New Sign: Elvis Automotive

Hand hewn Helvetica. Elvis is neat guy, by the way. He's half hispanic, half Portuguese and bilingual. Total New Yorker. This was a fun project. I used a projector and a pounce template for the large lettering and a stencil for the number. I'm going to tumbl the character I was working on hanging out there today. My signpainting facebook: Chris Sirico Sign Painter.

Consume All

Here's my dog comic. Chad and I want to make a series. Our house is full of comics gold ore. I'll post some mini comics on my tumblr. Also be looking for some characters to get more developed from my sketches. I'm planning to make some block-print stickers in the next couple weeks. I'm also working on some T-shirt art and some stuff for Speak Up! magazine. Stay tuned. Twitter. Facebook.

New Sketch Blog

Roll on over to ChrisSirico.tumblr.com. I'm starting a tumblr for my sketch-a-day habbit. I'll be posting more here and focusing more on my illustration in general. Stay tuned, folks.

Sketches - Old and New

I've been wanting to post some sketches from the last year. I made the figure drawings and first couple portraits here in Charlotte recently. The rest are older. They're from Florida, Nashville and Rome.

I have a pile of sketches to scan and post that'll be up in the next couple weeks.

Also! I'm working on another poppy mix tape. Look for it in the next week.

Click for full.

PDF here.

Awesome Anarchist Comic

This is one of the best anarchist publications I've ever read (which I can count on one hand, but it does have some pretty wicked illustration). Having worked in restaurants for 2 years myself, this little pamphlet had me pumping my fist in defiant agreement. (The irony is part of the charm.)

http://libcom.org/library/abolish-restaurants

Winter Reading: Great Graphic Novels

Three great graphic novels that I especially recommend for cooler, grayer months are the quiet, meticulously crafted Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware, the beautifully illustrated autobiographical coming of age tome Blankets by Craig Thompson and my most recent discovery, the American Splendor series by working-class scholar Harvey Pekar.

Few of the comics I like are typical superhero fare, and Jimmy Corrigan is the antithesis of the typical comic book. That's why it's so perfect for passing hours in bed on a cold gray day. Heady, introspective, quiet and self-effacing, this little gem set in Chicago develops a complex, multi-generational narrative fraught with themes of insecurity and daddy issues. It's a beautiful read — from its atypical format and cover design to its minuscule lettering and Ware's obsessively tight, designed illustration. Readers beware: Jimmy Corrigan got me so transported that I squinted at the pages for hours and ruined my distance vision. Absolutely worth it. I'm looking forward to a re-read.

Blankets employs brush-and-ink illustration, a subtle characteristic that makes the novel. The whimsical snow-scaped scenes evoke the emotion of this adolescent first love story. This is a thick one, but it reads easily — more saccharin and accessible than Jimmy Corrigan.

American Splendor was one of the first comics to stretch the medium beyond strongmen in tights, first published in 1976. The stories are all everyday episodes from Harvey Pekar's file clerk job or errand trips...While I'd heard about Pekar's stories on NPR, I imagined the stories would be as boring as their subject matter is mundane: wrong. Harvey opens up the wonder and drama of the ordinary in an unexpected way. I also recently watched the Sundance-winning adaptation of the comics starring Paul Giamatti and featuring Pekar himself.

American Splendor has inspired me to start making some comics of my own. I'll post a one-pager I'm working on soon. I'll also be posting miscellaneous drawings, works of art and other bits of drivel as I feel the urge.