This is a new character I invented. I call him "The Joke-smith." 

Please don't tell DC.

This one needs no explanation, obviously. Clearly the wolfman, a vampire, and a mummy have teamed up to fight crime in the 1800's. 

Herreford and Cassie, the coolest kids in sunday school. these were a gift to my lovely and talented friends Erin and Evan who were recently wed by horses. I might have mixed up the details, there was an open bar. 

Let me tell you a little about Patriot Place.

For the last 7 months or so I've been spending a lot of time in Patriots Place.

In 2002 the Kraft group opened the 67,000+ seat Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. They plopped the thing down in Foxborough, a comfortable but relatively unremarkable town, probably because it's about half way between Boston and Providence. In 2007, the Kraft's spent $350 Million and built Patriots Place, a sprawling concrete mass of stores and restaurants. This is where we call home.
Every day Megan and I park in the vast desert of a lot and climb the mountainous stairs to reach the main level of the shopping center. The whole place is sort of built up over a hill, so on one side of the plaza you can walk straight out into the parking lot and on the other side you overlook this four story drop in front of the stadium. Underneath the plaza is a giant concrete cavern where the businesses use the loading dock and hide their garbage. It's like the bat cave, if Bruce Wayne decided to lease out the space and let CBS Scene drop off their trash there.


Suburbanites flock to Patriot Place from the Massachusetts/ Rhode Island area and beyond to partake in it's eateries and shops. As far as I'm aware, 5 Wits is the only independently owned store in the plaza... everything in the Place is a strange b-level corporate chain. You won't find a Burger King, but you'll find a Five Guys. You won't find an Uno's, but you'll find Bar Louie. People come to the location having heard of our broad selection of establishments they'd expect to find in L.A. or Orlando, not little old Foxboro. The people are mostly blue collar locals, or white collar folks pretending to be blue collar locals. The kids run ahead of mom and dad, excited for their weekly trek to Baskin Robbins after soccer practice. The sound system pumps soft rock during the day, and Nickelback at night. During the day the walkways are dotted with men in Patriots or Red Sox shirts and Khaki shorts, during the night it's aeropostale tweens, and skater kids who don't own skate boards.

Not pictured: black people.

The weird thing about Patriots Place is it feels like some sort of an embassy for a country that only exists on TV. From within the Plaza it is perpetually summer in an MTV teen drama. It's easy to believe that at any point the whole place could just be picked up and dropped somewhere else in America, transplanted as mysteriously as it appeared in the first place. Despite the popular styles and agreeable menus, what do these restaurants say about this place? What do these stores say about Foxborough, Massachusetts? So close to the one and only home of the Great New England Patriots (and Serviceable New England Revolution), what about this place says home?
At the far end of the plaza from us you'll find Toby Keith's I Heart This Bar & Grill. When Tobias Keith, country singer and entrepreneur awoke on that fateful morning he decided to create his I Heart This Bar & Grill, I have no doubts that he knew immediately there needed to be a location here, in liberal Massachusetts. TKIheartTBAG is a universal language that can speak to anyone across this great 'merica, be they gay lovin' Harvard educated yankees, or gun totin' "just grabbing a bite on my way to the Bass Pro Shop" REAL Americans. When one eats at... no, experiences TKIheartTBAG, they are there because they appreciate good service.

pictured: Good Service.

These are ink drawings from my awesome and totally cool table top role playing game. I thought I'd post them because I made them and they're done. 

Flim Fest

So ever since the merry old year of 2004, Not a Tad Bad Flim Co. has been putting on it's annual Flim Fest. It's a summer themed arts festival full of music, film, animation, illustration, and good times. We started the Flim Fest in Kevin's backyard, and later moved in to a couple of locally owned venues in the area, most notably the Kingston Beal House.
Anyway, there's a lot of reasons I get excited about the event, I get to see all of my friends in one place, I get to enjoy a lot of cool movies and some awesome bands, and I get to bring fun to the people. But one of the things I like most about Flim Fest is making the art. I've made posters for the past few years and dvd covers for many of our films.
So with Flim Fest 2010 on the twenty first and twenty second of this month, i figured I'd post some business.

Roller Derby

I've always been interested in roller derby. well, technically i've never been to a single game, and i couldn't name you more than half a dozen teams off of the top of my head. but i have always been interested in cute alternative girls on roller skates. anybody will tell you.

anyway, as per recommendation by my friend Tim, i recently entered a contest to make logos for three teams up in the great and distant state of New Hampshire. don't get excited, i didn't win. but i was excited to make some new portfolio designs and as stated in paragraph one, i was invested in the subject matter.

the first team is the Queen City Cherry Bombs, they wanted black and red colors with a pin up theme. i like the way this came out, though admittedly i'm uncertain about the color... I like to work in markers these days but i thought for a teams graphic they'd be more interested in solid colors without as much texture. i do sort of wish it had some more depth in the colors though. maybe i'll do that. some day.


the second team is the Seabrook Meltdowns.... i spent the most time with the colors on this one. They said they either wanted neon green with black, or maybe just neon colors in general. i tried a few different schemes, here's two of them.

and finally, here's my illustration for the Granite Skate Troopers. admittedly, this doesn't necessarily fit with the theme of the team, and it's not... really... a logo. but i was excited to draw it, i liked the idea of it a lot, and i didn't figure i'd win all three any way. i guess you could say i did it for the "lulz."