on them and have blacked out the memories.

They are little sticks made out of sugar that kids dipped into little pouches filled with flavored sugar.  Your saliva became the adhesive for the next lick.  When you were down to the last of what you could reach with the crack spoon dipping stick, you could eat the stick.  Then you would wet your finger and dab it in the bag for the last of the powder and rub it on your gums, they would feel good and numb, that’s how you’d know it was “good shit.” Ah, memories.

• 16  The Nerds

Nerds (relesased in 1983) have absolutely NOTHING to do with Revenge of The Nerds (released in 1984).  It would be like a candy coming out in 2013 named EPIC (because everything in 2013 is EPIC) these little naked Fraggle Rock looking characters (they all look like a hairless and tail-less Wembley) just had to look somewhat like little jumbly colored rocks (which is what the candy looked like).  The brilliance of this candy is that each box had separate compartments for each flavor, and allowed kids a CHOICE as to which flavor they wanted, and there was such a quantity of nerds in each box, that they could feel free to dole out palm-fulls of nerds to their friends in the flavors of their choosing.  Played into some very deep psychological kid shit about sharing and power.  Smart move nerds.

• 15  Sour Patch Kids

The sour patch kid is disgusting in a way.  Most snack mascots are figureheads either enjoying the product, encouraging others to enjoy it, or trying to protect it from being stolen (usually by kids).  This little sadomasichistic fuck “is” the product you will be consuming.  He basically is encouraging you to eat him and all his sickeningly sweet and sour goodness.

• 14  The Noid

Made by the same clay animators who brought you the California Raisins, and the Cookie Guys, the noid was Domino’s original anthropomorphic representation of the little burnt bubbles you get from some bad take out pizza.  By ordering Domino’s you would be avoiding the Noid, because the pizza was basically made from a frozen block of cardboard and didn’t have defects actual pizza sometimes would encur with actual cooking.

• 13  Buzz Bee

It takes balls for a mascot to try to sell “healthy-ish” slightly sweetened Cheerios to kids when there are cereals on the market with floating marshmallows, and cookies in them.  But then again, he did fuck with Hulk Hogan, and live to tell about it.  He’s also voiced by Billy West, the same guy who does the voice of Fry on Futurama, and both Ren & Stimpy.

• 12 Cookie Crook

The mascot for Cookie Crisp, along with his dog, were cereal murders thieves. Much like the Hamburgler, Barney (Fruity Pebbles – see no.8), The Trix Rabbit, and anyone I have to stop from L’eggo’in my Eggo or laying a finger on my Butterfinger.  But also like Disney’s Aladdin- he was just stealing to eat (and feed his dog).

It was an odd form of child psychology, which seemed to be a running theme in the 80s and 90s.  The message they were conveying to kids on a subconscious level was that “this food is so tasty you would want to steal it”, so it is obviously something of value, and  you as a kid should encourage your parents to shoplift buy it for you.  In a way you would be psychologically getting away with something by eating it.  A simulation of the feeling con men must have when they pull off a successful con, or the rush a car thief might get from a successful heist.

• 11  The Jolly Green Giant

Who are we kidding, this is a mother fucking superhero.  Watch, I will describe The Jolly Green Giant to you, and you will picture him perfectly.  Imagine if The Incredible Hulk was an 100 feet tall Vegan, towering over fields of growing vegetables, a little slimmer but still muscular, and wore a green “André The Giant style” over one shoulder wrestling singlet made out of leaves (wait a minute… was André stealing his look from Jolly – another giant?  hummmm).

• 10 Peter Pan

Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter.  Apparently, when the “boy who would never grow up” actually left Never-Neverland , he was somehow transmogrified into a sex-oozing leggy, tiny waisted, redheaded peacenik bombshell (peace sign, or maybe she’s just gesturing “two”).

Peter Pan as a babe makes it a lot easier to think of happy thoughts.  The ad copy is chock-full of sexual innuendo.  She will “smooth” out your nuts, till they are “creamy-good.”

As they said in the original book: “One girl is worth more use than 20 boys.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

• 9  Crispy

I was a kid I had no fucking idea who Jimmy Durante was, but this Crispy Critters Cereal Mascot who was doing a dead on impression, not only allowed kids to eat what appeared to be Animal Crackers for breakfast, but could play piano, looked like a Muppet, and but also introduced us to a five syllable word “indubitably” which would indubitably cause kids to ask their parents what the word means.  Parents in turn would ask the kids where they learned that word…one step closer to a purchase.  Smart move Post!

• 8  Fred & Barney

Fred & Barney sold some weird shit in their day.  From Winston Cigarettes, to cereal, to ice pops, to children’s vitamins.  Let’s focus on the cereal, the Fruity Pebbles, and Cocoa Pebbles (Pebbles being the name of Fred and Wilma’s daughter btw). For some reason Fred has a stockpile of children’s cereal named after his daughter, and Barney (who works with Fred & we can assume makes a comparable salary) is intent on STEALING Fred’s children’s cereal.

Considering The Flintstones takes in place prehistoric times, Barney technically invents RAP to trick Fred into giving him some cereal. Fred is so excited by the Rap that he immediately starts scratching the record, thus inventing DJ’ing.

Barney had kids of all skin colors repeating his Fruity rhymes back in in 1989.  That’s 7 years before Eminem was making records.  Yabba Dabba Delicious… eh, it’s a living.

• 7   Count Chocula, Frankenberry, Boo Berry, Yummy Mummy, Fruit Bruit

The General Mills “Monster Cereals” were classics as well as conundrums.  How to make silver age horror movie monster characters not only not give children nightmares, but also make them appealing, to, you know…eat.  The fact that these characters had the balls to exist, is cool.

• 6   Ben & Jerry

In the 90’s Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s thought it was cool to have a logo designed for their ice cream business using not only both of their first names, but also line art  illustrated portraits of themselves eating iced cream.  That’s not only a egomaniacally meta logo design, but also a stroke of genius, as it caught on and they grew to the company they are today.  Cool as fuck.

• 5   Duncan the Daredevil

From the box art it appears as the DunkAroos Aussie Kangaroo mascot Duncan The Daredevil got the Poochie update with the backwards hat, and cool lingo (and zero Australian accent).  It also looks like they were confused as to what dunking was exactly.  Was it spelunking, jumping off a high dive with a rope as a bungee cord, or dunking a basketball?  Either way kids got to dip cinnamon cookies into icing.  What’s not to like, he’s cool, like Poochie, or Fred Durst.

What’s really fucking weird is the box in the upper right is obviously drawn by an American Illustrator, because Duncan is drawn with a pouch.  Male kangaroos don’t have pouches.  Wasn’t there ONE Aussie involved in the making of this product?

• 4   Quisp

Quisp was the sister cereal to Quake, the Quaker Oats Company brand and existed from 1965-1970 and now is made in small quantities and available online to weirdos and hipsters who want to eat vintage cereal.  This little propeller headed pink-faced douche is too cool to sit on other grocery store shelves like those other plebes.  It’s only available to people in the know, who have access to this thing called the World Wide Web.  You probably haven’t heard of it, you aren’t cool enough.

• 3    Sugar Bear

Sugar Bear was the sleepy-eyed, mellow-as-fuck, anthropomorphic Super Sugar Crisp Mascot, with the voice of a crooner, and a Vitamin Packed Punch (what, sugar is a vitamin right?).  The only problem was that this smooth “Dean Martin-esque” voiced badass also had access to some fine ass cereal which contained 8 vitamins (8 is almost 10, which is more than most kids can count- that must be a lot of vitamins). The original bear was designed by Robert “Bob” Irwin, a graphic designer for Post Cereal.

If anyone fucked with the bear over his cereal (and really why would you fuck with a bear wearing a shirt and eating cereal?) he would pop one crisp in his mouth, and transform into “Super Bear”.  The cereal had the same effect on Sugar Bear as a steroid shot to Lance Armstrong – or can of Spinach to Popeye.  He would then not only proceed to brutally kick the shit out of you, he would do so while singing a catchy song about it.  Observe:

Having the word “Sugar” in a cereal now is of course verboten, it’s currently called Golden Crisp, even though Consumer reports says that a small bowl of this cereal has as much sugar as a Dunkin Donut.

• 2     Mr.T.

Mr.T would pitty the fool who didn’t put him on the Complex list.  His cereal is crispy sweet, and is shaped like the letter T.  Pee Wee Herman eats it in that one movie, and fuck man, it’s Mr. T.  You couldn’t find a more badass than Mr. T.  He played a character on THE A TEAM called B.A. Baracus, what do you think the motha fucking B.A. stood for?   (Guessed ‘Bad Attitude?’? guess again).   He was the first mainstream actor to rock a Mohawk, and he pittied fools.

He beat the shit out of Rocky in Rocky III.  He was Hulk Hogan’s partner in Wrestlemania 1.  He also assures you about 10 times in 30 seconds that the cereal is cool.  Trust Mr. T. “It’s Cool”.  Is it tasty?  Who the fuck cares, it’s cool. Is it good for you?  “It’s Cool.” That’s all that really matters.  Team up with Mr.T, fuck, Hulk Hogan did it, and that was cool.  So the cereal must be cool, right?

Plus he is a big proponent of education, staying in school, and parent’s teaching their kids to not use drugs (ok, so he’s not totally cool).

• 1     Santa Clause

Have you ever heard of an artist named Haddon Sundblom?  No?  Well you’ve seen his work.  You could say he’s one of the most famous character designers ever. He created the iconic Santa we know and love.  He based him on Clement Clark Moore’s 1822 Poem “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”.  Sundblom had his friend Lou Prentiss, a retired salesman who model for the initial painting.  The illustration above was a commission from Coca-Cola for an ad that ran in a 1932 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, and later ran in Ladies Home Journal, National Geographic, The New Yorker and others.  Sundblom continued painting Santa for Coke for the next 32 years.

According to Coca-Cola’s : 5 Things You Never Knew About Santa Claus and Coca-Cola:

The Santa Claus we all know and love — that big, jolly man in the red suit with a white beard — didn’t always look that way. In fact, many people are surprised to learn that prior to 1931, Santa was depicted as everything from a tall gaunt man to a spooky-looking elf. He has donned a bishop’s robe and a Norse huntsman’s animal skin.

In fact, when Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast drew Santa Claus for Harper’s Weekly in 1862, Santa was a small elflike figure who supported the Union.

Haddon Sundbloom painted Santa from 1932 -1964.   Coca-Cola advertising continues to feature images of Santa based on Sundblom’s original works. These paintings are some of the most prized pieces in the art collection in the company’s archives department and have been on exhibit around the world, in famous locales including the Louvre in Paris, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the Isetan Department Store in Tokyo, and the NK Department Store in Stockholm. Many of the original paintings can be seen on display at World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Ga.

Read the other 5 Facts on Coca-Cola’s Cokelore

So next holiday season, raise a glass of eggnog (or Coke), or eggnog with rum (or rum and coke) to Haddon Sundblom, the forgotten father of father Christmas (and a freelance illustrator), the OTHER Number 1 coolest illustrated snack mascot of all time.

If you are curious, Here is the Complex countdown list of all 25, and their links to their pages for each.  This could be called the list of “Most Famous Snack Mascots” rather than coolest IMHO:

• 25. Frito Bandito
• 24  Cool Spot
• 23  Dig ‘Em Frog
• 22  Cheesasaurus Rex
• 21  Cookie Guys
• 20 Lucky The Leprechaun
• 19  Horatio Magellan Crunch
• 18  Chester Cheetah
• 17  Ernest J. Keebler
• 16  Vlasic Stork
• 15  Chef Boyardee
• 14  Miss Chiquita
• 13  The California Raisins
• 12  Quicky
• 11   Punchy
• 10  Mr. Owl
• 9    Helping Hand
• 8    Julius Pringles
• 7    Trix Rabbit
• 6    Tony The Tiger
• 5    Snap! Crackle! and Pop!
• 4    Mr.Peanut
• 3    Kool-Aid Man
• 2    Poppin’ Fresh
• 1     M&M’s Spokescandies

The post The OTHER 25 Coolest Illustrated Snack Mascots Of All Time appeared first on Artiholics.

On Wednesday Marvel released the trailer for “THE WOLVERINE”, the new Hugh Jackman, Marvel Comics movie which takes place in Tokyo, Japan and hopefully doesn’t get leaked to the web before the special effects are finished like the last one.

According to the newly released posters, Wolverine is pissed off in the rain, shirtless , and has a katana.  Wolverine carrying a katana is sort of like having a bazooka with a sling shot attached to the side (what’s the fucking point).  Wolverine went to Japan to kick ass and eat sashimi…and he’s all out of sashimi.

I don’t care if that’s a Hattori Hanzo sword, if it isn’t made out of adamantium, it is like carrying a large butter knife when you already have six built-in machetes.

Oh, a bunch of Ninjas?  Are your swords made out of adamantium, no?  Well then they are about to be cut in half like a chainsaw though balsa wood.

Wolverine went to Japan to kick ass and eat sashimi…and he’s all out of sashimi.

Anyway, from the trailer it looks like Wolverine loses his Mutant Healing Factor in Japan, sort of like how Superman lost his powers in that one movie for a while, or like how Spider-man lost his abilities in that one movie for a while.  I am sure that this will be a permanent condition this time though, because that’s how everybody loves to see their favorite superheroes, weak and feeble.

Can I just bring up the fact once again, that Wolverine looks badass in his mask / cowl, and has worn it ZERO times in the X-Men or Wolverine films, but wears it ALL THE TIME in the comic books.

I even did a quick mock-up of how it would look on Jackman back in 2005 when they put out the original X-Men costume.

That looks really shitty, but you get the idea.

Written by  Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post Wolverine Went To Japan And All He Got Was This Lousy Sword appeared first on Artiholics.

New York, NY – Friday, March 22, 2013

Making all attempts to beautify the subway with random MTA Arts For Transit projects, we are still constantly hit with gaping eyesores such as the ad above.  Sometimes I feel like I need to talk to major companies who pay good money, not only to hire an artist, but also to print art like this, and pay for subway car ad space   Apparently, according to the illustrator they commissioned to draw this hideous portrait, some old drag queen named Jenny McCarthy has a show, called The Jenny McCarthy Show on VH1.  “STRAIGHT UP…WITH A TWIST” (*the twist is, she has a DICK).

Seriously, when you are using reference for a woman who was Playboy Playmate of the year, you want to at least nail the face, not draw from some gross online gif

Take a tip from Andy Warhol guys, when you are drawing a classic beauty who isn’t 19 anymore, less is more.  This goes for drawing any woman. Like the song, you want to “Accentuate the positive” and “eliminate the negative”.

Emphasize the eyes and lips and blow out rest of the face a bit.  Every line counts when drawing a woman’s face.  Every line indicates years.  This artist went crazy with eye bags, a line under her lip, at least 8 other little cheek and eye lines and a severely hard line on her nose.

Look at the gif compared to the art, she has a straight jaw line in real life, yet for some reason the artist decided she wasn’t plump enough, must round out the jaw, add a little chubby chin on the end of that round jaw as well.  What the hell was he/she thinking?  And who approved this art?  Too many lines can ruin a beautiful woman’s face.

Not only that, they drew her with more roots than she actually has.  The drawing needs a dye job, this is something that in a drawing. . . YOU DON’T HAVE TO DRAW.  Also, if you notice, Jenny McCarthy has very shiny lips. not SOLID BLACK lips with a tiny white oval on the bottom lip.  She has sexy lips, you drew her like she put on lipstick with a black Sharpie.

Jenny McCarthy may have deep eye bags, and under eye wrinkles (in reality) but you wouldn’t know it from her press photos. This is because they are RETOUCHED.  As an artist, or commercial portrait artist to be more specific, you are obligated to do the retouching as you draw.

I understand that Jenny is known for being tongue and cheek while also being sexy, we all remember the famous Rolling Stone cover.

But this misses the mark.  It is less sexy, and more confusing, sad, and desperate.   Next time VH1, give me a call.  I rarely work in this style much anymore, but I have done it for a lot of big companies, and will still pull it out on special occasions.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post Bad Subway Ad Featuring Jenny McCarthy Line Drawing appeared first on Artiholics.