The New Phonebooks are Here! THE NEW PHONEBOOKS ARE HERE!!!

Well it seems being underemployed has its benefits... I've read a number of fine books in relatively rapid succession, I've developed a vitamin D deficiency and I've spent a good deal of time thinking about the logistical possibility of starting a non-kosher, Jew-merican eatery. But above all I've been able to get a fuck ton of drawing done. In fact by the end of this week I should have as many pieces done as are already in my portfolio which, isn't really that many but I'm still pretty proud of myself... Bask in my pride please. Okay, so without further hurly burly, the lineworks!!!



These are the first batch of lineworks for the Bowery ghost book/ portfolio thing I'm working on and the concept is a pretty straight-forward, history lesson sort of dealy which is the opposite of the original idea I had, complete randomness but that flies in the face of three and 1/2 years of Tom Woodruff's SVA-ication of my brain. The first ghost up top there is a Teddy Roosevelt manticore, a phantasm of reform.



This one is Mock Duck, a Chinese Tong leader and all around badass. Read up on him in Herbet Asbury's fanciful masterpiece, The Gangs of New York and the more realistic Low Life by the great Luc Sante.



The third piece here is Lady Mephista, I don't know much about her outside of her name and that she was a burlesque performer in the late 1800s but I'm sure there were some kind of pyrotechnics involved in her act.



This ghost is Ignacio Lupo, AKA The Wolf one of the founders of The Black hand, a forerunner of the Mafia in America. I highly recommend looking into this guy some more, he's brutality made flesh and a master of general haberdashery.



These are the Soap Locks, otherwise known as the Bowery Boys. From left to right they are, Sykesy, Big Mose and "Butcher" Bill Poole members of one of New York's and by extension the world's first gangs. Sante and Asbury write extensively on their history from their humble beginnings as a racist trade guild and volunteer fire fighting outfit to their complete domination of the American stage.



The final "portrait" for this posting is the Saint of Vermin, a character I cooked up to anthropomorphically embody one of the most readily recognizable facets of Bowery.

Thanks for checkin' out my sheeeeeeeit. Lemmy know what ya'll think.

Hail Satan!!!
-J