The longest running job I ever had, other than teaching swimming (still going strong!), was the seven years I spent illustrating for "The National Catholic Register" where I did the weekly "Facts of Life" column on the back page. Those seven years spanned from my sophomore year of high school through my first year after college. I'm posting some of the thumbnails and final art here. There were a lot of weird assignments over the years: what's up with this disembodied hand giving money away to housewives? And is that a fat stack of cash in a baby's diaper?
Must have been something about the financial value of housework. Obviously, this was a newspaper with a very "traditional" set of values. The most common requests from the editor were: babies in the womb (giving a big thumbs up, reading books, holding a "Go Nebraska!" sign, etc) people talking to priests, families in church pews, traditional nuclear family units... Well, I'm not Catholic, so I had to quit doing it eventually, but looking at them now I'm happy I had a chance to do all this screwing around.
4 comments:
I'd like to see a second post with your very first illustration(s) for "Facts of Life", some of your "Golden Age" illustrations, and then your last illustration(s). It would be an interesting comparison. Do I remember correctly that your first illustration was a pope or bishop with a bull and a bear? Something to do with religion and the stock market?
One thing is for sure. Your work got a whole lot better over those seven years!
yeah, maybe i could post some of the early ones, but there are so many that are just plain god-awful! the bishop, bull and bear wasn't the first, just one of the first decent ones. For the first year or two they were washed out watercolors on computer paper... ugh! And as for a "Golden Age" (you said it, not me!) I'm not sure there ever was one! I did get better, though...
Haha! Yeah "Golden Age" was sort of tongue in cheek. I just mean some of the best/better ones.
you also mentioned the "last illustrations"... toward the end I got pretty sloppy, it was really up and down week to week. one of the big lessons to me was: it's hard to always do your best work every time AND when you don't care enough to put forward a strong effort... maybe its time to move on! so i did.
Post a Comment