Spooky Blog

New Commission

2008-12-26T10:39:00.000-08:00

Horror fan Dennis Fesenmyer commissioned a surprise Christmas portrait for his new wife Cindy, showing them on the beach from their Hawaiian wedding....except instead of the beautiful sunset they actually got, Dennis asked for a stormy sky, "Creepshow"-esque colors, and tentacles from the deep. Dennis and Cindy's cats Miles and Mingus are playing with their supper:

thanks again for this fun commission, Dennis!

Mass Market 3 Sunday December 14th

2008-12-11T10:52:00.001-08:00

I'll be putting on my homemade skeleton suit to sell $20 (instead of the usual $30) signed holiday prints from my "Year of the Dead" series at Mass Market 3 this Sunday! Come on down to Mass Art to check out all kinds of cool stuff from tons of vendors

12-6pm
Massachusetts College of Art
Pozen Center
621 Huntington avenue
Boston, MA
All Ages
$1 Admission Fee

"School's Out FOREVER."

2008-11-21T14:45:00.000-08:00

I just finished a new 14" x 11" acrylic, fluorescent, and pearlized painting for the upcoming "Pop Euphoria" show at the Aurora Gallery. It was tough deciding what to paint for this show (Batman? Darth Vader? Godzilla? Wonder Woman?) but I went with 5th grade versions of me, my friend Tom Pappalardo of Standard Design, and my big sister Mary celebrating Godzilla incinerating the school we all went to.

Thanks again to AMAZING illustrator Veronica Hebard for inviting me to be part of this December's "Pop Euphoria" charity art show to benefit Toys for Tots.

Other artists showing work in this show: McBess, Brian Butler, Brian Reddy, Jessica Johnson, Fish McGill, Ansis Purins, Matt Furie, Kristin Elder, Dan Franzese, Christina Ung + Rey Ortega, Liz Artinian, and many more from all over the world...PLUS! there'll be an actual Batman cowl worn by Adam West from the original 1960s tv show, hand-painted Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry animation cells, Kaiju Big Battel, and much more. Check out the show's blog here

Opening reception:
Saturday December 6th, 6pm-9pm
Aurora Gallery
660 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01610

"Ereshkigal & Pazuzu"

2008-10-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

I just finished this new 12" x 16" acrylic painting (with a tiny bit of fluorescent and pearlized paint) for Space 242's PHANTASMAGORIA SHOW, "A Night of Strange & Terrifying Art". I was going to paint something more traditionally spooky, but I kept thinking about "Strange and Terrifying"......Pazuzu fits that description! Two years ago Black Cat Burlesque performed a pretty dark 5-member group act based on the Sumerian legend of Ereshkigal and Inana:

I made my own Pazuzu costume for the act:

and Devilicia was pretty terrifying as Ereshkigal:

SPACE 242 Presents
Final Fridays 2008
SASQUATCH VS THE ZOMBIES:
War in the Pacific Northwest
New Paintings by Mordicai Sulk
and
PHANTASMAGORIA
An Evening of Strange & Terrifying Art
Halloween Group Show Featuring 19 Area Artists

flyer by Joe Keinberger

With artwork by:
Joe Bastek, Dan Blakeslee, Brian Butler, Ellen Crenshaw, Ed Curran, Joerg-Peter Gueth, Joe Keinberger, Erick Lynch, Josh McAlear, Jeremy Majewski, MCA/Evil Design, Scott Murry, Mister Reusch, Alethea Roy, Salty Dave, Mike Shea, Stones, Daniel Szymanowski, and Josh Wallis

Costumes are encouraged!

Attend the private opening
RSVP at http://www.space242.com

Space 242
242 E. Berkeley St. (between Albany Street & Harrison Avenue),
2nd floor
Boston, MA

Monster of Rock

2008-10-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

Devilicia shot these photos of me as The Creature From The Black Lagoon opening Dr. Gasp's 6th Annual Halloween Special at Pierre Menard Gallery. Thanks to everyone who came to the show, Dr. Gasp, Hot Ron Scorcher, & the cool gallery folks!

TONIGHT'S Show

2008-09-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

My buddy Dr. Gasp (artist/ musician extraordinaire Dan Blakeslee) invited me to open his Halloween-themed performance Thursday October 9th at Pierre Menard Gallery in Harvard Square. I'll be suiting up in one of my homemade monster costumes to play spooky guitar before Hot Ron Scorcher and Dr. Gasp play their sets. Show starts at 9pm, so git your spooky selves over there! Amazing flyer by Dr. Gasp, check out his music and art here

Photos of me with Dr. Gasp from the May 2008 "Springalloween show" by Nick DeMakes

Somebody Clone Me, PLEASE

2008-09-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

I've got a squillion things to do but want to spend all my time on a new project I thought up, involving these 2 (yet unnamed) characters:

different outfit:

I've got more pencil sketches to clean up and add digital color to, just no time. This is a life-long curse, I think up cool stuff at the absolute worst moments when I'm supposed to be doing other things.
I wish a mad scientist could crank out a few clones of me so I could meet all my existing deadlines and still devote all my time to this! More sneak peeks, hopefully soon...

new Feast of Flesh VII poster

2008-09-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

I recently finished this new poster, showing all my previous "Feast of Flesh" poster zombies raising J. Cannibal's zombie flag, Iwo Jima-style:

detail:

Deading Invitation

2008-09-05T18:59:00.001-07:00

My friends Mary Widow and J. Cannibal are getting married this October. They asked me to paint a resurrection scene for the invitation, inspired by the poety lines, "We still live! We still love! We shall die dancing in eachother's arms"

Ice Cream Monster

2008-09-05T18:58:00.001-07:00

Ice Cream Monster

my black raspberry reaper contribution to Brian Butler's awesome Ice Cream People project has got Reeses's Peanut Butter Cup eyes, and Reeses Pieces for teeth.

Brian says, "The intent of this project to get the Ice Cream Person recognized among the greatest of supernatural beings, (right up there with Bigfoot, Loch Ness, and UFOs).

Right now I'm collecting artist renditions as evidence. I'm mailing postcards with a cone template printed on it, for fellow advocates to complete and return. The postcards will be archived online at IceCreamPeople.org, and I'm planning the real-life exhibition now.

If you'd like to get involved, e-mail icecreamfriend@gmail.com with your mailing address.

Thanks!
Brian Butler
Ice Cream Person Research Coordinator"

Check out Brian's sweet artwork here

Liz, Forrest, and Spooky Frazier Commission

2008-09-05T18:56:00.001-07:00

Liz, Forrest, and Spooky Frazier Commission

Congratulations to my Salem friends Liz and Forrest Frazier on their new baby, Lucille Violet Frazier! Months ago Liz's sisters and brother hired me to paint a portrait of Liz, Forrest, and their cat Spooky as a surprise gift. Liz and Forrest just got the painting a few days ago (along with Lucy!), so I can post it here. This was a fun commission! Thank you, Sara Jane, Chrissy, Amelia, and John.

early sketch of Liz, Forrest and Spooky on their bikes:

early Photoshop color study for the approved sketch:

Check out Forrest's photography site here
and Liz's motorcycle site here

"SPRINGALLOWEEN" show Saturday May 24th!

2008-05-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Super-creepy Dr. Gasp (Dan Blakeslee, who also created the cool flyer above) just offered me the opening slot in next Saturday night's "SPRINGALLOWEEN" show at Gulu Gulu in Salem, with Dr. Gasp and Orange Nichole! I will play guitar as a monster in one of my huge homemade masks and plan on bringing some very limited edition posters I just whipped up as souvenirs for this show:

8pm-11pm
Saturday May 24
Gulu Gulu Cafe
247 Essex St.
Salem, MA

The food and drinks there are great, and cool owners Steve and Marie own 2 fun Boston Terriers named Max and Jack.

Come start your countdown to Halloween!

Monsters of Rock Drawing Sessions

2008-03-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

April 2nd, April 16th, and April 23rd I will once again put on my homemade monster masks and play guitar for life-drawing students at MassArt! Set lists will include lots of Man...Or Astroman?, classic surf, Misfits and Ramones, Sleep, classic Black Sabbath, Metallica, Slayer, some Iron Maiden, and more.

And the 2 last dates are geared towards potential incoming freshman who'll be revisiting the school then to decide if MassArt's the right fit for them. If the Frankenstein monster playing "Motorbreath" doesn't convince high school seniors that MassArt is a fun place, I don't think anything will. I love that my masking wire and tape monster heads will kind of be like MassArt recruiters.

(And like the recent Feast of Flesh poster, I doodled this self-portrait using my Wacom tablet in Photoshop instead of doing a traditional drawing. For me, this is very weird.)

Here's me outside my office at Massart after one of the last drawing sessions:

Photo by Linda Bourke, my former teacher and now my cool boss.

J. Cannibal's FEAST of FLESH 6

2008-03-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

Just finished this new poster. And for the first time, the zombie head is 100% digital (Wacom tablet, brush tool, and paintbucket in Photoshop) rather than an acrylic painting dropped into the now-standard Feast of Flesh poster template. This show is going to be great.

My Eerie 80s

2008-03-09T13:55:00.000-07:00

I went to my hometown recently for my mom's and sister's birthdays, and found these Uniball pen drawings from middle school under my old bed.

"War is Hell"(1985)

Holy Moly! A heavy-metal-hair skeleton machine-gunner. Wow. This is from 6th grade in a Catholic school, when I started getting seriously into Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax. This sucker's LAMINATED, even.
Detail:

This one's short and sweet.
"BURN"(1986):

The inside cover of my 1987 school notebook contained this gem:

The lightning BEHIND the moon is especially awesome. Look at all those bloody skeletons! Somehow, this made me remember Sister Barbara's music class, where we'd have to sing "Were You There When They Nailed Him to the Tree?" and other fun Catholic hits, alongside "The Rose" and "I'm On Top of the World". Once she let us bring in cassette tapes to play for the class, and I made everyone listen to Metallica's "Battery". Amazingly, she listened to the whole song instead of shutting it off once the accoustic guitar intro turned into the fast main riff. Her only comment was "It has a fast beat."

Cover for an 8th grade book report in 1987(I got an A+++, seriously!):

And finally, this insane 1987 heavy metal skeleton warlord guy on 12" x 18" sketch paper. I laughed my head off seeing this again 21 years later (crap, I'm old), but I was totally sincere when I drew this:

Black flag with Grim Reaper cut-out:

more details:

Toot-Toot!

2008-03-03T05:44:00.001-08:00

My friends J. Cannibal and Mary Widow of Black Cat Burlesque are getting married this October and had me design their "Save the Date" postcards. The original is Micron pen on 9" x 12" 2-ply Bristol, with some muted Photoshop colors dropped in. This is the kind of thing I'd like to see way more often when cloud-watching.
Detail:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARY!

2008-02-17T19:11:00.000-08:00

I gave my sister this new 11" x 14" acrylic and fluorescent painting tonight for her birthday. She is the coolest.
Same-size prints will be available soon in the GALLERY section of this site as well.

My posters for SUPERTRASH FEST

2008-02-17T18:56:00.001-08:00

Fantagraphics books sponsored the SUPERTRASH FEST at the Bagdad Theater in Portland, Oregon, a marathon of trashy movies with live burlesque and an artshow in February 2008. Artists were invited to come up with their own movie poster renditions for their favorite trashy movies, and the posters were hung in the theater. The best ones will be printed in a collection by Fantagraphics.

This is one of my entries: Fulci's "ZOMBI 2" where a topless scuba diver in a g-string has to fight off a live shark, then a zombie walking across the bottom of the ocean, before the shark and zombie bite pieces off eachother. The first time I saw this scene my jaw hit the floor.

My 2nd entry was for "NUDE FOR SATAN". I've got to admit I thought the movie was really awful, but the title alone is hilarious and awesome.

The devil girl has black horizontal slits for pupils, like a goat.

The evil pope skeleton next to the floating Devil is supposed to be the False Prophet. (8 years of Catholic school and they never told us about the Unholy Trinity of the Devil, The Anti-Christ or the False Prophet. Instead, I found out about these guys in junior high watching the Omen movies on channel 38's "Movie Loft" where every October they'd show unedited horror movies every night.) Anyways, I wanted to make something really eye-catching and kind of scary and fun and ridiculous at the same time. Like if Slayer put out an album of music for 60s go-go dancers, this would be the cover.

12" x 18" signed prints of these paintings without text will be available soon in the GALLERY section of this site, and the original 12" x 18" acrylic and fluorescent on watercolor paper paintings are for sale for $400 each.

"Going to Hell in a Handbasket"

2007-12-21T06:45:00.000-08:00

New Providence Phoenix Illo

for a story about Rhode Island's impending doom, budget-wise. Thank you, Ian Donnis, for the assignment!

Breast Defense

2007-11-30T09:34:00.000-08:00

Devilicia from Black Cat Burlesque took part in the plaster casting of performers at the 2006 Exotic World Festival in Las Vegas. The casts are then shipped to artists to customize, then shipped to auctions run by Breast Defense where all proceeds go to benefit breast cancer research.
For Devilicia's cast I painted a little devil holding balloons with the BCB logo on them.
Painting a thick coat of Gesso:

Transfer of the linework with acrylic:

Some of the underpainting:

Final product:

Info copied from the Breast Defense myspace page:
Breast Defense: Glamour Girls For Early Detection is a partnership between The Burlesque Hall of Fame and Keep A Breast, uniting top artists, performers and pinup models to raise awareness for breast cancer prevention and treatment.

Casting for Breast Defense began in June 2007, during Exotic World Weekend, the longest-running event of its kind and the world's premier gathering of burlesque performers and enthusiasts. From June 8-10, over 40 women had their 'assets' immortalized for the cause--including such legendary "vintage vixens" as Tempest Storm, Tura Satana, BC survivor Kitten Natividad, Dixie Evans and many of today's top neo-burlesque starlets, inlcuding Miss Exotic Worlds Immodesty Blaize (2007), Julie Atlas Muz (2006), Michelle L'amour (2005), Erochica Bamboo (2003) and Stephanie Blake (1997 & 1998).

Following the casting, each mold was given to a different artist to customize--with the first round of finished casts set to debut at Florida's Casa Monica Hotel in October 2007, as part of The Gallery at Screen Arts contribution to a citywide art walk for breast cancer honoring national Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

In June 2008, the entire collection will be displayed in Downtown Las Vegas, as part of the city's First Friday Exhibition Series. Both exhibitions will be open to the public, and all casts will be auctioned online at www.keep-a-breast.org, with proceeds split between the Burlesque Hall of Fame and Keep A Breast's youth education programs.

Among the many amazing artists participating in this project include: Pilar Alvarez, Attaboy, AV Phibes, Shawn Barber, Gary Baseman, Megan Besmirched, Tim Biskup, Chase, Sas Christian, Molly Crabapple, Joshua Ellingson, Sarah Emerson, Scott Ewalt, PJ Fidler, Mark George, Mike Giant, Kim Gordon, Derek Hess, Greg Hildebrandt, Ronnie Land, Charlene Lanzel, Tonya Lee, George Long, Elizabeth McGrath, Jerry Misko, Mark Mothersbaugh, Emma Mount, Krysztof Nemeth, Mitch O'Connell, Annie Owens, Joshua Petker, Iggy Pop, Paul Pope, Sara Ray, Mister Reusch, Tony Rodrigues, KRK Ryden, Laura Satana, Gabriel Shaffer, Nicole Steen, Kat von D, Casey Weldon, and more.

About Keep A Breast: The Keep A Breast Foundation™ is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization. Our mission is to help eradicate breast cancer by exposing young people to methods of prevention, early detection and support. Through art events, educational programs and fundraising efforts, we seek to increase breast cancer awareness among young people so they are better equipped to make choices and develop habits that will benefit their long-term health and well-being.

About the Burlesque Hall of Fame:The Burlesque Hall of Fame™ is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization. Our mission is to inspire, educate and entertain the public, fostering an appreciation for and understanding of the unique history and heritage of vintage Burlesque--including but not limited to the art, artifacts and personal histories of its biggest names and brightest stars.

ROCK BAND

2007-11-19T21:33:00.000-08:00

Finally! I can now show some of the art I created last summer for the new ROCK BAND game from Harmonix, available in stores TODAY, November 20:

Players can click on "Mister Reusch" in the game to customize their Rock Band characters with 20 new samples of my artwork.
Thanks again to Alex Rigopulos, Jason "King" Kendall, Gordon Fellows, Josh Randall, Jason Arnone, and everybody at Harmonix. Now I have to go buy an X-Box so I can play this game!

Dr. Sketchy's Sunday November 11

2007-11-08T14:09:00.000-08:00

Devilicia and I will be modeling at Dr. Sketchy's this Sunday November 11th as Katrina von Tassel-Twirler and the Headless Horseman.
from truthserum's presskit:
"Sunday November 11, 2007 2:30pm
SPECIAL EDITION Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School Cabaret Life Drawing Class: Molly Crabapple and her new Calendar!
Great Scott
1222 Commonwealth Ave (corner of Harvard and Commonwealth)
Allston
$7 2:30pm 18+ (bring your ID, this is a bar)
http://www.truthserum.org

Dr. Sketchy's Launches Burlesque Calendar and to celebrate, Molly Crabapple (Dr. Sketchy's founder) will be in town with it for sale. Also, Boston's own Miss September, Devilicia of Black Cat Burlesque will be modeling with Mister Reusch. Come pick up a calendar, get it signed by everyone involved and stay to sketch some.

When many artists think "life drawing," they think of sterile rooms, bad lighting, and bored, silent, models with nary a hint of personality. Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School is here to change all that."

Happy Halloween!!!

2007-10-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

Halloween Poster & Print eBay sale

2007-10-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

I just posted a bunch of 1/2 price spooky Halloween prints and discounted Black Cat Burlesque posters for sale here

Art of Modern Rock Mini #1

2007-10-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

I just received my copy in the mail of Dennis King's 194-page "Mini" version of 2004's monster Art of Modern Rock, and saw that I start the book off next to Dennis's introduction:

It's got lots of new surprises not included in the original coffee table book, too, including the "Spooks-a-Poppin" poster I painted for the first spookshow Devilicia and I ever put together. Thanks for printing 5 of my posters, Dennis!
Available in stores and online now.