Next Saturday at Zerofriends, San Francisco will be wild. I will be spinning my Wheel of Wildlife for anyone who spends $20 in the shop. Whatever beast the wheel lands on, I will draw you as that creature. Jan. 22, 1-6pm
419 Haight St, San Francisco, CA (Lower Haight)
The Onion has teamed with Threadless on a T-shirt contest. Designers submit T-shirt designs inspired by ANY of The Onion's headlines - EVER. I'm going to hold them to that as I went with a story I found in a 13 year old copy of The Onion Ad Nauseam.
This is a hand-drawn, hand-lettered design. That's good ol' American Ink on paper, son! No clip-art, no digitally created text. Short cuts are for people who don't have machetes.
So here is where you come in!
Voting will be happening over the next few days (until June 18th). Please take a moment to cast your vote for National Machete Association.
Thank you,
-Ben Walker
Since its humble beginnings as a Madison, Wisconsin student-run newspaper in the late-'80s, The Onion has become the America's most recognizable and prominent source of satirical commentary. With daily coverage of politics, technology, sports, business, entertainment and more, The Onion, along with its sister pop-culture publication, The A.V. Club, receives over 10 million monthly visitors and accounts for over 2 million Facebook fans, 5 million Twitter followers and more than half a million YouTube subscribers.
Someone recently asked me if I could talk about what I love about Geek Culture. The answer is yes, and here you go:
What can I say about my love for geek culture? I could start by telling you that I was a geeky kid. Now, I have to say that I grew up long after the time when the word geek meant guy who bites the heads off chickens at the circus, but well before the word was reclaimed to describe a formidable army of gaming and pop culture lovers.
My Dad showed this picture to a girl my age and I thought I might die. Now here it is on the internet.
In the late 70's and 80's I loved my BMX bike, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars like dang-near every other kid. I loved my X-wing fighter so much I wanted to eat it (with the R2D2 head that doubled as a candy-like button to pop open the wings?! oh man, tasty!). By Jr. High I was a goofy kid in a converse, pegged jeans, an unbuttoned hawaiian shirt that Mom got me at Ross, and possibly a comic book related T-shirt. This was in the days when wanting a superhero T-shirt meant buying one at a comic book shop (or leaving the house in your Underoos, I guess). The first time I saw a T-shirt of the black Spider-Man logo my pants got all tight and uncomfortable. I know you'll find this hard to believe but dressing like this didn't make me a hit with the ladies. Before the days of blockbuster films about comic book characters, wearing a shirt decorated with Wolverine's fist and claws mostly got you confused looks from the other kids. "Is that Freddy Krueger?"
So there weren't a lot of kids I related to. Everyone else my age had thrown out their G.I. Joes in favor of not dancing at school dances. But I still wanted to hang out at home drawing from He-Man figures or playing "Gumby verses Robots".
Gumby vs. Robots, Ben Walker, 2008
Even the few geeky kids I knew didn't read comics. They liked space shuttles and actual science. One time I saw another scrawny kid navigating the crowded halls of my Junior High. He was wearing a backpack twice his size and he had an X-Men Comic tucked under his arm. Could this be a new friend? I said, "Hey do you like the X-Men?"
That's when some random shit pushed the kid down, then ran off laughing.
The kid got up looking rattled and hurt. He just continued toward his next class, but as he walked past me I heard him sadly utter, "eeeex-mheen..." The poor guy. I still don't know if he was attempting to salvage our conversation or calling for help from that band of outcast mutants.
By 9th grade I was spending most of my lunch breaks in the Chess club room. Not because I played chess, but because it was very unlikely I would get my ass kicked there. I hid out there until I met a couple goth girls who (ironically) got me out into the daylight again. They yelled back at the kids who said crappy things to us. They took me to my first all-ages goth club. I danced to Sex Dwarf. That was new. Standing outside the back door, watching the goth kids smoke clove cigarettes and laugh, I realized at least one set of people I had been afraid of was actually really nice. Like those toads with bright markings that make birds think they are poisonous, the goth kids can be kind of scary or off-putting but they are mostly harmless (Hitchhiker's Guide reference, boom). They just have different interests than "the norms" and are pushing away from them harder than others might. That's why I consider goths and other "weirdo outcasts" to be a part of the geekdom.
A gift for the Ritchie home.
I don't want to go on a tangent about goths and other geeky sub-gengres but I guess I just did. The point is I think that's when I started learning I could be weird, outgoing, play with people's perceptions of me, and have fun with it. Not fitting in with the masses doesn't mean having to hide in the Chess club room....of life. Hmmm deep.
I think that's when things started to turn for me. I was still a geek, but I was fine about being "out" about it. I wore what I liked and did how I pleased. That meant dressing pretty much like Batman in argyle socks, carrying my lunch in an Ed Grimley lunch pail, and listening to They Might Be Giants. I started drawing my own comics and got strips published in the monthly school newspaper. I drew comics about me and my friends being "wimps", being dorky. Because why not? When you're the first one to make a joke about yourself what is anyone else going to say? Just make it a good one and they've got nothing.
Ben Walker, 2009
I will always have a fondness for Spider-man, Chun Lee, Rogue and Conan, as they were sometimes my only friends. Put on The Muppet Movie right now! I'll sing along with "Moving right along" and everything. But the thing I love about geek culture is that it's not really about the specific bits of pop culture. It's not even about being socially awkward or unpopular anymore (Have you seen Comic-con? It's a quarter of a million people converging on San Diego. That doesn't feel too lonely.) Being a geek is a way of living. It's about being interested. We are geeks because we "geek out" on things we love, things we want to learn a lot more about, be better at, and share with others. Something pretty cool happens when people are excited about a thing. It gives them a reason to get up in the morning.
Adam Carolla recently said, "No amount of coffee or energy drinks can beat enthusiasm for something." I think he nailed it.
And something amazing happens when people are very interested in a thing. They get stuff done. They create new things that others will in turn "geek out" on. The thing that makes geek culture special may just boil down to this: When people are busy being interested in things, creating things, geeking out, they stay out of trouble. Geeks are not known for abusing drugs, getting into fights, pushing their weird religious views on people, or causing problems in general. They have jobs and innovate things that the rest of the world eventually embraces. I don't think they get enough credit for that. Again, look at Comic-con. Since 1970, growing numbers of people, now in the hundreds of thousands have been getting together for the event. Aside from one recent eye-stabbing, it's been incredibly free of violence. Please tell me of another group of people who can come together in such great numbers and get along so peacefully?....... Yeah, nothing comes to mind for me either. What if the news media took one minute to stop chuckling about the guy dressed as Duck Tape Darkwing Duck and talked about this stuff? It really is an amazing accomplishment.
So geeks get stuff done. They aren't confrontational or drunk and disorderly. In their own way, geeks may just be happier than other people. And that's why I will always be on the geek side.
-Ben Walker
For more, check out 6 illustrated moments in my life with Spiderman
And now, a shameless grab for street-cred with pictures of cool geeks who wear my T-shirts.
Prince of the Geekdom, Wil Wheaton
John Romero, creator of Doom and Wolfenstein
Epic Artist, Matt "136" Ritchie
Cool Jerk cartoonist, Paul Horn and geek-gal author, Sarah Kuhn
OK, he's not wearing my shirt. But still. It's Lobster Johnson!
Last weekend the Bay Area saw the 2013 Maker Faire. I'm still a little grumpy over not being able to make it (no pun intended) out to see the event. Regardless of that, I was honored to by asked by Zazzle, a major sponsor of this year's Maker Faire to contribute artwork. The Zazzle booth had an art-making station where kids and the "young at heart" could color large posters. It's collaborative art with seasoned illustrators! Josh Ellingson contributed some sweet posters too.
I definitely want to thank Zazzle for helping spread the word about volcanos and the fact that I invented them. They also did a great job of letting people know about my expertise on wildlife, both the kind found in nature and that found wandering The City. For more about the the creatures I encounter on MUNI, at used record stores, and in my own circle of friends, explore SF WildLife.
Zazzle has been rolling out a lot of cool new products for customization, like hand-bags, smart phone cases and skateboards. Check them out at www.zazzle.com.
-Ben
A few weeks ago I got a chance to see Family Crest perform and was blown away by these guys. They are a classically trained, orchestral indie rock band inspired by jazz, folk and classical music. Regardless of all the Wikipedia stuff, they are just a kick to see perform. Aside from sounding impeccable live, they are all super-nice and enthusiastic. That's the kind of people I want to make cool posters for.
This poster is for an upcoming show at Bottom of the Hill (no duh). I'm going to rework it for another Family Crest performance coming up at The Starry Plough in Berkeley.
That's all for now! Go check these cats out.
Six of Cups, Sweetheart Come
This Saturday, March 16th, Modern Eden Gallery presents Tarot: Art of Fortune. 78 artists re-imagine the entire deck of tarot cards. I chose the Six of Cups.
I want to take you back to December of 2010. I was in Lafayette, California (East, east Bay area), living alone for the first time in...well, ever. I was in the middle of a divorce. It was a time in my life that was both dark and exciting, and I was relating to the music of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds more than ever. His lyrics just get the imagery flowing in my head! So I wanted to paint something inspired by a line from his song, Sweetheart Come:
Come over here, babe. It ain't that bad I don't claim to understand The troubles that you've had. But the dogs you say they fed you to Lay their muzzles in your lap And the lions that they led you to Lie down and take a nap.
For me, this line speaks of a "tragic" person, someone who complain about the world being against them. But maybe this person has a revelation and learns that they will be OK. The world may look pretty dangerous but so far you're doing fine, you know? Anyway, I wanted to paint something about this girl. Something beautiful and kind of funny.
So many of Cave's songs are about dark haired women. I'm all about that! So I went to finding a raven-haired model to work with. My first thought was of a young woman who had contacted me a couple years earlier. At the time I ran a costumed life drawing studio and she was interested in coming out from the Bay Area to model. There were transportation problems or something so that never worked out.
What can I say about this girl? The word statuesque may have been invented for her. She's fucking gorgeous. So now that I was in the area I went ahead and contacted her about modeling. She was into the idea and we eventually came up with a time to meet up and talk about it. Why not during my company Christmas party?
I won't go into all the details except to say that we hit it off right away and we haven't been apart much since. Now I'm engaged to marry this model. What can I say? when it's right, its right.
But what about the Sweetheart Come painting? Honestly it fell by the wayside. Amanda has been the muse for a lot of my art over the last couple years but this idea got put on a back burner in favor of other projects. I guess I've felt a bit like a flake for that, it being the "Reason We Met" and all. With the invitation from Warholian's Michael Cuffe to be in a tarot card show, I had a reason to resurrect this piece.
Reference photo, Ben Walker, 2013
Don't worry, I know there is no real mysticism or power in tarot cards. It's the ambiguity of tarot cards and astrology that keeps people interested. But that's what makes them harmless too. When I read the description of the Six of Cups tarot card it all clicked.
I don't know, this just sounds like my concept for the Sweetheart Come piece. Even if it doesn't totally work, who cares? Rather than force another "illustration", I wanted to make something meaningful to me.
Enjoy.
And buy Nick Cave & Bad Seeds new album - Push The Sky Away.
And buy No More Shall We Part
