oBey eBay

Just a few days left on my eBay print closeout sale. Farrah! Beatniks! Forry! Yma! Many of the old favorites are still available. And of course, lots of generic super hero guys smacking each other around. Take a look!

Thrdgll eBay sale!

The Glory of Yma

Creative Director Rose Jackson of New Zealand's Glory Days magazine requested my popular Yma Sumac portrait for their spring issue. (Spring?! Maybe in New Zealand!) They included a nice little profile of the man with the girl's name inside, too. A beautifully designed periodical, full of the sort of classic exotica and mid-century styling that makes this horrible world more bearable. Check them out at www.glorydaysmagazine.com. 

Cleaning Up the Roughs

I scanned these doodles before tossing them in the dumpster because they reveal the evolutionary process of my artwork. Specifically, they reveal that, for each and every illustration I create, my work evolves from the level of a pre-kindergarten ignoramus all the way through my decades of supposed artistic development. The first preliminary scrawl for any drawing I do today looks identical to what I might have drawn as an infant. Then I slowly remind myself of the expensive art school and other art training I've had, like the amnesiac who starts to recall the wife, kids and jailhouse lover he left behind.

Regardless of how many times I go through this, it always starts the same: I completely forget that I know how to draw until moving the pen around reminds me. It's exhausting and embarrassing, and it makes people sorry they asked to look at my sketchbook.

But look! A little digital magic to polish up the finished piece and no one's the wiser! It's like I knew what I was doing all along!

Read the true-life tale of horror that inspired this illo here.

"How About Scissors AND Banana Peels?"

A few nights with little sleep and viola! Illustrations for Dan Zedek at the Boston Globe for an article giving advice to politicians campaigning in the New Hampshire Primaries. Featuring guest appearances by Michelle Bachmann, Gary Bauer, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson!

For Budding Bukowskis?

Hey, look what I found while I was searching for clean needles! It's an ancient issue of Barfly, yet another publication I worked for that is long dead. I'm not sure exactly what was communicated to me as far as the issue's theme was concerned, but this was the artwork I came up with:

Doodles by Buzz

More early caricature work by my brother, the late, great David Holt. Most of this work was done when Dave was a high school senior. Pretty impressive stuff for a teenager, wouldn't you say? I remember him dashing most of these off while thumbing through TV Guide and Creem magazine. The George Burns and Ricardo Montalban were done in collaboration with Shane Johnson.

Billy Joel

Hillary "Two Phones" Clinton

Hillary Clinton has come under fire for having used her personal email while serving as Secretary of State rather than utilizing a government web server. Her defense? She didn't want to use two separate email accounts because she didn't want to carry around two cell phones.

Hopefully, someone has since explained these newfangled cell phone devices to Grandma Clinton...and maybe helped her program her VCR.

Love in the Time of Cotton Picking

A recent illo for an upcoming book of gay Civil War-themed poetry. You probably didn't realize what a huge genre that is, did you? Here's Confederate General JEB Stuart, looking sultry and ready for romance. The South shall rise again indeed!

Big Brother is Sketching

My brother David passed away in February after a long battle with cancer, leaving a huge void among his innumerable friends where his savage wit and charm used to be. Big Dave was an enormously talented graphic designer, making design miracles happen on a daily basis as the Marketing Director at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station. But in his reckless youth, before he wised up and developed more practical skills, David focused much of his talent on caricature.

I was still pretty young - around 12 or 13 - when David  was producing these works, and this art, as well as David's hefty doses of brotherly advice, encouraged an already feverish boyhood interest in the world of cartoon illustration. I had a huge leg up as a young artist, thanks to his knowledge of proper drawing tools and printing techniques (I tried to return the favor over the years when Old Man Dave had a Photoshop question).

Here's a handful of David Holt caricatures (some in collaboration with fellow artist Shane Johnson) I had readily available. I'll add more to this post when I've had a chance to sort through and archive his work.

David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen

Cotton Blather

Portrait of Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who this week spearheaded a campaign of 47 Republicans to undermine the president's nuclear negotiations by writing a condescending letter to top Iranian leaders. Like other junior Republicans hoping to make a splash on the political stage, Cotton rightly believes that being even more blatantly disrespectful of the Socialist Muslim President than usual will provide his moment in the sun. And I'm here to help by producing this portrait.

I thought I was being exceptionally cruel in my rendering of Cotton, who really does look like a militant Ichabod Crane, but as is the curse of my style, I made him look pretty cute. Someday I hope the softness of my drawing hand will get corrupted to match the venom in my soul. As it is, I can draw the Pope sawing kittens in half while hip deep in a sewer of rotting corpses, and people will say, "How cute!"

Man, if only I could be Ralph Steadman for just one day....

An intriguing Atlantic Monthly article on Cotton here.