Black or white?

With white matte


With black matte

Text to come

Blues Explosion...

If you pause and think, this is interesting from a printing perspective. You're looking at a predominantly black-based print, but instead of being printed on black paper, it's printed on white paper with the black ink layed on all the way to the trim lines. I'm guessing this is the only way you can get fluorescent yellow and black side by side on a silkscreen print.

As usual, I framed this with a double mat, but you'll find that this creates quite a busy border area as the print already has a keyline in fluorescent yellow.

Enough of the nerd-speak, this is by Enginehouse13 aka Mike Martin. Love the colours, the fact that it has monsters, and the retro calculator font.

Rockin' Jelly Bean's Erostika anniversary posters

Two gorgeous offset prints from the very talented Japanese artist Rockin' Jelly Bean (RJB). These were bought in Tokyo by Uncle Bill and lovingly hand-carried back to Singapore.

Picture intrepid tech journalist Billy Teo stalking the narrow steets of Harajuku in his trademark light blue shirt and chinos, descending into the Austin Powers psychedelia that is Erostika, RJB's hard-to-locate basement store. What a sight... Uncle Bill, thanks again! I bet you enjoyed the experience though...

The prints are on pale yellow paper, so I went with black matting. They turned out great, and I couldn't have been happier. These rank up there among my favourites, I only wish RJB had signed them.

Click here to read an interview with RJB, or here to visit his official site.

Frank Kozik: Mermen

I'm not a mega Kozik fan the way I'm nuts about Jesse Philips or Dan McCarthy (I like pretty much everything these guys roll out). This is but one of the two Kozik prints I own (the other being "The Iron Dream", which is much more interesting and/or controversial, depending on how you see it). I bought it because it had a drunken sailor, he-man like sea creatures and tentacles, which sound to me like a good receipe for a poster any day of the week.

This is a great example of how posters in the flesh always tend to look better than their scans. Here is the original scan which I based my purchase decision on. The actual poster turned out to be tons more vibrant, with mind-blowing fluorescent pink and yellow inks.

I got this from Lone Star Posters, and I figured I'd mention that because I linked to his scan. John is a great vendor. He replies emails prompty, and ships international without overcharging. If you live outside of the US, you should definitely check his site out.

Pandas and skulls

This is special. It's a birthday present from my pal and tattoo artist Elvin Yong. Elvin goes great tattoos; he's usually know for his realistic stuff, but as this drawing shows, the dude can knock out a wicked cartoon too.

Ink on A3, framed with single black matte and reflective glass. I've always framed with non-reflective glass, but this was given to me framed. It's interesting though, to see the subtle effects the different glass makes. Non-reflective glass makes it easier to view, but reflective glass makes things look expensive somehow.

Click here to see more of Elvin's tattoos and sketches, and give him a call if you want some ink from Singapore.

Bunny madness from Kozyndan

Bunny Blossom


Uprisings

Deviating somewhat from my typical poster choices by being pastel and full of cute little critters, Bunny Blossom and Uprisings are offset prints from LA based husband and wife team Kozyndan.

Uprisings pays homage to Hokusai's famous woodcut print "The great wave off Kanagawa", with Kozyndan's signature bunnies added in for good effect. I'm not sure about the origins of Bunny Blossom, but it seemed like a good companion to hang up next to Uprisings.

Both prints are signed open editions, so click here to see the original scans and to buy em.

Punchgut Studio: Electric Frankenstein

Piss-takes of the famed Che Guevara photo (taken by Alberto Diaz Gutierrez) have appeared in various guises all over the pop culture landscape. Here's Punchgut Studio's intepretation, a nice bold print complete with neck bolts and stitches. Click here to see the original scan, and if you're lucky, you might still be able to get a copy from the Punchgut website.

Like the Dr Alderete print shown below, this was framed with no matting, so only time will tell if it will hold up.

Looking at photos of both frames makes me realize that accurate size is difficult to judge. Although they look roughly the same size from the photos, blue lucha man is easily more than twice as large as Franken-che.