Spinal Tap

This weeks cover for City Pages about fixing and breaking spinal injuries, over and over. Thanks Mike.

off da chain

 For Harvard Magazine about the immobile labor force. Don't know what that is? I didnt either, but its really interesting - essentially, Low income workers are unable to migrate to wealthier areas (north eastern states, for example) due largely in part to high housing cost. Homes keep them from moving somewhere now. If low income workers are not able to migrate it spells bad things for the economy.

How to TRAIN your dragon

New one for the Dallas Observer about the inevitable, unavoidable glut of Canadian oil making its way to Texas (maple leaf icon seen in print edition of image). Oil Sands oil in coming south, whether residents, or the environment like it or not, and its in a hurry. I spent a long time refining this idea till i felt it was perfect. My thought was to have a train barreling toward you. one you can't escape - because that seemed like the right metaphor for this situation. but how to associate it with oil?! Then it dawned on my that the tracks leading to the drain, if drawn right (and using some of the train shapes) could double as an oil tower - thus, saying both. what a great visual overlap! Lucky!!

Also - a few weeks before I was fortunate enough to do a cover for Jay at Westword - this one had an extremely quick turnaround - Jay wanted an image of an "artist pig" - but after hearing what the story was about (a pig rendering plant causing a muck in an artistic neighborhood) I wanted to pitch a few ideas of my own. 

my favorite image, the pigs playing in the paint like mud was chosen, so i was off to the races.

 

thanks to my buddy Justin for passing on a pic of the cover too!