Groundhog Judgement Day

Last week, PETA (which stands for Batsh*t Crazy Animal Organization) claimed that the annual Groundhog Day celebration in Pennsylvania is cruel to real live groundhog "Punxsutawney Phil," and demanded he be replaced with a robotic groundhog.

Oh, PETA, you've done it again!

Seriously, what is up with them lately? First they said fishing is cruel, so they wanted to rename fish as "sea kittens," because according to them, no one wants to hurt an adorable kitty and people will stop fishing. They also demanded that Ben & Jerry's stop using dairy milk in their ice cream and use human breast milk instead. Ew. Then they denounced President Obama because he killed a fly during a speech. Sadly, I'm not making up any of that.

There was a time when PETA was a relevant and effective animal rights organization that achieved admirable results. That time is long past. Now they're like the crazy old aunt that shows up at Thanksgiving wearing her bra on the outside of her blouse.

Anyway, PETA's ridiculous Groundhog Day demand inspired this illustration. It's February 2nd, Judgement Day for humanity. We'd better hope Punxatron 3000 aims his visual receptors at the ground and detects its shadow, or it's lights out for the human race.

I'm sure I probably messed up the program code in the word balloon. It's been a lonnnng time since I took that Basic class in college. If any programmers are out there, feel free to correct me. The red text is hand lettered. It's a good start, but I feel like it needs some refinement.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.



Here's the digital sketch of Phil. Like most of my illustrations, it started as a simple image and quickly got out of control.

Note that in the sketch, there are two vertical lines under his upper "lip." Those lines made it seem like he had giant buck teeth, which caused him to look more like a beaver or a woodchuck than a groundhog. From the reference photos I looked out, groundhogs don't have prominent teeth, so I deleted one of the lines and centered the other. Problem solved!

DVD Dopplegangers 3

Welcome to another installment of "DVD Dopplegangers," in which I search the video store for DVD covers that are a little too similar to be a coincidence.



First we have the cruel and sadistic dog killin' movie, Marley & Me. I love the blurb at the bottom that reads, "The Best Family Film Of The Year." Sure, if you're the Manson family.

I'm all for teaching kids about the circle of life, but did they have to give us a full twenty grueling minutes of Marley being put to sleep? That's right folks, I just spoiled the movie for you. Marley dies. But he doesn't just die quickly or heroically like Ol' Yeller. Here the camera lovingly lingers over every single detail of his drawn out demise. Keep your kids far away from it, unless you want them telling their court appointed psychiatrists about it someday.



Then we have The Dog Who Saved Christmas. Looks just a little familiar, doesn't it? Good Lord, they even used a yellow lab! In fact it wouldn't surprise me if this was the exact same dog they used on the Marley DVD, just a few months older.

They even placed this dog in the same white, formless void as the Marley cover. The font isn't exactly the same, but it's darn close. Half the text is even red here as well.

And would you look at that, there's a broken Xmas ornament on the invisible floor. Why, this dog is just as mischievous and accident prone as poor old dead Marley! Gosh, if I didn't know better, I'd think that this studio was hoping fans of Marley & Me would see this DVD and buy it, thinking it's a sequel. But we all know that no corporation would stoop that low.

Because this is a holiday movie, they Photoshopped a Xmas tree branch in the dog's mouth. Nice touch. Xmas trees are toxic to dogs. They won't kill them, but they can make them really sick if eaten.

Runaway Brain!

Watch your feet everybody! Runaway brain coming through!

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.



Here's the original sketch. I like the looseness of the sketch, and tried to preserve that in the final drawing, however, his pose is all wrong here. The guy's all bent over, when his entire body should be leaning forward as if he's running at top speed.



Here's the second sketch. His running pose is better here, conveying movement and speed. I'm not sure what that tail trailing behind the brain is supposed to be. A spinal cord? Nerves? I don't know. I ended up deleting the tail in the final drawing.

It's Not Just The Title, It's How I Feel After Watching

Hey, Lost is back for its final season! Hey, I have no frakkin' clue what's going on!

Spoilers Ahoy!

Well, that was certainly weird. Apparently after the atom bomb went off on the island in 1977 (I think?) there are now two time lines? One in which the Losties were thrown back into the present day, and one in which they never crashed on the island at all, in which the island is under water. Yup, makes perfect sense to me!

I was under the impression that the creators were going to wrap everything up in the final season, but it looks like they just delivered a big package of WTF? to our doorsteps. Two time lines? A temple full of other Others? More new characters to keep track of? The embodiments of Good and Evil possessing the bodies of familiar characters? My head's hurting. Excuse me while I go and lie down in dark room.

I've been a big fan of the show ever since the first episode, but I have to admit that half the time I have no idea what's going on with the plot. That's not a condemnation, by the way. I kind of like that it's convoluted and confusing. It's fun trying to figure out what's going on. I think about each episode long after it's over, as I try to figure out what I just saw. You can't say that about Two And A Half Men.

I have an uneasy feeling that the series finale can't possibly live up to everyone's expectations, but that's OK. To use a hackneyed cliche, this show's more about the journey than the destination.

DVD Dopplegangers 2: Electric Boogaloo

Welcome to another installment of "DVD Dopplegangers," in which I search the video store for DVD covers that are a little too similar to be a coincidence. I've got my eye on you, lazy graphic designers of the world.



Tonight we have the DVD cover of the excellent horror-comedy Zombieland. I really liked this movie a lot, and if you've not yet seen it, I highly recommend it.



Next we have the DVD cover for Vampire Killers. Once again, even though I've not seen this movie, it seems familiar somehow...

Let's examine the cover more closely...
• Muted, almost black and white desaturated color palette? Check!
• Ominous stormy sky? Check!
• Reddish title, set in all caps and angled at 8º? White text above said title? Check and Check!
• Hero dressed in black, holding shotgun against shoulder? Check!
• Ancillary characters arranged behind hero? Check!
• Mud splatters along the bottom to give the cover a grungy "grindhouse" feel? Check!
• Altering the original cover art to mimic a high-grossing recent American release and hopefully ride on its successful coattails? That's a BIG check!



Vampire Killers is actually a recent British release, and just for fun, here's a look at the original DVD cover art. As you can see, if you don't get too distracted by the top of the cover, the title is actually Lesbian Vampire Killers. I'm assuming that it's about killers who eliminate lesbian vampires, and not about vampire killers who happen to be gay. I'm also assuming the title was changed to something less provocative so as not to offend Aunt Bee and her prudish coven of church ladies here in America. Would society really have reverted back to the Bronze Age if a DVD called Lesbian Vampire Killers was released to stores? Sometimes I wonder about the future of this country. But that's a post for another time.

Bugsy McMobster

Here's a lil' gangster flippin' a nickel. If he was any taller he'd be dead.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.



Here's the original sketch of Bugsy. I decided he needed a nickel-flippin' arm while I was drawing the final image, to help give it some visual interest. This is another one of those sketches that looks like it was drawn in pencil, but I drew it with a ball point pen. Somehow my scanner makes pen lines look like pencil.

DVD Dopplegangers

It's said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. What about a "blatant ripoff?" Is that considered flattering as well?



Here's the DVD/poster art for the movie Burn After Reading. I saw the movie in the theater when it came out and liked it a lot. I was also a big admirer of the poster art, and studied it while waiting in the lobby. Something about that layout and the 1960s hand lettering really spoke to me.



Apparently I wasn't the only one impressed with the poster. Here's the DVD cover of I'll Believe You. Even though I've not seen the movie, something about the cover seems familiar... I just can't put my finger on it. Other than the layout, the number and arrangement of boxes containing actor's faces, the title in the middle, the names listed across the top, the similar font, and the call out quote box on the left, they're totally different.

But this cover has a flying saucer on it, so there's no way it can be swiped from Burn After Reading.

By the way, despite what the designer of this poster would like you to think, that font is not hand-lettered like the Burn After Reading title. It's called "Addled" or "Ad lib," and is freely available all over the internet.



Then we have the DVD cover for The Maiden Heist. It too seems familiar, but again, I can't quite figure out why. As you can see, the boxes containing the actor's faces are separated by colored dots, so it can't possibly be a ripoff.

Once again they've used a free internet font to simulate the hand-lettering of Burn After Reading. The identical Es and Is are a dead giveaway.

Stay tuned for more DVD Dopplegangers!