STOP SOPA! (better late than never)

So, I know I’m a little late on the Stop SOPA protests.  But hoping late is better than never, here’s a silly little picture I drew several years ago but never posted of then-Senator Christopher Dodd (D, Ct).  At the time, Dodd was a sleazy but not altogether evil career politician who was often on the right side of the political divide but whose general scumminess wasn’t really ever in doubt – I think his chief line of business at the time I drew this was watering down new regulations intended to curtail Wall Street excess in the wake of the financial crisis.  And did anybody really believe him when he swore, upon retiring from the Senate, that he would never, ever, ever become a corporate lobbyist?  Me neither.

So here’s Chris Dodd, former sleazy Senator, now leading one of the strongest industry lobbies in the country, earning a salary of upwards of a million bucks, pushing for this SOPA bill that, fortunately, seems to have been defeated for now (though I’m sure it’ll insidiously creep its way back in some fashion eventually).

Anyway….here’s a drawing I did of Dodd back in 2009, awhile before he retired:

Wonder Woman and Her Sidekicks

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of hanging out with a good friend and his awesome four year old daughter.   And art happened.  So, while Dad was cleaning up from tea time, I was was told by the youngster that we’d be illustrating the adventures of Wonder Woman and her two sidekicks, Superman and Batman.

This is Wonder Woman and Superman.  The question is….which was drawn by me (the 32-year-old) and which was drawn by the 4-year-old?

 

And in this one, we’ve got Batman following his boss, Wonder Woman:

And here is a collaborative portrait of Batman.  That black line in the middle of his head is an invisible deflector designed to protect him from laser blasts.

 

Take my Grandson, please

I saw this actually happen. And actually, it happened at 3am at the bar of the hotel as I was finishing the drawing from the last post.

Just a Bang and a Clatter

I did this one in a hotel lobby at 3am.  Couldn’t get these lyrics out of my head.

Fraud

Believe it or not, I am not a professional artist.  By day I write about issues in the headlines.

Sometimes, though, my artistic skills are called upon to graphically portray complicated financial concepts. In this case, the SEC’s 2010 fraud allegations against Goldman Sachs.

Alas, this only ended up being used as a blueprint for the final product, which was done by a real artist.

Of course, Goldman settled the fraud charges for a few billion and nobody went to jail.  Typical.

Another Sad and Awkward Fellow

I don’t know why this woman has a tentacle for a right arm.  Or why she kind of looks like Weird Al in the Fat video.

But this sad and awkward fellow finds her and her boyfriend depressingly happy all the same.

Angel of the Boardwalk

Summer, 1987

Most of these drawings are bittersweet.  This one is just bitter.

Sandy

Ah, the summer romance I’ve always wished I’d had…

The Perfect Wave

Last year I saw the Endless Summer for the first time. It was my first surfing movie, and I was completely enthralled. The opening music and images were enough to take you out of your daily grind and focus your mind on a setting so ideal that, even if you quit your job to spend the rest of your life on the beach, still couldn’t measure up to the film’s fantasy world.

But mostly I was impressed, for the first time, with the idea of surfing. These guys weren’t trying to constantly top each other or keep finding a higher, more dangerous and extreme rush. And it wasn’t about competition, either. These two dudes just wanted to find the perfect wave. And for them, the perfect wave wasn’t some 50 foot monster in the middle of the ocean; it was a small wave that kept going and going, that could keep you surfing peacefully for hours on end.

And they found it. Right in the middle of the movie. And it sure seemed fantastic. So here’s my little ode to a world I really admire but could probably never participate in: that of the surfer.

This is also the beginning of a series of summer-themed pictures.

Oh and also, this is the first time I’ve ever attempted to draw a guy without a shirt.