Happy Birthday Clint Eastwood

Happy Birthday Mel Blanc

Happy Birthday John F. Kennedy

Happy Birthday Kylie Minogue

Today Kylie Minogue lost her status as Most Attractive 40 Year Old, but was also crowned Most Attractive 41 Year Old in the process.

Also, this marks my 200th post (already).

Happy Birthday Christopher Lee (87) and Vincent Price (98)

I have been aware for a while now of this fun coincidence and thought that I might draw them together doing something, but I got lazy so here they are on their own. The one of Christopher Lee is almost the same as a painting I did of him about 3 years ago, with a few small changes. I guess I really liked that reference photo.

Happy Birthday John Wayne

Happy Birthday Ian McKellen

Happy Birthday Bob Dylan

They could be worse, but not by much. It was a toss up between him and Tommy Chong. Living in Minneapolis and only a few blocks from the apartment he lived in as a student during his short time here, I figured it was obligatory to draw Bob Dylan at least once in my life. Or twice. I'm not too pleased with these, but I must be moving on with the day.

Rock 'n Roll Phantom

This was commissioned by my friend Mike P. Nelson as a gift for Crazy Al, the host of "Crazy Al's Radio Party" based in Detroit. There's a "Rock 'N Roll Phantom" hour in which they air ultra-unique and priceless 50s ad 60s Doo Wop. The artists of these rarities are unknown, so the concept of the show is that these mysterious recordings have come from a vortex, retrieved and aired by the Rock 'N Roll Phantom.

Mike contributes a number of these records to the show, so he wanted to send this drawing with the next batch. I used to draw monsters quite a bit, so it was fun to finally do one again. This character is very much derived from Alan Freed (the disc jockey who first coined the term "Rock 'n Roll) and the Lon Chaney Phantom, done with markers and airbrush. Click for a better look!

Happy Birthday Drew Carey

Happy Birthday Harvey Milk

I never realized the striking resemblance between Milk and Sean Penn's features until I started digging up the reference photos.

I wish Proposition 8 would have passed in California. Mickey Rourke would have his Oscar right now.

Happy Birthday Al Franken

My senator (I think?) is 58 today. And that concludes my catch up work.

Happy Birthday Jimmy Stewart (5-20-09)

Happy Birthday Andre the Giant (5-19-09)

Mr. The Giant would have turned 63 this last Tuesday.

Happy Birthday Tina Fey (5-18-09)

Happy Birthday Dennis Hopper

Here he is as Blue Velvet's Frank Booth. Always the first who pops in my mind as one of the scariest movie villains of all time, and will probably forever appear in the Top 10 on those "Scariest Villains" lists until the end of time. An incredible feat, indeed.

Happy Birthday Tory Spelling (5-16-09)

Here's a few studies of the very talented Tory Spelling. I don't think I pushed things far enough on any of them.

Happy Birthday Ralph Steadman

I wish I was clever enough to come up with this on my own, but this is what he was doing in the actual reference photo. I believe that's a self portrait he's holding.

Happy Birthday George Lucas

Happy Birthday Stephen Colbert

Kind of a lazy one here. The possibilities on themes and gags for his faux patriotism are endless, but I am out of time.

This is shown at actual size. When clicking on it to see a larger view, it's much bigger than the actual drawing. I just now noticed that. Interesting.

Happy Birthday George Carlin

This is a new and improved version of a theme park sample I did shortly after he passed away last summer. Hard to believe it hasn't even been a year yet, and that he was only 71. After surviving numerous heart attacks, he was one of those legends I expected (and wanted) to live to be 100.

Happy Birthday Salvador Dali

Happy Birthday Bono (5-10-09)

I am no fan of Bono.

I drew this on a full sized page (about 8.5"x11") and hated it, so I redrew him as small as I could. This is about 2 inches in height.

Happy Birthday Billy Joel

Happy Birthday Don Rickles

Happy Birthday Tim Russert

Happy Birthday Orson Welles

Happy Birthday Chris Brown

The hands that beat Rihanna turn 20 today.

Just when I thought over-privileged, over-paid R&B/rap artists had reached their limits of taking the genre the only direction it could go, here we have a fresh face who made big waves on the scene at the ripe age of 16. Some real Grade A, all American, red white and blue talent.

Never tire of the hard work and brilliance, and don't ever let that hard earned, well deserved fame slip away. Here's to you, junior.

Happy Birthday Audrey Hepburn (5-04-09)

I posted one of her earlier but decided it was a steaming pile of crap, so here is another trial. This was a better angle to work with, and I chose to stay away from the obligatory Breakfast at Tiffany's garb.

Happy Birthday Tom Richmond

The emperor of the caricature industry, proud member of the "Usual Gang of Idiots" (regular contributor of MAD Magazine), award winning illustrator, Billion Dollar Playboy, friend and long time boss turns 43 today.

This is a few years old already, hence the absence of extra wrinkles and fatigue. This was done for an MCAD newsletter to accompany an interview with Tom regarding a scholarship the National Cartoonists Society was offering to students majoring in comic art. Unfortunately it was not used due to space constraints.

Before anyone asks, "How could you do this to your boss?!"...believe me, he has seen it all, and a whole lot worse. But, as is always the case when I look at anything I've done that's even a few months old, I feel it's not very good, and I am much over due to take another stab at him.

Happy Birthday James Brown (5-03-09)

Happy Birthday Link Wray

And this makes the 4th guitar player in the last week.

The liner notes of The Best of Link Wray album says it best:

"Quite simply, Link Wray invented the power chord. The major modus operandi of modern rock guitarists. Listen to any of the tracks on this anthology, and you'll hear the blueprints for heavy metal, thrash, you name it."

Far too many people who hear his name often respond with, "Who?!" There's no doubt that everyone has heard the instrumental classic "Rumble".

link wray songs
Mp3 download | Music download

This song was released in 1958 and banned from numerous radio stations (including New York City) due to its association with the Dukes and the Sharks, gangs that were written about in the papers at the time. How badass is that?! An instrumental, banned from radio. It still hit #16 on the charts.

Back in 2003 I saw a flier for a Link Wray show at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis. I wasn't aware of his age at the time, but for whatever reason I had assumed he had long since passed away. When I saw the ad I couldn't believe that not only was he still alive, but he was going to play at this tiny intimate venue in my own city. Purchasing tickets IMMEDIATELY was a no-brainer.

So the night came. A buddy and I were sitting on the upper lever at our own table, right above the side of the stage. That crappy opening band that nobody asked to see was finally wrapping their set. In the last minute of the song, they used a pyrotechnic, WITHOUT permission. It set the entire ceiling on fire. Everyone cleared out, but somehow kept their cool. The place was far from reaching its full capacity, but fortunately nobody was trampling each other or panicking to get out first. Everyone made it out just fine, and the staff did a great job keeping everyone under control. The really creepy part is that this all happened exactly 2 nights before 100 people were not so lucky at a Great White show in Rhode Island.

As we stood across the street, staring at the club with smoke pouring out the doors and watching the firetrucks pile in, all I could think was, "Man, Link Wray is gonna croak before he comes back to this town." He died a little more than 2 years later. He would have turned 80 today.

If I ever cross paths or get stuck under the same roof with that opening band (which shall remain nameless) ever again, I promise to make their night extremely unpleasant.

Happy Birthday Wes Anderson

His films usually give me some good laughs (Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, Darjeeling Limited, etc.), but he really needs to refrain from playing entire songs start to finish, turning numerous scenes into a music video sequence. I guess that's his "thing" that he does.