Only a few of the TV shows I like are from the “reality” genre. Of those, I prefer shows about cooking or fixing and restoring things. However, the ratio of shows that make me want to get productive(!) versus those that make me want to throw TV out the window is extremely low. Things reached their nadir when The Discovery Channel cancelled Mike Roe’s excellent Dirty Jobs in favor of something called Amish Mafia. With that in mind I figured anyone can make up this poop. To wit:

Idea 1. Ghost Hoarders

What happens to extreme hoarders and collectors when they die? Well, since spirits can’t move onto the next plane if they’ve got unfinished business, many are left haunting their messy homes, shuffling about their stacks of newspaper and collectible jam jars for all eternity. That’s where organizing expert/occultist Dr. Chuck Sizzle and his team come in.
First they empty and clean the home of the deceased, careful not to anger the spirit in the de-cluttering process. When the home is deemed “livable” by Health & Safety officials, a seance is held to encourage the ectoplasmic collector to “let go” of this earthly plane. Also because it’s a ghost show, It’s taped entirely at night, on infrared cameras.

Airs Thursdays at 9 ET on A&E Network

Idea 2. Extreme Hydrating

Conventional wisdom says that drinking 8 glasses of water a day will help to keep one healthy and happy. These extreme water drinkers swear that nothing less than 4 to 5 GALLONS will help you to stave off disease and premature aging. Follow the exploits of a rotating cast of Extreme Hydraters as they struggle to keep a sufficient supply of properly purified water at hand in everyday situations like air travel, trips to the cinema and jogging! Don’t forget to tune in during commerical breaks for their personal bladder-saving tips & tricks.

Airs Mondays at 8 ET on TLC

Idea 3. Pun Stars

Three single dudes are trying to make it in the big city. What do they have in common? They all love to pepper terrible PUNS into every day conversation. Watch these Wacky Wordsmiths as they attempt to be taken seriously at work, on dates and during moments of tension at their shared Brooklyn loft, better known as the TOGETHERment.
Bystander eye rolls are tallied up for the season finale, whereupon the punniest of the three is assigned a professional therapist and life coach.

Airs Wednesdays at 10 ET on Bravo!

Idea 4. American Plankers

Viral Video sensations “The Filby Brothers” are the masters of the lie-flat fad known as planking. While the craze may have already swept the nation, these Louisiana siblings have never been outside of dear ol’ Dixie. Tune in every week to see these rail-like rednecks on their great American roadtrip, planking for delighted spectators at National Parks and the greatest cultural and historical landmarks. Episodes include “Mounting Mount Rushmore,” “Stiff as a Boardwalk” and the season finale “Mr. Plank goes to Washington.”

Airs Tuesdays at 10 ET on The History Channel for some reason.

So, you’re welcome TV networks. I’ll keep an eye out for my check. I also accept Paypal.

Long ago towards the end of my first semester of kindergarten, the teacher, Mrs. Mintz, read us Chicken Soup With Rice and announced that we would be staging a performance of the book for our parents.

It was a pretty simple production. There were twelve main verses to the poem, each themed to a different month of the year. Twelve students would be seated in a row, extolling the virtues, as memorized from the text, of eating chicken soup with rice during their assigned month. All the kids would repeat the chorus together after each verse. However, as there were more than twelve students in our class, a thirteenth chair was added to the row.

That chair was mine. I was playing the author, Maurice Sendak.

I was to introduce the production as “my” work and express my hope that the audience enjoyed the show. I would wish them a good night at the end, even though I’m pretty sure we wrapped this up around 11 AM.

I assume I was assigned this particular role because Mrs. Mintz knew how much I loved to draw. She had, in fact, taken me aside once to tell me I was the best at it in the class. It’s a pretty dangerous thing to tell a small child that they’re the best at anything, because generally children are petty and jealous and boastful. But she handed me this information as if she were handing me Excalibur- perhaps I deserved to know, but I was to wield this gift with intelligence and grace.

So the dramatic role of Mr. Sendak was like a suit of armor to accompany my sword. I knew who he was, of course. Aside from the soup song he had drawn Little Bear and his cardboard space helmet. He showed us Mickey flying through the milk-carton city of the Night Kitchen in an airplane made of dough. And while wild rumpuses were never quite my thing, I stood in awe of anyone who could conjure such beasts as the Wild Things. To pretend I was this man would be to wear his battlefield armor in the fight against the everyday. I wore it with pride, even if rather than chain mail and iron, the armor manifested itself as an old pair of my dad’s glasses and a smeary beard made of brown makeup.

I’m sure I flubbed my introduction. In fact I vaguely recall touching my face with embarrassment only to have some of my beard come off on my hand. But I also wore what remained of it for the rest of the day, happy to believe that I could someday be the creator of something that could make the whole class laugh and sing.

And that’s really the point of what Maurice Sendak did, I think. A child’s creative potential is limited only by the walls grown-ups construct around it. It was Sendak’s job to show you there was a door in the wall, or better yet, a sneaky crack that you could just barely squeeze through. The mere encouragement to explore the beyond is an astounding gift, and that’s what my parents and teachers gave me. But the actual, honest-to-God glimpse? That was Maurice.

If you were kid in the 1980′s or 90′s, you probably loved the movie Ghostbusters, like I did. You probably also liked the TV cartoon show and the associated toys and maybe even the movie’s sequel. I was certainly excited about them all, to various degrees. Sometimes I feel that like a lot of 80′s pop culture, the franchise runs the risk of oversaturation in the age of Internet-fueled nostalgia, but the original movie manages to retain its charm and remains very funny and spooky. I still get quite a kick out of it whenever I happen to catch it on TV or overhear someone quoting it.

In the continuing effort to hone my lino block printing skills, I’ve decided to do a series of limited-edition prints in tribute to the film. First up is the “Slimer” ghost featured in the film as the characters’ first capture. The challenge I’m giving myself with these prints is not simply to reproduce a likeness or a scene, but to try to convey the tone of the moment that first entertained me so much. In the film, Slimer was a big fat green blob of a goblin who haunted a hotel, covering walls with ectoplasmic goo and gobbling up the all the room service food. This is an amusing and enduring image, so my goal was to depict him as surly as possible.

Some design/printing notes: I’m getting more comfortable mixing inks and using them in conjunction with colored papers to get exactly the look I want. What you see here is very close to what I envisioned in my head, which is rare in art and design in general, and especially relief printing. My favorite component of this whole piece is the bright green paper, which is French Paper Company’s 65 lb. Pop-Tone Sour Apple cover stock. It’s so nice. And Green.

If you want to see more images of the print or buy one for yourself, check it out in my Etsy store.

From a historical perspective, Nikola Tesla was a very cool person. He was an inventor, engineer, and an overall pioneer in a number of areas of technology. I know many engineers and scientists consider his imagination and dedication to invention to be almost heroic.

He also had a fascinating personal story that included a professional rivalry with Thomas Edison. As far as I know, that rivalry never culminated in a large scale lightning fight like something out of Return of the Jedi but why not pretend?

Actually, it’s not worth pretending because some of the stuff he did was so cool on its own that it doesn’t need embellishment. Seriously, just go read about the guy. Then you’ll understand why I decided he deserved this shiny silver and black lino block print. You can buy one here.

A few years ago I did a quick watercolor doodle of Bill Murray as Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic. I had a lot of fun playing around with the style, and my intention was to do a whole series of Bills from various movies. He is one of my favorite actors, after all.

I let that plan slip by the wayside, even though the Zissou picture remained popular on flickr and eventually Etsy as a postcard-size print. I’d also occasionally get notices of the image appearing on tumbr blogs and the like. It’s kind of fun to see where your artwork ends up!

It wasn’t until a recent revisit to Wes Anderson’s Rushmore that I decided to pick the project up again, and so far I’ve produce four new Bills, as he appears in his roles in Rushmore, Groundhog Day, Lost in Translation and Ghostbusters.

I plan to do more, eventually, but until then you can build up your Murray-related art collection by visiting my Etsy Store.

Alright yous mugs, I’ll level with ya: my buddy Doug Slack is kind of a crazy person. He’s also a really talented artist who writes and draws his own comics. He’s been posting a lot of stuff on the web, but recently published a selection of his Hard-Boiled Horror Tales into real-world tangible paper form.

These are really funny, gross, great-looking comics in which the world of zombies and werewolves collides with old timey gangsters to result in something akin to old MAD Magazine by way of Dick Tracy. Only better.

Also note that Doug is a swell guy who not only contracted me to do the colorist work on the covers, but also gave me a cool looking blurb on his interior credits page. Look at that skeleton guy!

So buy his stuff! Check out Issue #1 here and Issue #2 here.

My pal Tim Neenan of the blog The Importance of Being Earnest has been helping to write a late night talk show for Second City Hollywood and asked me to contribute with a logo design for the show.

Tim described the ideal look as “classic late night” but with a specific L.A. feel. He also requested the inclusion of a caricature of the show’s host, comedian Howie Kremer.

The end result apparently pleased all involved, and it’s quite a thrill to see it on the show’s promo materials, like in these hilariously awkward videos:

Second City Late Night Promo Video from Second City Late Night on Vimeo.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, be sure to swing by Second City Hollywood on March 25th to check out the first show. The first scheduled guest is Jim Rash, who plays the dean n NBC’s Community. THE DEAN, you guys!

More info is available on the show’s Facebook page.

If you haven’t been watching NBC’s Parks & Recreation, you’re missing out.

It’s a very funny, very relevant comedy with a great cast and great writing. This is my tribute to one of its best characters, the gruff department director Ron Swanson.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with the linoleum block printing process, but it seems especially appropriate here, really lending to the idea of Swanson-based propaganda. If there’s any doubt the character deserves the tribute, check out his Pyramid of Greatness.

It’s art. Anything is anything.

Get one for your own sad walls in my Etsy Store.

Click the image to embiggen.

Click here to see them all.

Did you know that there’s a Batman adversary called Killer Moth? Well, there is.

Essentially he was a no-name crook who decided the best way to earn the power and respect he desired was to create a new identity as a criminal version of the Caped Crusader. The Anti-Batman, if you will. He also decided the best way to become that was to dress in a garish moth-themed costume, because moths are like bats in some ways, I suppose. Except not really at all. I don’t know.

You have to admire his drive, though, because he developed an entire arsenal of moth-themed gadgets including a Mothmobile, a Mothsignal, a flying winged suit and a gun that shoots cocoons. He even created a new identity as a millionaire to fund his projects. That to me seems like putting the cart before the horse, but that’s not a moth-themed metaphor so it would probably be lost on the guy.

It seems Killer Moth’s greatest crime may have been spending more energy on execution than on concept, but sometimes it takes staring from a great height to understand the flaws in your plans.