That's what I wanted to call it, but the Goodalls thought it too obscure a reference to The Rockford Files.

I'll be back in Manchester on Dec 10th for a retrospective show of my work at the Richard Goodall Gallery.

You can read about it on RGG's blog.

I made a print exclusive to this show of some previously used art that I thought would screen up pretty. I titled it "Entropy". It's an 18X24 serigraph printed full bleed on French Maedero Beach Speckletone.

Swing round, bring a pen and I'll draw you an obscene rabbit.

JAY RYAN MAKES AUSTIN PRETTY AGAIN

Chicago cockfighting luminary and sometimes artist Jay Ryan stopped by Austin to show Michelangelo how it's done with a mural dedicated to hot dogs and local beauties. I was amongst the fair faced he painted to adorn the side of Austin's premier hot dog establishment, Frank (I'm the one with the sideburns). If you're in A-town any time soon, stop by to experience it in person and then stop inside the joint to eat a dog and drink the best Bloody Mary I've ever had.

If you want a memento, you can actually buy a print from Jay's webstore.

"NEW" POSTERS IN THE STORE

Using the term "new" loosely for the most part, but new to my site at least: Poster for The White Stripes, Avett Brothers, Nirvana (sort of), and SXSW Film Festival.

A LONG TIME AGO...

I updated the news section so here's some quick headlines of what I've been up to outside of Mondo business for the past year from lately news to while-ago news:

THE RACONTEURS

Racs are back on the road, sort of, playing some festival dates and club shows.  I climbed back in the poster wagon for the non-festival dates including their intimate performance at Third Man Records and their bone rattling at the Ryman.  I revisited the lobby card series for the first one and broke the fingernails of my mind's hand getting it just right.  Thanks to Jody Goodall's cousin, Rabbi Benji, for checking over my Hebrew.  To his credit he suggested I lose the vowels on the control panels on the posters left side.

Posters will be part of the Racs 2008 set that I'm sure to put up for sale soon.  The poster for the Third Man show is featured in part on the upcoming Vault release "Raconteurs Live at Third Man Records".  The cover was designed by the talented Matthew Jacobson, the new art honcho of Third Man Records.

THE AVETT BROTHERS

The Avetts were kind enough to ask me to create a couple of new posters for them including an important date in their stomping grounds.  If for some reason you've neglected to check them out, I'd really suggest picking up "I and Love and You".  I gave out three copies as Christmas gifts last year along with some Amanda Palmer to the main ladies in my life outside of my wife (mother, sister, cousin who's like a sister) and they all enjoyed it.  They weren't so hot on my gift of "Deth Red Sabaoth" though.  I'd suggest getting that too though.  Fucking "Rebel Spirits", "Hammer of the Gods" and "Deth Red Moon" are great.  Thats how you know you like a band: when you hope they play shit off the new album.  Anyways, thanks to Travis H. for being a gent to deal with on Avett posters.

THE GREAT DICTATOR

I recently half fulfilled a desire by working on packaging for a Criterion Collection release.  The fine folks at Criterion wanted to use a poster design by the great Olly Moss as the cover for their release of the Chaplin talkie "The Great Dictator".  Olly's schedule, however, prevented him from doing anything beyond the cover, so I was called up to design the booklet, menus, and onbodies for the DVD and blu-ray releases.  It's weird, the DVDs are a lot more work as there was a ton of menu backgrounds to create, but only the singular motion menu for the blu-ray.

Big thank-yous to Olly for trusting me with work he could potentially be blamed for and to Sarah Habibi and the folks at Criterion for being pleasures to work with.

THE WHITE STRIPES: LIVE IN MISSISSIPPI

I never know if a Stripes cover assignment is going to be my last one, so it's always a bittersweet task and this one doubly so as it's an LP for their final full concert together.  It might seem odd to have an image from Detroit for an album recorded in Elvis' home state, but the imagery had a symbolic appeal to the band and felt right considering the finality of the recording.

THE WHITE STRIPES: PARTY OF SPECIAL THINGS TO DO

In honor of the departure of Captain Beefheart and Sub Pop's Andy Kotowicz's collective terrestrial energy, The White Stripes re-released their celebrated Sub Pop Fan Club single through Third Man Records.  I was happy to take on the task of designing a new cover.

THE DEAD WEATHER

I got performed layout duties on the cover and design duties on the packaging for the second Dead Weather album, "Sea of Cowards" along with the single for "Die by the Drop".  It was a lot of murderfun done for a great album that I highly recommend.

BRENDAN BENSON

Not sure if I posted about this before, but I also got to put the packaging together for Brendan Benson's album "My Old Familiar Friend" utilizing the beautiful artwork of Evan Harris and the wonderful photography of Autumn de Wilde (as well as the sleeve for a bonus single included in the vinyl version).  I tried, as always, to make the CD version and LP version as different as possible and had a great time working on it.  I highly recommend picking it up if possible as Brendan's solo efforts are always acerbically soothing  I've spent a couple of Sundays getting a wine buzz while listening to his records mixed in with Bob Marley.  It oddly all goes well together).

I FUCKING WON A GRAMMY

Jack White and myself won a Grammy against the stiffest of competition for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package.  They called my name, and my grey matter immediately became a maze of discarded wires.  I didn't think I'd have a chance against the likes of Klaus Voorman and Vaughan Oliver, but through kind hearts, a split vote, or divine intercession of a bored deity, I actually heard my name called out to come to the stage.

It sounds cliche, but I honestly didn't even think about a potential speech if I should win.  As a result, I fucked up and didn't thank a lot of people I should have.  If I had to do it over again I would have said, "Big thanks to Jack and Meg White, Autumn de Wilde (who should by all rights get one of these as well), my mother and father, Howard Walker, Steve Smith, John Baker, Amber Easby, Tiffany Steffans, Emmett Malloy, Mike Sarkissian, Captain Sensible, God and my beautiful wife JENNIFER."

I seriously understand now why people forget crap up there.  I feel most terrible about failing to thank Autumn and the secondly most terrible about failing to thank my wife who suffered the travails of the damned all the nights I put this thing together.

To hear how it went wrong, here's a link to my acceptance video, and below you can see it proudly displayed next to a picture of the good Captain posing with a descendent of Nipper (maybe).