In the last year I've acquired a pretty awesome collection of art, prints, and zines from trading with like minded folks. There's really nothing better than finding out that people whose work you love actually like your crap as well. Think of this as my "best of" or "exactly what I would publish in a giant art & comics anthology if I could afford to" and a shout out to all the awesome people who have sent me stuff this year.
Blammo #5 - Noah Van Sciver
Noah's comics are freakin' hilarious. If you like Crumb, Bagge, Joe Matt, Harvey Pekar, etc... and are wondering what the hell happened to people that wrote comics like that look no further. Buy everything he's published so far and check out his interview strips on the Comics Journal website and Westword.
David Johansen - Garrett Morlan
Garrett is a friend from art school who recently moved to Seattle and hooked me up with some great photos & research for my Seattle hot dog article on Serious Eats. Sent him a hot dog giclee and got this terrific New York Dolls print in return. Garrett's been doing some killer portraits lately, check out his work at garrettmorlan.com.
Serving Suggestion - Hugo
Traded an old Screw cover original for this one. Hugo's work is totally over the top and incredible. Lots of lucious giant jiggling asses and Basil Wolverton-esque monster faced old dudes. The insane details in this original are mind boggling. You can see his work in Typhon and Cinema Sewer (link NSFW) or check out his site hugocomics.com
Cool Heart - Kris Chau
Chau puts together these zines every so often made up of the zillions of ink drawings that wallpaper her studio. Her work is awesome and you should buy all of it all the time so she can quit her job and write more posts for the food blog.
St Louis Style - Dan Zettwoch
Zettwoch's comics and illustration absolutely blow me away, and drives me nuts because it's so hard to find his stuff, so I was super psyched that he was into trading me one of these St Louis food prints for a hot dog print. If you don't know his work you should.. check out his blog, zettwoch's suitcase or pick up some of his mini comics from the USS catastrophe shop.
Bambi - Kaitlin Mosley
Kaitlin works at Silicon Fine Arts and makes my hot dog prints look better than the originals. She's also a fantastic photographer and we traded for some prints that give my walls a break from cheesesteak signs and mexican sleaze comics. Check out her work on Flickr.
Slurricane - Will Laren
You might remember Will's drawings in Philadelphia Weekly a few years back.. he recently sent me this zine that gives me an awesome Deep thoughts By Jack Handy meets Raymond Pettibon feeling. You can pick up Slurricane as well as other stuff including T-shirts via paypal..Be sure to check out his work on Flickr.
Backwards Folding Mirror - Jesse Moynihan
Beautifully drawn comics with some mesmerizing sci-fi prog-rock action going on, and a sincere story and sense of humor underneath it all. Jesse's work is really unique and I'm surprised that he isn't being published in giant volumes and rolling in money. Pick up his books or check out full color comics on his website and arthurmag.com.
Dude Man Yo - Pat Aulisio
Pat is the founder of the Philly Alt Comic Con where we traded some comics and I especially love this screen printed 4 pager. He's cranking out some awesome work and starting up a distro where you can purchase his comics as well as stuff from a bunch of other local underground type cartoonists. Go to patmakesdrawings.com for more.
Animal Husbandry - Rob Sato
Rob's been blowing up this year with Juxtapoz and crazy gallery shows and also this tiny 3" square mini comic. In a world of folks cranking out vector illustration Rob is doing these giant lush Hieronymus Bosch-esque paintings that are blowing everyone away. More at robsato.com.
Cut & Paste - Tim Gough
Super amazing hand printed zines. Tim just quit his job to be a full time illustrator, so go over to his site and buy lots of prints and t-shirts so he can afford to feed his dog. Cut & Paste is available here and be sure not to miss his brand new website with loads of new work.
Matty Runks
Tattoo artist at Kadillac in Manayunk PA, Matty also does some nice old school artwork both for people's bodies and gallery shows. Currently hiking across Australia and Thailand tattooing monkeys with former members of AC-DC or something, no website but check out this profile jawn from Philadelphia Weekly a few years ago- PW: Under The Gun
Sausage Hand
This dude came out of nowhere with some crazy comics of people with sausage fingers pooping and cutting eachother with chainsaws. Drawing style sort of looks like early Crumb sketchbook style.. I think he's still in art school, we'll hopefully see more and more of this stuff in the near future.
