You’ve may noticed that a good number of bus shelters and billboards around the city are not so lame anymore. In the rush of traffic and commutes we don’t normally pay attention to trifles such as outdoor advertisements, but lately there have been some reasons to wait for the next bus.

It won’t take you long.  You can spare a couple of minutes to spend with the art displayed in your bus stop. If you just scan it with your smartphone you’ll immediately discover more about the piece, the artist and its history, as well as the museum it comes from.

This is not a natural phenomenon as you can expect, but a nationwide campaign to promote American art and raise awareness for a group of museums. The art will be displayed in all sorts of billboards, telephone kiosks, subways, newsstands, bus shelters, and oversized screens such as the all mighty LED screens of Times Square.

This artistic campaign is a collaboration ( #ArtEverywhereUS ) between the Outdoor Advertising Association of America and five museums: The Art Institute of Chicago, The Dallas Museum of Art, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and The Whitney Museum of American Art. These museums aim both at educating the public and of course sparking interest in the American art they display at their sites.

Once you are aware of the existence of this campaign, the images surprise you everywhere. There are 58 different art works disseminated around the City, and all over the country, but that’s too much of a wide field for this modest urbanite. The big screens in front of the Madison Square Garden spot art from time to time. The horribly overcrowded Port Authority Station displays “The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme” by Joseph Stella in the steps of a random staircase. Inside metro cars, or in a pathway at 14^th Street, the list becomes too diverse. You can drive by 23^rd Street between 8^Th and 9^Th Avenues and get instinctually stopped by a big Rothko that resembles a STOP sign. We can travel to Egypt in 8^th and 38^th Steet. Or reconcile with your lovely one at Broadway and West 91^st because after all we get along so much better than the couple in Grant Wood’s American Gothic.

American Gothic, 1930 by Grant Wood

My Egypt, 1927 by Charles Demuth

Written and Photographed by Alejandro Pardo

The post What the ART is Going on with my Bus Stop Advertising? appeared first on Artiholics.

When I heard that there was going to be a Peanuts movie, I was happy… until later in that sentence where the acronyms “CGI” and “3D” were used — then my heart sank. How could a studio hope to capture the uniqueness of Charles Schulz’s character designs or the dry playfulness of Bill Melendez’s animation in CG?

Well, they did it. The animation is done mostly on 2s (better known as 12fps, a traditional animation favorite framerate, as opposed to the full 24) so it has that semi-choppy feel, reminiscent of our favorite holiday specials. The textures are not perfectly smooth, as I had originally feared because it would belie the tone of the strip; they are more like an action figure model before it’s been sanded down… rough and unrefined. The color palette is dead on. The facial animation feels like it was drawn on with graphite and is a real hidden gem in this clip’s animation showing the skill it took to make it happen.

Color this animator impressed and excited! I’ve always liked what Blue Sky has done (especially with their lighting), and I should’ve had more faith in their execution — but nostalgia makes critics of us all, at some point, usually sight unseen. Here’s hoping the story can live up to the excellence of this clip.

Written by Stephen Brooks

The post ‘Peanuts’ Teaser Trailer Impresses with CG that Feels Traditional appeared first on Artiholics.

New York – Thursday, February 13, 2014

Was it too snowy to go to the galleries tonight?  How about if the art came to your living room?!  An Infomercial as Art? Announcing the first New York television broadcast of Good/Bad Art Collective’s experimental infomercial “FOREVER“ (Tonight at EDIT: 2:07 AM   2:37 AM on CBS in NYC).

The late night broadcasts of FOREVER represent the final stage of the Collective’s CURTAINS project for Nasher XChange. CURTAINS is a three-part experiment, involving an interactive opening event, a traditional extended art exhibition, and a short film broadcast on late-night television in different cities around the country. The three stages of the project create a complex, nonlinear narrative that comes to conclusion and explanation with the screening of FOREVER.

FOREVER is a short film disguised as a late-night television infomercial. The short tells the story of an unnamed man offering his secret of immortality through personal stories and philosophies, eventually leading to the abrupt and ironic end of his presentation.

FOREVER Trailer from Jason Reimer on Vimeo.

Combining traditional studio documentation and footage taken at the CURTAINS one-night art event, the man’s secret is revealed through a toll-free phone number the viewer is requested to call by program’s end.

It will technically be considered EARLY Friday morning 02/14/14 because it is so late, but this airs TONIGHT around EDIT: 2:07 AM 2:37 AM on WCBS 2 (NYC) on all providers. I was told by the collective’s press contact that “they could move us to the slot before or after at their transgression” (EDIT: Their Transgression moved it back one slot) so I would suggest tuning in to CBS at like 2:05 AM EST if you want to see history be made.

If you don’t live in NYC, here is the list of scheduled airings in other cities (click then look at the sidebar scroll). EDIT: This aired ass-early in the morning on Valentines Day in NYC.

Good/Bad Art Collective Explores the Television Medium for Dallas Texas’ Nasher Sculpture Center’s Public Art Exhibition, Nasher XChange.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post Psst…Late Tonight In New York City – Secret Art Screening On Your TV appeared first on Artiholics.

When proposing a building design, an architect will draft a realistic architectural rendering.  This is a fiction, the illusion of a 3-D concept model of a building which only exists on paper.  This sort of rendering makes it easier for a client to “picture it” as a finished structure in relation to the existing architecture and being a physical fixture in the world around it as very little is left to the imagination.

If you are an entrepreneurial mogul such as Jay Z setting out to launch and brand a previously unknown Cognac, you find yourself with a unique challenge. How do you go about giving something that didn’t previously exist in the marketplace a chance to compete with other high-end alcohols, all of which already have a strong foothold on the nightclub’s coveted top shelves?

Aside from paying top dollar for that shelf placement, you can also skew your advertising with some fantasy. You realistically render it into reality.  Place the liquor in an atmosphere in which your product “should” exist.  A beautiful photograph of the largest musician in the world sitting in his massive Tribeca penthouse with a $6,850,000.00 view, wearing a $4,000 Tom Ford suit, smoking a $45 cigar, while admiring his print of Basquiat Untitled (1983).

This “Insta-cred” elevates the alcohol to the level of all that is around it, as we (as well as products) are judged by the company we keep. It’s validated as an intrinsically high status liquor because of its dominant placement in a world of previously validated status symbols.

So with this in mind, let’s come up with a further proposition. You are Jay Z.  You love the fine art world, are a collector of the arts, and seek acceptance by the upper crust fine art elite as an artist.  You feel like the modern day Basquiat, like the modern day Picasso, yet you aren’t garnering any fine art respect.

You would like to be dually embraced as an entity that exists outside of the “Mtv Rap World” as well as continue to be looked upon by rap fans as somewhat of a god among men.  How do you bridge the gap between a hip hop performance and performance art?

By using the business model of selling an unknown Cognac to a high-end consumer. The key would be to craft a narrative that places you into a position of power as a reputable performance artist.  A lot of art world players would have to be precisely aligned “in the same picture” to give the illusion of uniformity, so that your product — in this case “Jay Z” himself — is not only integrated into the fine art performance art world as a supporting element, but as a powerful entity with dominant placement (the glowing bottle in the foreground).

Throughout this new album Magna Carta Holy Grail Jay Z sings about the various art pieces he wants to own, or currently owns.  If you want to build an art collection of that scale, it would total slightly less than $500 Million dollars, which if he had his heart set on it, he could buy up all the pieces he mentions and still have $500 Million left in the bank.  There are some things money can’t buy, and apparently art world Insta-cred isn’t one of them.  Let’s examine in detail.

Because this song is so fine-art-centric, Picasso Baby director Mark Romanek is quoted as saying he was directly inspired by the documentary The Artist Is Present. The film chronicles Marina Abramović ‘s retrospective at MoMA which was highlighted by her daily “duration performance piece” whereupon she would sit facing members of the public one-by-one, making a lot of them cry.  The artist was present, and you were eye level, an equal.

To “sample” this performance (with a few tweaks) and jump into duration performance art piece without having previously existed in the fine art performance world takes balls, but if you have a nice warm glowing bottle- it’s part skill, part psychology, part who you know, and a lot of creative fine tuned editing.

A few months ago the Internet blew up because Jay Z was in Chelsea secretly filming (not so secret to the art world twitter heads) a six hour performance art piece at a small white wall gallery reminiscent of the Marina piece- and Marina was invited. This was edited down to a 7-minute (11 minute with credits) “Performance Art Film” aka Music Video which “isn’t a video.” Watch the HBO film Picasso Baby (above), and as you do, think about Jay Z’s positioning, posturing, and the way it’s cut.

As the performance was going on in real time, the internet buzz from people watching the vines and reading the live tweets were mixed between “this is an amazing piece of performance art” and “this isn’t art.”

A musician on a stage in front of an audience is performing, and Jay Z is a hip hop artist, so yes, this is performance art… if you do it in front of 60,000 people (his normal audience size) or 60, it doesn’t detract from the art of performing, so I don’t see what the beef is.

You might have thought you were coming to view or participate in a performance art piece, but you were also unwittingly invited to a sparring match. A shootout at high noon.

A Matrix duel in a white dojo, and tough luck, you are Morphius- oh, and you have to sit on a bench……against Bruce Lee…

…with slight of hand skills.

I’ve got 99 Problems and Marina ain’t one.

and fists……forming invisible guns… you are no match.  Because you aren’t the cowboy in the white hat, he is, and you also don’t have a voice. There are a lot of people with pure white shirts in the crowd, but he never squares off with any of them. There is a lot of subliminal shit happening here.

A one-sided rap battle in which you have literally no chance of winning or even anything close to looking superior.  Not because you are an inferior artist, but because you don’t get a chance to defend yourself.

If you have ever seen 8 mile, or watched any Rap Battles on Youtube, you will have noticed that the protocol is very much the same as this performance.  One rapper gets the opportunity to get up in the other rapper’s face, tearing them down with rhymes as an audience reacts.

They have to just stand there silently and take it… but the beauty of the rap battle is that the person taking the punishment gets a chance to retaliate with their own rhymes, while the initial rapper takes his turn remaining silent as the audience reacts.  Not so in this case, as the only one with a mic is Jay Z.

Was this a duration performance?  Yes.  Was it one where the artist stands above you, yelling down at you from a white pedestal, directly into your face,  in an all white room, wearing white, while you sit there and have your reaction filmed from multiple angles and by dozens of smart phones? Yes again.

I wondered about how Marina might have felt in accepting the invitation to be upstaged at a performance which would be ripping off her own performance, knowing it would be edited.

There was a lot of subliminal psychological stuff going on in this film, to position Jay Z as an authority figure in the fine art high-brow performance art world.

For one, the constant battle for height with Marina.  We reduce our height to show subordination to others and increase height to gain status.

Shaking a finger “no” at her, and laughing when she pushed her face on his… very weird shit happening.  I’m really breaking this down, probably too much, but 6 hours was edited to 7 minutes. These exact seven in this exact way. Pretty sure they thought about every second of footage.

In editing this tight, there are no accidents or misplaced frames.

I’d imagined Marina might have felt something like the former The Police front man Sting to P.Diddy.

Do you remember when P.Diddy and Faith Evans did a tribute song to the Notorious B.I.G. and they “sampled” Sting’s I’ll be watching you, with “I’ll be Missing You?”

Later, after there was no signs of this going away, Sting showed up on stage in a (If you can’t beat em’ join em’) appearance to sing the hook underneath Puffy literally talking over what was once his song. Although it appeared as though Sting refused to change the lyrics from I’ll be Watching You to I’ll Be Missing You, it still seemed to be giving P.Diddy the OK, even if it was reluctantly.

Marina looks like Sting.  This is her world, but Jay Z is more famous.

It seems like people were kind of enamored.  Some people danced and played along, others were being beat down by shadowboxing and words being thrown in their face.

You know when you are on the subway and those groups of 3 kids with a boombox get on, and they start the music super loud and then start spinning around the poles, doing flips and stuff very close to you, where they almost hit people?  It’s the proximity that makes it uncomfortable, and if you embrace it and let yourself be impressed, you will be part of the show, but if you bury your head in your phone and don’t want to participate, it becomes more awkward.  And when you look awkward, you get dominated.

Jay Z came off looking like Jesus Christ walking into the room giving out gold bars.  Yes, if he wasn’t famous nobody would give a shit about a guy talking in rhyme about what art pieces he “wants to line his castle” with.

Yeah, the discomfiture is probably what sets it apart from being a rap concert. Plus having all those alpha art-world personalities in the room and basically making them sit on a bench.
The balls behind the concept: I’m going to rhyme talk at your face, about how I want to own artwork – really loud, and you will sit there awkwardly, and this is art.

Were they swept up in the moment? They felt like they were special, because they were invited to be there, and in the room with one of the most famous musicians currently on the planet.  Like the Marina piece, they got to look into his eyes and connect.  They got to be performed to one-on-one.

Actors, film makers, painters, gallerists, art critics etc..

It is a very strange little art video, and there is a lot to be learned behind the psychology at play here. To put it in the rap musician mindset… If I sign with a record label that already has a lot of big named acts on their label, that makes me legit, and makes me on their level, a big name act – so when Jay Z throws these big performance artists into his video and they dance around with him, it’s fake legitimacy. But since they are into it, do they in fact make it legit?

I did like that there is a line in the song about him being the next Jean-Michel, and that’s one of the only lines where you don’t actually see him saying it. That would be too pompous a line to come out of his mouth on camera, and he felt that, and edited appropriately.

All this said, I think Jay Z is a genius.  To say he isn’t  an artist is absurd.  When it comes to marketing, making hit music,  and the business of art – he is on par with Andy Warhol.  Andy once said:

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” – Andy Warhol

Jay Z has got that part of the art game on lock.

The post Jay Z’s Empire State Of Mind: The Hip Hop Picasso is Present Baby appeared first on Artiholics.

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 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.

So this 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).

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

(via. artiholics via. coca-cola, header photo via. love hate advertising)

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Santa Claus or “Saint Nick” has had many different representations as a visual image. The following list is a collection of 7 different depictions of Santa Claus at different times throughout the tradition of Christmas.

1. “Saint Nicholas” is depicted above; a Greek archbishop of Myra (which today, is Turkey) who lived around the 4th century AD, who was known to be charitable, especially loved by the youth. This is a Roman Catholic depiction of Saint Nicholas done in oil painting.

2. Illustrator, Thomas Nast’s depiction of “Merry Old Santa Claus,” from Harper’s Weekly, January 1, 1881.

 3. Andres Serrano, the artist who became infamous for popularizing an image of Jesus Christ submerged in a glowing container of yellow urine. Andres Serrano in a lecture he gave at City College (CCNY), described this photograph, suggesting the irony behind the image of a black man who is homeless, wearing a Santa Claus suit. This man was very poor, and he had virtually nothing to give, yet he ironically is dressed as an iconic giver.

4. Oh the childhood nostalgia of the Coca Cola Santa Claus. The way Coca Cola represents him gives me that Christmas feeling so quickly. What about this Santa Claus is so iconic? Look closely at the image- it seems to be done in oil painting, and especially on the boot, it has that Van Gogh “painter’s touch.” On the belt you can see where the artist’s brush was dragged down to create that white highlight. The red cheeks are reminiscent of Norman Rockwell. It’s the painting aspect that we cherish so much. On a side note, thanks to images like this, Coca Cola has created a bridge between rotting tooth decay and obesity to good old Saint Nicholas, the Christian archbishop that warmly gives. Santa Claus has become the giver of 65 grams of sugar per 20 ounce bottle. What’s that in your bag Santa Claus? Diabetes? Where’s the iPad that I asked for?

5. Santa Claus as illustrated by Frank A. Nankivell in Puck, v. 52, no. 1344 (December 3 1902). This Santa Claus is quite the lady’s man is Nankivell’s illustration, which seems to be done in water color and ink.

6. Santa seems to have a deep contemplative pause as he has a moment with two dolls in this Japanese illustration by an unknown artist. Notice the boots- the defined lines show the differentiating shadow- the darker areas have more condensed areas of lines, while the lighter shades have lines spaced farther apart. The shadow that Santa casts is done in a wash of water and red ink. This illustration is done on a slightly yellow tinted paper, with red and blue washes, conveying a primary color scheme. It is definitively Japanese with the inscriptions to the lower right hand corner.

7. Good jolly Santa Claus is off to war in this poster from the Office for Emergency Management, from the War Production Board, circa. 1942. This postcard was printed around a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Santa is a valuable image, used to promote Coca Cola, and our country’s propaganda to defend itself.

Written by Andrew Kaminski

The post Santa as Visual Art in 7 images appeared first on Artiholics.

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t watch new music videos that often, so when I heard this song Radioactive by Imagine Dragons I didn’t search it out…Until today, and wow, the video does NOT match the song.  Actually, if I had 1000 guesses, none of the elements shown would have made the list.

Ok, so how did this happen?

I do watch a few shows on Syfy, and when the show Defiance was set to premier they started showing ads for the Defiance video game, which was actually launching before the pilot episode even made the air, and the commercial for the video game had this badass post apocalyptic song I had never heard before.  As seen below:

Now, the song was pretty kickass. Teamed with explosions, alien chicks with dreadlocks, giant subterranean crab-monsters, roadsigns in shambles, mad max style armored cars, materializing cyborgs, and futuristic gun violence…I was in.  Not on buying the game, but at least giving the pilot episode a watch… but, bait and switch, the song was only used in ALL OF THE VIDEO GAME BRANDING, but not at all used in the actual show.  The theme to the show was an orchestral wannabe John Williams composition. As heard below:

So yes, I watched the first 3 episodes of the show before bailing on it, but the song stuck with me.  I also noticed it was getting radio airplay whenever I would be driving and listening to top 40 stations.  So I decided to check out the video for this song.  In my mind I was going to find something visually that tied into the music, which would most likely be a cross between Evanescence and Monster Magnet.  My mind was nowhere near reality.  It was more of a cross between East Bound & Down‘s Mexican Cock Fights and The Muppet Show.

Check it out for yourself.  There are a few good things that happen in this video. The best of which is Lou Diamond Phillips getting work.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post Expected Badass…Got Muppets appeared first on Artiholics.

The new X-Men film, X-men: Days of Future Past is rolling out an ad campaign including a fake Trask Industries website with commercials and back story, as well as some shots of PETER DINKLAGE in character, as Bolivar Trask, the villain mastermind behind the Sentinels.

If you don’t know what a sentinel is, think about the unmanned Iron Man Suits, if they were 25 feet tall.  Basically, it’s the closest we are going to get to Wolverine vs. Optimus Prime (hint, it isn’t going to go in Optimus’ favor).

The Sentinels dismembered heads have often made a good platforms for various X-Men character sculpts.  It seems after the thousandth time Wolverine decapitated a Sentinel, Trask would have realized that the neck is the main design flaw in these multi-million dollar robo-cops.

Statue platforms are one thing, while in most comic appearances, Wolverine is most frequently depicted with claws out, popping Sentinel heads off like dandelions.  

Or opening them up like Ray Liotta in Red Dragon.

If this bust is accurate, the movie version of the Sentinels will be more streamlined.  No need for human flesh tones on the face, and the idiotic crown.  But it does look like they weren’t able to shake the purple metal.  Gotta keep it somewhat true to the comics.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

[via hollywoodreporter]

The post X-Men Sentinels & Peter Dinklage appeared first on Artiholics.

New York, NY – Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Late last year Street Artist Essam was arrested for a highly charged NYPD drone fake ad campaign he hung around the city.  In mid-March I went to a fundraising art event at Mother hosted by Animal NY to help pay his attorney and court fees.

The list of artists that donated work to the silent auction included Clay Patrick McBride, Dan Witz, Peter Max, Tanyth Berkeley, GILF, Mr. EWOKONE, Patrick Waldo, Jaron Berman, QRST,Stash, SERVO, Army of One, Adam Dare, and many more.  There were also musical performances by Ben Morgan, Danny Musengo​, California Kings​, Motherwell Johnson​, and Ludlow Thieves.

I caught up with Essam a few months later to see what had resulted from the auction, and how the case was going after all the dust had settled.

Artiholics: “First off, can you give me a little run down of what exactly happened for any of my readers who might be living outside of NYC who might not have caught the story?”

ESSAM: “On November 28th the NYPD intelligence/counter terrorism unit came knocking on my door and arrested me for allegedly placing mock NYPD public service announcements all over Manhattan.  The ad’s said things like ‘Always Watching,’ with Bloomberg’s face, cameras and drones ominously watching overhead, and “NYPD Drones, protection when you least expect it,” with a drone firing a hellfire at a fleeing family. Needless to say the NYPD was none to pleased.”

Artiholics: “What charges did they slap you with?”

ESSAM: “I’m being charged with Grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, 56 counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument, and criminal possession of a firearm for my great grand fathers antique revolver.”

Artiholics: “Who proposed the Free Essam silent auction?”

ESSAM: “The silent auction and concert were actually first proposed by my close friend Danny Musengo, the lead singer of Ludlow Thieves who headlined the performance that evening. I spent a week thinking, ‘I either let this ruin my life, or I try to use the momentum in the press to make something of this’. In hind sight it seems like a no brainer.”

Essam (Left) with Clay Patrick McBride.

Artiholics: “How did you get such an eclectic mix of artists to donate work?”

ESSAM: “Well, I received a formal arts education at SVA, and having been older than most other students due to my previous military service, I formed some very lasting relationships with the faculty, a few of which were instrumental in making the benefit happen. Mainly Clay Patrick McBride who was the MC for the evening, is a very well known and respected photographer in the music and sports industries and really went to bat for me. Through him I was able to meet many of the artists who donated, including one of the performers.”

Artiholics: “Anyone show up at the party you didn’t expect to?”

ESSAM: “I met a lot of people that I was honored to have in attendance to include one of the heads of Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, the wall street journal, a representative from Adam Harvey’s studio, but I was most surprised to see photographer Kareem Black, who’s presence usually signifies ‘this’ is the cool thing to be doing, and collector W. H. Hunt who is one of the bigger collectors and curators of photography in New York. There was also an Assistant District Attorney in attendance which made me a little nervous.”

Artiholics: “Did the party raise a lot of funds?  Anyone offer up a get out of jail free card?”

ESSAM: “I managed to raise about $13,000 front the event itself and another $10,000 through the sale of work online with 1xRun, which in total nearly covered the cost of my attorney, so i’m happy, though a get out of jail free card would have been nice. I did make a piece for Libertarian Billionaire Peter Thiel and sent it along with a letter to his place of business in San Francisco in hopes of at least having an ally in the fight but I never received a response.”

Artiholics: “Have you had to return to court since the party?”

ESSAM: “I have, I went back on May 1st, the case was adjured until August 5th.  To date there has been no progress in the case, My attorney is in communication with the district attorney to negotiate a plea bargain. The only real progress is soon I may finally be receiving my computers and hard drives that were taken in the raid.”

Artiholics: “What’s next on the horizon for you artistically?  And where can we keep tabs on your openings and events?”

ESSAM: “Right now I’m working with 1xRun on another edition of screen prints and I’m putting together work for a couple shows. No dates are set but you can keep updated with both my photography and my street art at www.eadamattia.com and www.freeessam.com, Free_ESSAM is on all social media as well.”

To support the FREE ESSAM campaign, you can buy a poster, the first two posters have sold out.  The third edition of posters are now available to purchase on 1xrun.com  (here)

You can also sign the petition to drop the charges against Essam, on ForceChange.com

Interview and Photos by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”
(header image by The Daily News)

The post Targeted Artist: NYPD Drone Poster Bomber Essam Artiholics Interview appeared first on Artiholics.

There are probably a lot of reasons all of those who would-have-been this generation’s greatest landscape painters are designing video games instead of putting brush to canvas.  The technology has gotten to the level where not only does the painting come to life, but you can walk, ride, and fly around in it…as well as kill the occasional hooker.   This is Grand Theft Auto V I’m talking about after all.

I watched the trailer for the new edition of this game which comes out mid September, and I am reminded of as a kid with an Atari 2600 trying to win at combat, or joust, and if that little kid would have gone directly from that 8 bit shit, to being handed this game, I would most likely have slipped into coma from mental overload.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

[via theinterrobang]

The post Video Games Now Look Like Landscape Paintings GTA V Trailer appeared first on Artiholics.

Today Groupon posted this map on their facebook page.  I love Groupon, and I love maps, hand drawn typography, and infographics, so you figure win, win, win, win… well, sorta.  This map is pretty good, but it leaves a lot out and has some inaccuracies. Everyone in NJ and Eastern PA go to “THE SHORE” not the ocean, not the New Jersey Shore, and especially not BOARDWALK, just “The Shore” which means Jersey Shore (we also would go to lakes and rivers btw)

Manhattan should say “the Hamptons” or Long Island, and Brooklyn / Queens should say “The Rockaways,” AC (Atlantic City), or “Coney Island.” Most of New England could say Cape Cod, Nantucket, or Martha’s Vineyard.  And from taking summer trips to Tennessee with Molly’s family and having never once been to Dollywood, I know for fact that’s bogus.  They vacation in Panama City, Florida (also known as “The Redneck Rivera.”

I’m pretty sure anyone who lives around the great lakes, don’t go to Florida (it’s the one time a year they can swim in their lakes).  I assume Hawaiians might want a break from time to time and when they go on vacation it’s to “the mainland” and when the do, they go to VEGAS.

I’m heading to AC this weekend for a first dip in the Atlantic of the summer, and yes, I will walk on the boardwalk.  Where are you from and where did you go in the summer on vacation.  I’ll draw a new map and do this shit up right.  Please post below!

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post America Divided By Where We Summer: Infographic 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 20, 2013

For anyone who isn’t a Parks & Rec fan, last month Comedian Patton Oswalt made an appearance as a concerned Pawnee citizen who was intent on filibustering the court so something he didn’t want passed couldn’t get put up for a vote.

The brilliance of this scene was that producers just told Patton to improvise a filibuster by ramble about any subject he was passionate about and could nerd out on.  Patton then gave an seven-minute pitch for the next Star Wars sequel.

Before the show aired NBC released the full 7+ minute one-take babble shot to the web (only a portion of it made the show) as it was too good not to let people see.

Here is the uncut video NBC released.

And if you want to see how this would look in roughly blocked out animatic form- here is Patton’s rant visually produced by Isaac Moores aka  iZacLess.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post Patton Oswalt’s Star Wars vs. Marvel ‘Parks & Rec’ Filibuster Animated appeared first on Artiholics.

A group of fine art students from the senior class at Parsons The New School For Design have decided to shoot their senior portraits wearing their nothing but their art.  Luckily for us, they are all in pretty decent shape.  Living in New York City as an art student has it’s advantages, one of which is *not being able to afford food (*some may not see this as an advantage).  I remember when I was in art school at SVA I had a friend who was dating a girl from Parsons who Moonlighted as a stripper.  Since then I have always associated Parsons with attractive female artists, an unfair bias, but a good one.

The calendar project is the brainchild of artist Robert Hickerson and Tara Long (pictured above).

Hickerson encouraged other students to pose for this project holding works of art in front of them, covering the naughty bits.  The works they were holding were pieces from their senior thesis projects.  As momentum for the calendar, grew 30 of the 48 students in the BFA Fine Arts Department showed up to pose for portraits.  This leads me to believe the other 18 are either self conscious or hideous.  30 to 18 is an overwhelming majority ratio, the percentage of extroverted / beautiful people in this bunch is hugely skewed towards attractiveness, which does not correlate with the American standard,  Again backing up my totally unscientific hypothesis that  “Parsons is full of hot chicks.”

Dominique Suberville poses with her painting, “Cigarettes”and Ariela Kader poses with her piece, “Patterns of Consumption: Coffee.”

Jeesu Kim (l.) and Zoe Alexandra Ciupitu

Monica Pages poses with her piece, “Insidious” while Julia Galeano poses with her painting, “Honduras.”

Kathryn Chadason (l.) (AKA August 2014 in the calendar) volunteered to make the website for the “Nudie Calendar” (which I have yet to find) with her painting “Grandma.” Classmate Leila Ehtesham with “sand and a tire.”

Considering only 1% of art students actually make a living in the art world, there is a good chance most of these people won’t be brand names in few years, but thanks to this project they will at least have left behind their impressive “bodies of work.”

The Parsons BFA Senior Thesis Show is May 21 from 6-8pm at

25 East 13th St. in New York City.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

Read more: https://www.nydailynews.com

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I don’t know if this is just a New York phenomenon or if it’s nation wide but AMC, not wanting loose all of their Walking Dead Audience to GAME OF THRONES pumped a ton of money into one image.  An illustration of Don Draper done in 1960s advertising marker, paint, pencil, and gouache mock-up (the way ads were laid out before Photoshop).

When I saw this ad my first reaction was HELL YES!  Traditional illustration for a poster for a modern TV show or Movie is unheard of these days.  Other than the Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Indiana Jones type franchises which are now just continuing the tradition because their earlier films posters were done this way and it would be an insult to the brand to do it otherwise, and maybe the odd independent film here and there, but this is mainstream.

I have seen them all over the subways and on buses and maybe like me you were curious as to who drew it.  Basically you would be looking at an older illustrator who can still work in a style that for any other product would be dated to that time period, and unmarketable .

It is signed by the artist, a 75-Year-Old British illustrator named Brian Sanders.  In a New York Times article about the creation of the piece they actually show Brian at his drawing table adding some finishing touches (most likely the piece was already finished, and he was just pretending, you know posing for the camera).

The interesting thing is that if you also look at his drawing table (and they don’t mention this in the article in the Times), above the painting are a bunch of printed out comps of the piece ALREADY MOCKED-UP IN PHOTOSHOP.  Either the art department at AMC laid out the composition ahead of time and emailed it to him, or they emailed him photos of Don Draper, as well as 1960s era street scene references.

I used to do a lot of illustrations for the British Edition of Maxim Magazine, and I remember that it was always a challenge to draw anything that took place outside.   I would have to research online how these things looked in England.  From street signs, to fire hydrants, to gutters, to manhole covers.  The cops and firefighters all dress differently there, and have different vehicles, fashion, everything is different.  I don’t know if they put all of that on a 75-year-old proper British illustrator to google image search and have him send them comps, or if they just handed him the .jpg and said MAKE THIS INTO A 60s style illustration.

Most likely the latter.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

The post Mad Men’s Ad Men & The Real McCoy 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.

HBO has a stick up their ass in the shape of a dragon, and they really want you to know about it.  If you’ve seen The History Channel’s Vikings, and thought to yourself “This feels like Game of Thrones, but without magic or dragons”, or if you’ve seen The Hobbit, and thought to yourself “Hey, this was a small book, I should be seeing some dragons by now!”  But the only dragon you’ve seen thus far is Peter Jackson draggin’ his ass to get Smaug some screen time.  Your wait is over, HBO assures you, this season on Game of Thrones they are going to deliver you what you have been missing, some muthafuckin’ dragons.

The first Adverts I saw for the new season of Game of Thrones popped up in the subway stations a month ago.  They reminded me of something I saw in a previous HBO ad buy, maybe for The Sopranos, or one of the other big properties of yesteryear, so I didn’t really give it a second look.  The posters looked like this- and they bought out ENTIRE subway stops of wall space with just these posters.

It wasn’t until I happened to walk past this giant billboard by NYC’s Port Authority that I had to stop in my tracks.

It was at night and I figured that they must have brilliantly rigged a bat-signal style shield over the spotlight to create the shadow of a dragon which I assumed would only be visible at night.  But this might not even be the case, because the dragon shadows were starting to pop-up in daylight hours.

On the side of the HBO building in California.

Across two pages of the New York Times.

It wasn’t until my friends on facebook started posting pictures of themselves sitting in the Throne itself that I truly understood how much HBO was pushing all in.  It seems HBO and Time Warner Cable has a free traveling Game of Thrones Exhibition, which launched last Wednesday with appearances by Jon Snow, Sansa and Arya Stark.  It is currently still in NYC until April 3 (Today!).  It is free and open to the public, if you don’t mind a 3+ hour line.

My friend and fellow artist Antoinette Johnson (who you see in the photo at the top of this article) attended the Exhibit on Easter Sunday, the day of the season premier, and took a bunch of photos.  I caught up with her last night online to get the scoop.  The rest of the photos were taken by Antoinette Johnson.

“We were in line for about 3 hours, but the people in line were really cool.”

“Blackwater experience was like a updated yet medieval version of Duck Hunt…..and I’m a big fan of Duck Hunt :)”

“Dragon eggs!! Happy Easter!”

“#gameofthrones #costumes #jonsnow #thebastard #cloak”

“The costumes with the dragon were worn by the Daenerys Targaryen character.”

“There were a lot of props. It was a bit small but still and awesome show, it was well worth the wait.”

“It might have been the real thing, but I think it was a replica.”

Thanks Antoinette.  HBO seems intent on on stealing away that AMC’s Walking Dead, 9pm Sunday night audience.  The last season of G.O.T. ended with a zombie army, and started with a zombie battle, it’s a no brainer- oh, and did I mention they also have dragons.

Written by Cojo “Art Juggernaut”

Special thanks to Antoinette Johnson.  You can view her work at Antoinette Johnson, and you can read past articles about her on ArtSucks.com by visiting her page on ArtistinRepose.com

The post HBO Brings The Fire With The New Game Of Thrones Ads + Exhibit 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”

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