sports sports sports

At least at the moment, I kind of like this one despite some &#%$ ups.

The Time Has Come to Talk of Shrimp Pimps

For a friend of a friend's shrimp import business:

Actually the version I submitted was just two colors, no white highlights. Rather subdued. My pal added bright colors and removed some of my dramatic shadows (based on photo reference, incidentally.) If you're curious, that version is at swimminglastnight.com.

Here's the original sketch I did. I like the vinegar in this lettering, but it was difficult to ink by hand without wavering, so I found a font. Maybe I should have braved it and just left the imperfections.

How Webcrawlers Make the Web Worse

Reading about how to improve small business search rankings reveals the way webcrawler design leads businesses to create so-called "content" that does everyone a disservice --- both their own customers as well as people actually looking for useful information.

I started reading about "search engine optimization", or SEO, partly at the behest of my dad who's trying to improve his sign shop's website, but also to help with promoting the stuff I do. Anyway, SEO tends to be a lot of fairly boring technical little stuff, mainly about all the relentless ways you can squeeze in "keywords" and "keyphrases" into every last pixel of your site, for the benefit of Google's (and others') webcrawlers and "robots". But then it got interesting (or perhaps it only seemed so by comparison) when my RepKoverTM bound guidebook (lays flat for easy reading) started advising me to simulate "content" to draw in the flies --- to get some Content Management Software (CMS) and perhaps hire a copywriter to fob off some faux-info on the hoi polloi (assonant aside: I dream of one day opening a competitor to Hobby Lobby, either catty-corner or across the street, to be called The Hobber Lobber. Additional aside, non-assonant: perhaps these very words are only a content simulacrum, cynically generated to ensnare you in some commercial agenda?)

Fancy Free (or Cheap Anyway) and Footloose

The world offers many paradoxes to the observant. I speak today of a certain foot-based conundrum that is once again upon me as spring and summer draw near. It first hit me last summer, and now I suppose it threatens to be an annual occurrence, barring a minor revolution in low-end footwear manufacturing practices.

Sandals, you see, apparently have to be "fancy" if they're also cheap. By "fancy", I mean they have to have elaborate leather (or leather-like?) strappage, with lots of buckles and doodads, and in general suggest that the wearer commands armies of Roman legionaires, or has servants who feed him grapes while he lies on one of his many divans. Then again, some of the designs cross that influence with a bit of standard 1990s "extreme" stylings, for the Roman emperor who also likes to drive 4-wheelers and stomp on small creatures from time to time.

Old Magazine Cartoons Today

kids book illustration

A friend of mine had an idea for a kid's book he wanted to write and asked me to come up with a couple pieces based on his directions. As it happens he prefers the pencil roughs to the inked drawings, but I was happy with the way this one came out (with a few reservations as always...)

a boy and his golem