As of this writing, North Korea's mad boy king has yet to launch the missiles he has aimed at neighboring Japan and South Korea, but that could change at any moment. When Kim Jong Un succeeded his father Kim Jong Il as Supreme Leader of North Korea in Late December of last year, some were hopeful that his youth and western education would give him the a more measured approach to global relations. Alas, that seems not to be the case. The latest speculation is that to mark the April 15th birthday of his granddad, Kim Il Sung, in lieu of (or in addition to) ice cream & cake, Kim Jong Un may celebrate by launching his missiles. If there's any good to come from all this posturing on the part of North Korea, it could be that the US and China will find common ground, if even temporarily, in wanting to avoid all out war, and that a unified coalition may be able to get North Korea to rethink its aggressive behavior before it's too late. Let's hope.
All-American Horror book cover
Here's a recent job that involved designing and illustrating the cover for a soon-to-be-published American horror anthology edited by Mort Castle and published by Wicker Park Press. It's a little different from the more whimsical style I usually work in, so I was looking forward to taking a crack at it.
The assignment was to do something appropriately creepy but work in the Americana aspect somehow. I came up with up a few sketches, and though I kind of liked the idea of doing a needlepoint sampler with the suggestion of a skull and some macabre folk-art images, it was decided that we should go with something iconic and stark, so we settled on a weathervane topped with a ghostly raven.
It took a couple tries to get the silhouette looking OK, though the skeleton isn't quite accurate, but I was more concerned with an impression than getting the anatomy right and with enough fog, I could cover up the fact that I'm no ornithologist.
It was a fun project and I look forward to the year 2020 and volume two.
Sketches from the NATO protests
So the 2012 NATO Summit is history, and the city of Chicago is still standing, despite the predictions by some of pandemonium in the streets. Whether due to the extraordinary precautions of the police force or a case of overhyped hysteria, things have returned to normal, much to the dismay of the cable news networks. On a whole, the day passed with only minor skirmishes with police. During the early hours, the biggest battle was with the heat. I was on hand for Friday's National Nurses United rally at Daley Plaza and Sunday's protest rally at Grant Park though I left before the march to McCormick place. The Grant Park crowd tried to keep cool as a steady stream of speakers read short prepared remarks aimed at NATO and human rights. As expected, there were good opportunities to sketch the faces in the crowd and on stage. I added color to some of the images later, which was especially needed in the case of the "generalissimo" in the hot pink uniform.