Mister Reusch is a Rhode Island-based freelance illustrator with 20 eyes and teeth made of candy corn. He was born in 1973 in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and spent much of his childhood in Halloween costumes, no matter what the time of year. He grew up on a steady diet of Saturday afternoon "Beach Party" and "Creature Double-Feature" movies, TV cartoons and comic books, ghost stories, candy, Metallica and Ozzy, and sneak peeks at girlie magazines. As a kid, his favorite things to draw were monsters, dogs, and pretty girls. Not much has changed. Mister Reusch gets paid to draw all kinds of things, though his favorite subjects remain monsters, bug-eyed dogs, and voluptuous pin-up girls.

Reusch studied under influential illustrator Susan Paradis at Haverhill High School and won several art awards and scholarships. After graduating from Massachusetts College of Art in 1995 with a BFA in Illustration, he bombarded the art director of the local weekly alternative paper, The Boston Phoenix, with postcard samples every week for 9 months before landing an assignment. Since then, he's gone on to produce over 500 illustrations for the Phoenix Media Group and win 2 New England Press Association awards. In the late 90s Reusch began painting full-color concert posters for his friends' bands. Numerous posters from his 60+ catalog have been exhibited in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia poster shows, and will be featured in Paul Grushkin's mammoth Art of Modern Rock.

Mister Reusch has exhibited his other work in group and solo shows on both coasts, as well as some places in the middle, and he's designed art for Burton Snowboards, R.E.D., and 5150 Snowboards. Other clients include The Damned, The Boston Globe, Little Devil Brand Co., Llewellyn, Something Weird Video, Houghton-Mifflin,The World Famous Pontani Sisters, ALS-Therapy Development Foundation, The Weekly Dig, Double Negative, Scissorfight, WFNX Radio, Jonathan Richman, Access, The Industry Standard, and many others. His scary sketchbook work was featured in former Burton art director Jared Eberhardt's coffee table book, BLOWER:snowboarding inside out, and his monster paintings will also be shown in Vicious, Delicious, and Ambitious author Sherri Cullison's yet-untitled book on horror artists.

In the last year, Reusch and his Boston burlesque star/masked female wrestler/former mortician girlfriend Miss Firecracker formed Black Cat Burlesque, a horror and b-movie-themed troupe dedicated to putting on classic spookshows. Aside from creating acts and performing in monster suits, Mister Reusch designs the homemade masks and costumes, posters, and souvenir glow-in-the-dark t-shirts. Along with Mary Widow and J. Cannibal, they've brought their fake-blood- drenched team of stripping mummies, mad doctors, tassel-twirling vampires, tango-dancing werewolves, and wrestling zombie girls to the stages of New England and New York City--------and were recently banned by the Puritanical town elders in historic Salem from performing in a Halloween festival that the head witches had invited them to!

Mister Reusch, Miss Firecracker and their bug-eyed baby Boston Terrier, Frankenstein live near the gigantic cemetery where H.P. Lovecraft is buried. The three of them sleep in a huge wrought-iron birdcage constructed by Firecracker, complete with stuffed crows roosting near the top. He has learned to play old Metallica and Slayer songs on a tiny antique electric toy organ and would like to eventually learn to play the tuba, cello, and accordion.

• Artist of the month, www.designateria.com, October 2004
• Just Frenchies, featured artist interview, Fall 2004
• Weekly Dig, feature on Black Cat Burlesque's spookshow, October 2003
• www.sass.com online interview, featured artist, October 2003
• Juicy Magazine, Issue 2, featured artist, October 2003
• Just Frenchies, article about artists donating work to French Bulldog benefit art auction, Fall 03
• Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, Weekly Dig, Stuff@night, Boston Herald,"Paradise Found" rock poster show, August 2003
• Stuff@night, part of feature on neo-burlesque, August 2003
• Boston Globe, Living/Arts section, featured artist cover story, July 15, 2003
• Stuff@night, press for my line of dog t-shirts, June 2003
• Eagle Tribune, press for being featured speaker at high school art awards, April 30, 2003
• Boston Globe, Calendar cover story on neo-burlesque, March 2004
• Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, Weekly Dig, Stuff@night: Burlesque Spookshow, March 03
• Little Gigantor online zine, featured artist interview, March 2003
• Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, Weekly Dig, Stuff@night: "Tri-Polar" show, December 02
• Hanging Like A Hex, issue 16, cover artist and interview, 2002
• Double Negative, issue 14, interviewed by Jeff Wiesner
• Varla Magazine, issue 4, featured artist
• Good Ski Guide, UK, issue 5, interviewed about snowboard art
• Aftertaste magazine, issue 1, cover artist and interview
• Burton Snowboards Japan, snowflake zine #3, interview-snowboard art
• Shovel, interviewed by Anne Weeks for story on Boston rock poster art, January 2000