Clutter: My 3 Favorite Cluttered Comic Artists!

I like Comics! And I like Clutter! So I combined the capital C's in my interest... wheelhouse... So here's my top 3 Favorite Cluttered Comic Artists!

3. Jamie Hewlett

Jamie was half of the comicing team who birthed Tank Girl. I found out about him through the Tank Girl movie. I loved the movie and checked out the comic because of it. The comic is much, much better. But I still have a lot of affection for the movie.

Both the comic and the movie are cluttered like a crazy person. Take a look

(picture from HERE)

This is one of the most common pics of Tank Girl (at least according to my google search), and it is a perfect example of the kind of clutter Hewlett packs into his drawings. There is lots of weapons, stickers, roundels, tattoos, stickers, toys, and numbers. There is even a band aid, which I think always look cool in comics but bulgy and gross in real life.

Hewlett is also behind the visual half of musical group the Gorillaz

(pic from HERE)

 

I like the Gorillaz's hit songs, but I've found the other tracks harder to get into. I still love Hewlett's visuals. In the pic above you can see lots of stickers and speakers and even a gramophone. Awesome clutter.

Here is one of their most recent videos that also shows how Hewlett does clutter right:

2. Steve Purcell

Purcell is most well known for Sam and Max Freelance Police in all their various media. I found out about him/them/it through the Lucas Arts game "Sam and Max Hit the Road". I love everything Sam and Max because it is always funny and quirky and great. Their comics, cartoons, and games are also always cluttered. Especially any scene involving their office.

(picture from HERE)

 

This particular picture is one of those "what doesn't belong" kind of picture, but it is a perfect example of the kinds of things Purcell clutters into his panels. Toys, weapons, rats, insects, kitschy souvenirs, junk food, and a dartboard full of things besides and including darts. Basically, everything I love.

 

 

and

 

1. Evan Dorkin

 

Dorkin draws amazing comics that are amazingly cluttered. I found out about him through Marvel's Bill and Ted comics, but he is probably best known for Milk and Cheese.

 

(here's a pinup he drew for me!)

 



I love all of Dorkin's work, from Bill and Ted to Milk and Cheese to Hectic Planet to his writing for "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" and "Beasts of Burden". One of my favorite things he has done/is doing is his "Eltingville... Club" which is all about nerds and geeks and the objects and properties of their obsessions.

 

Here is the excellent pilot for "Welcome too Eltingville"

 

 

You should watch it.

 

Here is a cluttered pic Dorkin drew

 

(pic from HERE)

 

Dorkin's clutter includes pretty much everything I've listed above plus Fisher Price Little People, alcohol, and t-shirts of bands I love.

 

He truly is the best Clutter Comic Artist!

 

 

Honorable mention: Geof Darrow

 

 



 

 

I know Darrow's work from Frank Miller comics. My favorite is "Hard Boiled". He would've made the top 5, if I could've come up with a 5th (but I like the number 3 better).

 

The only thing about Darrow is that his comics are almost too cluttered. He includes more details in his pictures than my eyes can focus on and my brain can process. He has everything above plus an unhealthy amount of advertisements, rubble, blood, sweat, scars, veins, and all that other gross stuff that you saw in the close-up shots in Ren and Stimpy cartoons. But unlike Spumco stuff his gross stuff is in EVERY PANEL.

 

If you are a big fan of that kind of stuff, check out Darrow's work.

 

For more clutter read THIS and THIS!

What some call art

I stumbled across an old sketch book today.  I am not an artist by any stretch.  I have failed miserably at stick figures, but I once fell victim to a computer drawing class that ended involving absolutely no computers.

Anyways, the following are a few of the sketches I found surprisingly decent  considering I was involved.

 

These were a daily class exercise.  We were supposed to put pencil to paper for 10 mins and draw freely without making established forms.  I struggled greatly with this, because I have long been a doodler and established things were my favorite to draw.  My mind crafted words, not images. First is the closest I ever got to a free form drawing but even there, it looks like I drew a ghost.  On the bottom is a later page when I had just succumb to doodling.  There are a couple of attempts at Max from Sam and Max, a little sonic the hedgehog, and my old reliable the spaceship Euch from the Green Jello records. 

The first one here is Strong Bad on some kind of pedestal, with what I can only assume is a mounted skull of Yoshi from the Mario games.  The one adjacent isn't really all that easy on the eyes, but the taco briefcase and the slogan, "The best lawyer soft tacos can buy," just make me giggle.  I don't know the exact episode, but the soft taco lawyer thing was born in a Strong Bad email somewhere, and hence the pairing.

These cute cuddly bastards are Spooky, that thing what squeeks, and Carnage, respectively.  Spooky is a little squeaky toy from the comic series I Feel Sick by Jhonen Vasquez.  Here he seems to be joined by a few disembodied spirits. Carnage is from the cover of the Green Jellö album 333.

On top here we have Tycho Brahe from the Penny Arcade web comic.  I am quite proud of this one, as it looks fairly close to the original.  Next we have an odd TV head guy from a Tank Girl comic.  I thought he was fairly interesting and turned out well.

 

The two here are both John Gabriel, Gabe, from Penny Arcade.  The first one is modeled after an earlier iteration of Gabe.  The second is the modern day Gabe.  Obviously I am quite fond of Penny Arcade.  It is a great comic series that is available online for free.  Gabe is the character I identify with most in the strip.

These two are meant to illustrate how my mind works to some extent.  On the top, I have depicted a scenario where the associates of two competing banks battle with water balloons.  This is based on a real life street that has these two banks across from each other.  I just had to imagine there was at least a prank war on the scale of an 80's comedy.  Then on the bottom we have a crude drawing of a woman giving birth two a baby whose head is immediately severed.  This was meant as a literal depiction of the song "Born to be Beheaded," by Mindless Self Indulgence.  I am aware that this concept is offensive, but I believe strongly that its good to be offensive some times.

Finally we have the back-flipping hot dog from the concession stand ads they play at the drive in.  I love the drive in, and these cartoons really add an amazing nostalgia to the experience.  Finally I have drawn myself into the Ponder Cloud, Seth's creation that ultimately spawned this blog.  

There you have it.  My art is not great, but hopefully not gut-wrenchingly bad.  Thank you for taking the time to read my narcissistic little article.