Back From The Depths!

Holy hot damn! I'm back, people. Don't worry... I wasn't kidnapped by terrorists. After Thanksgiving, I was simultaneously tackled by a flu bug and a mountain of deadlines. Since we last spoke, I've rocked a wedding invitation for two LA friends/collectors, two new comic strips, a piece for Mad Magazine, and 13 new paintings for the four fine art shows I'm in during December. Simply put, life has been fucking insane.

But now that things have slowed a bit, I have time to update the blog. Dig some of my new stuff below!

"Urban Flight" - one of four recent pieces where
I've collaged a sketch onto wood and made a painting out of it

"You Don't Know What The Hell You're Talking About"
- an example of how I've been using a lot more collage, lately

"Donkey Punch" - the boxer pieces just keep getting
curiouser and curiouser.

"Nat Narwhal" - I've been making a series of Animal Alliteration pieces.
It's fun art for all ages, and totally takes me back to Sesame Street and
all the other cool creative learning devices of my childhood.

"Uva Unicorn" - another of the Animal Alliteration pieces.

"John & Jenny's Wedding" *done after the classic Bill Seinkiewicz "Elektra" cover

Also, to anyone who's ordered books or commissions, sorry for the shipping delay. Now that the work clouds have cleared, I'll be taking care of your orders tout de suite! And I'll be putting some extra treats in there... a little tangible apology for my tardiness.

All the info for the December exhibits is posted on my site, www.hiredmeat.com, along with a bunch more new art. If you're gonna be in The Bay Area between now and mid January, come to San Francisco and check 'em out!

I'm getting a head start on my paintings for 2009, so look for samples of that stuff as we get closer to the year's end.

Happy Holidays,
-Bunker, out.

"Sender/Receiver" Art Book now available (but not for long)!

Hey out there! First and foremost, HELL SHIT YEEEEAAAAAH!!! OBAMA!!! I know there's a still lot of work to be done in the USA. But for the first time in a long while, I feel like Americans are really about to come together and make a concentrated push to turn this ship around... to keep us from launching off that cliff it's felt like we've been driving toward for so damn long.

And talk about true democracy in action. Big ups to everyone who voted yesterday, both the winners and the losers. It's about time we all washed that bad 2000 Presidential Election taste out of our mouths.


On a less political note, thanks to everyone who came and showed myself, Deadbeatsister, Food One, and Scott Morse love during APE weekend in SF. And much gratitude to the people who made it out to the Live Art Party at Space Gallery. I'll be popping photos from the night up here ASAP.


In the meantime, I wanted to let everyone know that I've still got a few copies of "Sender/Receiver" left. It's a super-limited edition (Seriously, I've got about ten copies left!), mini-art book that debuted at APE. It's the next step in my progression of self-published minis, featuring 32-pages of drawings, black & white versions of paintings, commissioned works, and stream-of-consciousness sketch pages. The whole thing comes packaged in a hand-printed, silk-screened manilla envelope. Both the books and envelopes are signed and numbered in editions of 25.
They're $10 each, plus $5 for shipping in the USA. Hit me up to ask about International shipping.

Much love,
-Bunker, out.

Sketch Tuesday Pieces For Sale!

Hey yo! I did another Sketch Tuesday at 111 Minna, in downtown SF. I didn't have my camera on me, so there aren't any photos of kids rocking it. But I did bring home 3 of my pieces from the night. I did a fourth, but it sold just as I was packing up. The artwork below is all for sale. I'm asking $50 each, plus $6 for shipping in the US. Hit me up if you're interested.

"Draw." acrylics & on cardboard

"Experience" acrylics, white-out, & ink on paper

Box." acrylics, white-out, & ink on paper

That's all for now. I'm working like a 2-legged ferret, busting out artwork and collaborating with Deadbeatsister, in preparation for The Alternative Press Expo (APE). I'm sure I'll look like a burnt-out toaster oven by next Friday, but it'll be well worth it. I love the smell of print ink and glue sticks in the morning. It smells like... victory.

The horror... the muh'fuckin' horror!
-Bunker, out!

APE Live Art Flyer and Smoker!

Dig it, kiddies! Here's the black & white version of my flyer for our upcoming APE Live Art Party, along with a "Smoker Study" that's soon-to-become a new Hiredmeat/Deadbeatsister (DeadMeat) apparel design. Rawr!



I'll have the flyer colored and disseminated online in a couple days. Jim Mahfood has also done a design, with colors by Justin Stewart. We'll have printed postcards with both our pieces in the next week, just in time to blast SF with word of the event. If you're in The Bay Area during APE (The Alternative Press Expo) weekend, you should come join us. It's gonna be a night of visual, musical ecstacy!

-Bunker, out.

BRAINZ!!!

Chiggety-check yo'self before you wreck yo'self! Dig this collabo-commission by myself and the mystical Food One. It's for my friend, Mikey, aka Zombie Monkey. He's a big fan of the undead.


Hit me up if you'd like to commission me for an original piece of art.
-Bunker, out!

Double Dutch Live Art!

Hey yo! Check out these pics from my Double Dutch live art show a few weeks back. The piece is called "Caffeine Angelica." I just went for straight-up painting here, from raw under-painting to fast, thick glazes of color. Liquid blast-off!


-Bunker, out!

Sketch Tuesdays @ 111 Minna!

Last Tuesday, I got in on some sketch-madness with a room full of Bay Area artists! It was on like Donkey-Kong! They were playing Cut Chemist and DJ Shadow's "Brainfreeze" thru the sound system, the bar was churning out $3 Dewer's drink specials, and the room was packed with artists sketching, painting, collaging, and having a creatively awesome time. Everyone was encouraged to tack their finished pieces to the wall and try to sell 'em off on the cheap. I was lucky enough to grab the last open table and bust out a couple bangers.

Nate Van Dyke was in the house!

Below is yours truly with my favorite Krull-fan (besides my dear ol' Dad, that is), Skinner. This kid is a riot... super-talented, fun as hell, and an all-around nice guy. Check out his work at www.theartofskinner.com. If you're in SF, you should see the mural he did on the side of Lower Hater (corner of Haight & Steiner). And yes, that's his art on the shirt he's wearing.

Skinner at work. Or is it play?

Two of Skinner's pieces from the evening. See, I wasn't kidding about that Krull thing. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out. Movie's got a cyclops in it, and a dude who can turn into a tiger. That's right, a TIGER. Hell yeah!


These were my contributions to the wall. One is another of my boxers, called "Here Comes The Haymaker." The other is one of my Savage Soldiers, only high-tech, called "Modern-Made Soldier." I still have these for sale, if anyone is interested.


I get the whole "Great Emancipator" thing, but this piece (Ron English's "Abraham Obama") really freaks me out. It's kinda creepy!

Yours in capitalistic democracy, always.
-Bunker, out.

SF Knight Gray Tees!

*** SEVERAL PEOPLE HAVE EXPRESSED AN INTEREST IN ORDERING THESE SHIRTS ONLINE. THE TEES ARE $25 USD, PLUS $6 SHIPPING & HANDLING. FOR SERIOUS PURCHASING INQUIRIES, EMAIL ME: HIREDMEAT@GMAIL.COM. INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING WILL BE CALCULATED ON A PER-ORDER BASIS. THANKS! ***

Just thought I'd share a few photos of yours truly, modeling the "San Francisco Knight" tees that Deadbeatsister printed up for last weekend's Treasure Island Music Festival. For the tees, the image is wrapping around from the right side of the garment, rather than just being placed dead-center on the chest. This is the white-on-gray tee, obviously, but she also put the image on zip-up & pull-over hoodies, tunic dresses, and scarves. I'll get photos of that apparel up here sooner or later.


Now, I'm off to the reception for "Suite Jesus." Wish me luck!
-Bunker, out for art and booze.

Wonder Woman, Lady Justice, and a Lucky Robot!

Check out these new images I've been working on. Two are for charity event auctions, and the other is a tattoo commission.


This Wonder Woman drawing is for Wonder Woman Day 3, an event raising money and awareness for domestic violence shelters and a woman's crisis line. For more info, check out the Wonder Woman Day 3 website. I'm going to hit this up with some watercolor and marker, so look for the colorized version post week.


This is my "Lucky Robot," for From The Land Beyond: Sacramento's Horror & Sci-Fi show. It will be part of their Charity Art Auction to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Loaves & Fishes Mustard Seed School for Homeless Children.


Last, but not least, this Riot Grrl Lady Justice is a tattoo commission I'm doing for a lawyer-in-training I met out here in The Bay. Whoop!

And that's all for today. Next week, I'll be posting photos from my weekend at The Treasure Island Music Festival with the lovely Deadbeatsister. We'll both be there, selling her latest apparel wares, including some collabo-pieces. If you're in The Bay and headed to the Festival, definitely come see us. For more info, check out The Treasure Island Music Festival. Fer shizz.

Bunker, out.

Skritchy-Skratch, Sketchy-Sketch!

I'm just kicking it today, taking care of business and listening to this dope-ass hip-hop mix Mike Huddleston gave me during Comic-Con. Incredible stuff! Anyway, thought I'd take a moment to share some recent drawings and noodle-doodles with ya'll. Dig it!


"Outgunned" - 9 x 12" ink and watercolor drawing on sketchbook paper. Pitting some of my soldiers against insurmountable odds. I think this was inspired by some of the recent reports on the war in Afghanistan. It's pretty frightening, the fact that we've had people fighting over there for seven years now, and the violence is as hot as ever.


"Travel Shooter" - 9 x 6" gray brush pen drawing on sketchbook paper. I've been watching "Carrier," a PBS documentary about life aboard The USS Nimitz, a US aircraft carrier. That's got my back-burner brain cooking up pieces exploring the theme of "I get to travel the world, just to blow stuff up." Again, too, with the Afghanistan war... I recently saw a report on Battle Company (an American Army unit) that's over there fighting in the Korengal Valley. The valley, itself, is just naturally beautiful... as beautiful as any forest or mountain range I've ever visited in the States. But it's also teeming with Taliban fighters, bombs, and danger. To learn more, check out this Vanity Fair story, "Return to the Valley of Death." This sketch was particularly inspired by that story.


"Blam." - 9 x 12" ink and marker drawing on bristol board. This is actually a quick sketch I did during a comic convention sometime last year. I unearthed it awhile ago, and was putting off scanning it until today. No big theme behind this. Just a saucy lady with a fur-lined hood, blowing away a robot. He prolly' stepped on her new Jordans or some scandelous shit like that.


"Fire Breather" - 9 x 12" brush pen and ink drawing on sketchbook paper. I just invested in a nice, cartridge-loaded, Japanese brush pen, and this is one of the first pieces I've made with it ("Outgunned" and the two drawings below were made with the same pen). Just test driving my new toy, on this one. That, and playing with light and shadow. The larger areas were filled in with a couple brushes and some Black Magic drawing ink. Ah, how I do love my art arsenal.


"Sucker Punch" 9 x 12" brush pen drawing on sketchbook paper. This is me exploring more of my recent obsession with boxing. I've got eyes on doing a larger piece like this... maybe a painting or just a large, color drawing. I dig the idea of a guy getting popped in the jaw and a bunch of lollipops flying out of his mouth/head. Bonus - A bunch of the art from this post was made when I couldn't sleep two nights ago. I just stayed up drawing and watching episodes of The Wire. on this one, notice that I jotted down a quote from Omar Little that was just priceless.


"The Prepared" - 9 x 12" brush pen drawing on sketchbook paper. Last but not least, this is another of my grappler brutes. He's brandishing his fist and a fair amount of facial bruises. But from the looks of the battered heavy punching bag behind him, he's ready to give some of that pain back. Biggety-bam!

And that's all she wrote for now. I'm still painting & tainting, in preparation for Suite Jesus at 111 Minna in SF, on September 26th. I'm also getting ready to launch a big sale of 36 original works from the Hiredmeat Archives. That should launch on Monday, so keep an eye out.

In the meantime, take a short one and have a sexy weekend. You've earned it.

-Bunker, out like lake trout.

Boxers!

Lately, I've been obsessed with drawing and painting images of boxers. The whole idea of sports (specifically, contact sports) is very interesting to me. The concept of humans being brought into close, physical competition, sparks my imagination. It makes me think about how closely this relates to the way we treat animals... how we'll have cock fights and dog fights, horse and dog races. Or on an even more basic level, the way animals interact in the wild. Birds and beasts fight for everything from life and limb, to food and social standing. This draws me directly to that relationship in sports, because it's about as simple as you can get... destroy the other guy before they destroy you.


Now, I realize that's a very bare-bones breakdown of the way sports work. When you take the time to analyze them, boxing, football, sprinting, etc... they can be considered a science, or even an art. But that's not what I'm focusing on in these new boxer pieces. I'm going for the gut, visually... the visceral edge of it. I'm expressing the brutality of it in the gruesome features and physiques of the fighters. In some of the other sketches I've been cooking up, I touch on the sexual side of it... the pairing of powerful athletes (modern gladiators, if you will) with the finest mates. I want to explore the cheering mob of a crowd, and get into the primal bloodlust that organized fighting brings out of fans and everyday viewers.

The process in these boxing works is a little surprising for me, compared to my previous fine art stuff. It's mainly because the images are coming to me before the ideas behind them. One day, last weekend, I was reading The Muhammad Ali Reader (a great collection of journalists writing about Ali, From George Plimpton to Hunter Thompson... a really awesome read), and suddenly I couldn't stop imagining paintings of boxers. I'd had that sort of excitement a couple years ago, when I first started learning more about the life of Cassius Clay, saw a great documentary on Jack Johnson, and read the autobiography of Malcolm X. But this most recent inspiration-zap was so intense. I couldn't even sit still. I just HAD to start putting these fighters and their trainers, their girlfriends and fans all down on paper.


And in the past week, as I've been making the art, I've been deconstructing the thinking behind it. Kinda like how early scientists took apart cadavers to figure out the inner workings of the human body. And I have to tell you, it's probably the most exciting time I've had in my work for months.

I'm going to keep birthing these pieces from my brain to the page. I'll definitely be showing these guys at 111 Minna in downtown SF, at the end of this month. I just started a 34" x 40" oil painting of two boxers approaching each other in the ring, as the crowd spurs them on. So that piece might go in the show, too. I really can't say enough, though, just how wonderful it feels to be making this stuff.

Hope the weekend's been good to ya'll.
-Bunker, out.

Belle & Sebastian Art on Exhibit in SF This Month

Howdy, all. I'm showing some comic pages in the September group exhibit at The Artist-XChange in San Francisco's Mission District. But these aren't any normal, black and white comic pages, yo. These are the pages from "Beautiful," my 10-page short in Image Comics' critically acclaimed Belle & Sebastian anthology, "Put The Book Back On The Shelf."

These originals are mixed media, and closer to my fine art work. I made them using a combination of watercolors, markers, and collage. A lot of folks don't expect to see this stuff from me, and I seldom offer up my solo comic originals for sale. So I'm very excited at having the chance to share some of my rarities with the art-loving, art-buying public.

You can learn more about the Artist-XChange show, as well as preview 5 pages of "Beautiful" at my website, www.hiredmeat.com

With poppy, Brit-band love....
-Bunker, out.

San Francisco Knight!

Since Kelly (my Special Ladyfriend) is Deadbeatsister in her work and I'm Hiredmeat in mine, we combine to form DeadMeat. Check out this new design we've come up with:

It's called "San Francisco Knight." He's one of my Floating City characters, who are akin to the Iron Gods I draw and paint. They float thru massive skies, with buildings and telephone wires sprouting from their backs. This guy, of course, is totally meant to represent SF.

We're going to be featuring this image on scarves, shirts, and zip-up-hoodies. Kelly printed the hell outta this, today, in her studio. I'll try to get some photos of the results up soon.

In the meantime, Happy Labor Day!
-Bunker, oot!