Wizard of Oz Poster!

Well hellooooo there!

Hot on the heels of Vault of Midnight’s still amazing Eisner Award win, here comes another Michigan Theater poster - this time for a magical print of The Wizard of Oz, complete with sing-a-long onscreen lyrics.

As for the design, I knew I wanted to make one poster be the dark side of Oz, with the other being the happy-go-lucky side, then somewhere along the way, the idea morphed into what it is now. Kinda reminiscent of the amazing Star Wars arena rock poster, though that fact only occurred to me halfway through. Still, I’m happy with how it turned out. The silkscreen printing will be two separate 11x17 prints that combine to make one awesome image. Prints will be available at the Jeremy Wheeler Art Show.







And here’s how it looks like in grandiose black and white (done in pencil + ink + sharpee)…



Vault of Midnight wins EISNER AWARD!

So Vault of Midnight, the comic shop I’ve been designing t-shirts, murals, tattoos, logos & god knows what else for, has won the 2010 Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailers Award! AMAZING news. More details here:

http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_10win.php

Put together a quick gallery to showcase just some of my branding work, as well as some pics of the murals I made when they moved to their new huge location on Main St. back in ‘06. It’s truly an honor to be recognized. Love that store. Love those people.


Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter Poster!

Hope everyone dug the Japanese-inspired French Connection poster. Special just for you fine fine folks is another design premiere - the second in my Summer Classics Series. This time, it was time to channel my inner Grimshaw for a special GIMME SHELTER print.



Am still working out the kinks on the printing + distribution on both this and the one for The French Connection, but will alert the media soon when things they can be announced. In the meantime, figured I’d give a sweet peek into an early sketch of the poster. Dig the silly Keith drawing in the bottom right and the magician dude on the left. Methinks I shoulda just stopped right there and called it a day.



Stay tuned for more hot action to come.

French Connection Japanese-Style Poster!

Heyya kidz!

So I love me some Japanese movie posters. In fact, I’m kind of an armchair fanatic. You know, not to the obsessive point that I blow dough on the collector’s market, but just intense enough that I’ve got a whole load of books and computer files full of wildly designed Asian poster goodness.

Now I’ve done an ode to Japanese posters before. I’m my own big fan of this SuperBang! poster, using a sweet image from Chip Kidd’s super Batmanga book as a starting point.



But now that I’m starting off a Summer Classics Series for the Michigan Theater, I really wanted to harness that aesthetic again for William Friedkin’s 1971 acclaimed cop action drama, The French Connection. My original inspiration was this killer Bullit poster my man Christian sent to me…



LOVE that poster! Check out all those dynamic angles, with every piece of the design - from the text to the images - all working to give yer eye a seriously pleasing workout. Now I have found a real-deal Japanese French Connection poster, and it’s great. Once again, you have dynamic angles all guiding yer eye to Mean Gene Hackman. Also — those colors are fantastic.



I couldn’t help noticing, however, that as I poured through all of the film’s ad art, it was really hard to get away from that iconic stairwell image.



So right off the bat, I knew I wouldn’t even bother with that. Someday it’d be fun to screw with it, just to see if it could be switched up to seem fresh, but this wasn’t the time.

So along with that poster above, I had a few other posteriffic inspirations that helped keep the creative juices flowing. From Sonny Chiba to Peter Fonda to even Snake Plissken. Check ‘em out and wonder why we don’t have anything nearly as dynamic gracing our advertising these days.









What I really love is the freedom of the design. That Race With the Devil poster is incredible — and EVEN BETTER if you’ve seen the movie. Come on, that tree in the eyeball? Amazing contextual stuff. Plus it’s got shotguns, motorcycles & all sorts of vehicular madness, which appeals to my inner man animal. And that Escape From New York? What’s up with that spotlight? I dunno, but I love it. The other two represent typical outrageous Japanese action poster design. Mix lots of images together + throw images inside of other images (the face+gun inside the blood splatter) — and make that shit pop! And once again, we have those dynamic angles. It’s like the posters are leaning, yet grounded by the prominent horizonal+vertical type.

I had a few more inspirations, but a lot of them were for pink films. Believe you and me, there’s a LOT of smutty Japanese poster designs that all share the same aggressive aesthetics, but almost always feature a whole lotta flesh.

But maybe I’ve typed too much? This was, after all, a post about my new French Connection poster. Yet I really wanted to give people some insight into the world of Japanese movie art — or at least, the kind of stuff I dig on. As for my poster, I’m looking to have them silkscreened, as well as blowing at least one up to 27x40 in time for the Michigan Theater’s shows. More on that to come. For now, enjoy my newest baby. Feel free to click on it and check it out in huge-o-vision.


THING Comic + Another Poster!

Another day — another All Movie comic! That’s right - I finally got that THING comic up and out there. It was kind of a pain since the sizing that I made the original two pieces (for Ferndale’s BIG READ art show) were a bit awkward to translate to the computer screen, but things turned out okay in the end. Am definitely looking forward to people seeing the original pieces, but in the meantime, feast on these…



Look for more LOST IN THE BIND comics coming up. I’ve been reading a LOT of official movie adaptations lately & it’s surprising how DIFFERENT a lot of them are.

Oh, also — here’s a new poster!



Until next time, stay frosty, kidz.

Black Dynamite + Blacklight Blue Snaggletooth Poster

If memory serves me correct, the last time I updated was with my Rationals poster design. Well since then, there’s been three Bang!’s (all with their own posters), plus blacklight silkscreening, art shows & craft festivals — and a new comic @ All Movie. Whew!

Well, best start things off right — with this poster I made for the fantastically funny & badass send-up of blaxploitation movies (and released on DVD today) — Black Dynamite! Stay tuned, cuzz a limited edition blacklight version of this is coming soon!

Speaking of blacklight, here’s my first foray into the tried and true tradition of glow art — this one for the band Blue Snaggletooth (my 2nd poster for them). First up is the original design, followed by the blacklight version, which features an altered color scheme to fit the inks we had at our disposal…

Cool, huh? Big props to Steve at VG Kids for that one. Can’t wait to collaborate MORE!

Before I get to more of my poster work, here’s my newest comic for All Movie — this one for my 2009 Year-End Wrap-Up. A troll has already deemed it “lame”, so I guess that means its good. Check it out & decide yourself…

Alright, I’ll finish things off with some random poster links — starting with The Bang! and ending with an Ann Arbor Rock & Roll Revival show.

Whew! All that since October? Well, yes. 2010 is just getting started. Rev up, cuzz it’s lookin’ to be a sweet ride!

The Rationals Poster

So I haven’t had a home computer in almost two months. It was the one of the only casualties of our move — and I have yet to replace it. Thankfully this sad turn of events turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as I’ve been forced to go hand-drawn in my poster-making. I already posted the first two in my newest series (Halloween Bang! & Blue Snaggletooth), but this is the one I’ve been waiting to unleash. It’s probably my best one yet — and really fitting that it’s for a Rationals show, considering I was channeling my inner Grimshaw/Lundgren on it. You can bet on some silkscreens somewhere down the line. Enjoy…



Catchin' Up With Wheeler!

Holy Smokes! Life has been coconut crazy lately. So many art projects. So many parties. Instead of jabberin’ on, let’s recap the decap with some posters. First off, the newest addition…



Next up, the last few Bang! posters, one for the Motor City Comicon and the other for a heavy metal-themed Bang!





The Comicon poster was actually the first 4-color job of mine ever screenprinted — and I couldn’t be more happy with the results! Copies are still available for those interested.

On the comics front, other than my new comic “Confessions of a Cinemaniac”, I’ve started a new webcomic — “Tales of The Bang!” — chronicling this crazy-ass party freight train we’ve built here in Ann Arbor.





And yes, the comic is right — we’re filming a music video for our pals The Mannequin Men! It’s for the catchy hot wicked tune Massage and will feature the band playing at the 3-D Bang! as well as footage of them at A2’s Above Ground Salon + lots of ridiculous shit we have lined up at the Bang! Studio Workshop. The crew will be the same warped brains behind Detective Frankenstein and could be a new avenue for us in terms of psychedelic creativity. Oh yeah, here’s the 3-D Bang! poster, btw…



What else? Oh yes, click here for a “Most People Are DJs” podcast interview with me @ this year’s Comicon (find some pics from the event here).

In further news, I designed a Skatedeck for the Ann Arbor Skatepark Art Benefit @ Vault of Midnight. Check it out…



Here’s a gallery of the process behind making it, plus another set of pics of the fantastic night.

Geez Louise — is that it? I hope so. I’m already tired. More big things to come out of our MidWest hub coming really soon, so stay tuned. In the meantime, keep writing, keep drawing, keep living, keep lovin.

This is Jeremy Wheeler, signing off.

Poster Time!

Heads up on two new posters of mine. First round — the SuperBang!2 poster, with heavy inspiration drawn from Chip Kidd’s Batmanga compilation…



Next up, Ann Arbor’s Tribute to Ron Asheton. First time working with text heavy paths in Photoshop. Turned out pretty well. Might go back to hand drawn next time I approach this style…



Look for BIG things to come! 2009 is starting off with pure insanity & I guess I wouldn’t have it any other way! Stay tuned, kids.

Chicago Poster Downsizing -- Oh My!!!

Life sure is nuts sometimes. & not the bodacious kinda nutz with a ‘z,’ but the kind of nuts where yer constantly wondering what the fuck is gonna come around the next corner. I’ll say this, working for a big ol’ corporation makes me nuts — especially when they pick a random Wednesday out of nowhere & start sacking people around you. Next thing you know, tears are shed, tempers flare and nothin’ much seems to make sense.

Good time to escape for an extended weekend, innit? Indeed! That’s why Miss M & I are off on the Megabus tonight to the Windy City, our home away from home. This time, it’s for the first installment of Three Tough Guys — a wing dinger of a thumpin’ night that I’m throwin’ with our best buddies Miles & Louis. Expect much slammin’ funk, library rockers & the usual party goodness that people have come to expect from us. & who knew that fate would step in and take away Isaac Hayes just as we were about to throw a party in his movie’s honor. Anyhoo, this one’s for you, dude…



Other than that, this summer has steamrolled over everyone, it seems. Time to say goodbye to some near & dear to the ol’ heart, while ushering in yet another schoolyear filled with packed houses @ the Bang! along with the always obnoxious marching band practicing down the street! It’s a trade-off, I guess.

Still we continue to barrell through, smiling whenever we can even as the suits pull the rugs out from under our collective feet. It might not be a pretty way to pay the bills, but it works for now. Time to plan the takeover — for real. Everyone who’s with me come to Three Tough Guys & we’ll plan. Those that can’t make it, we’ll brainstorm at the Boogie Bang! next weekend.



Until then, stay strong, be well, laugh lots & thank crap you’ve got a place to crap.

Chicago Poster Downsizing -- Oh My!!!

Life sure is nuts sometimes. & not the bodacious kinda nutz with a ‘z,’ but the kind of nuts where yer constantly wondering what the fuck is gonna come around the next corner. I’ll say this, working for a big ol’ corporation makes me nuts — especially when they pick a random Wednesday out of nowhere & start sacking people around you. Next thing you know, tears are shed, tempers flare and nothin’ much seems to make sense.

Good time to escape for an extended weekend, innit? Indeed! That’s why Miss M & I are off on the Megabus tonight to the Windy City, our home away from home. This time, it’s for the first installment of Three Tough Guys — a wing dinger of a thumpin’ night that I’m throwin’ with our best buddies Miles & Louis. Expect much slammin’ funk, library rockers & the usual party goodness that people have come to expect from us. & who knew that fate would step in and take away Isaac Hayes just as we were about to throw a party in his movie’s honor. Anyhoo, this one’s for you, dude…



Other than that, this summer has steamrolled over everyone, it seems. Time to say goodbye to some near & dear to the ol’ heart, while ushering in yet another schoolyear filled with packed houses @ the Bang! along with the always obnoxious marching band practicing down the street! It’s a trade-off, I guess.

Still we continue to barrell through, smiling whenever we can even as the suits pull the rugs out from under our collective feet. It might not be a pretty way to pay the bills, but it works for now. Time to plan the takeover — for real. Everyone who’s with me come to Three Tough Guys & we’ll plan. Those that can’t make it, we’ll brainstorm at the Boogie Bang! next weekend.



Until then, stay strong, be well, laugh lots & thank crap you’ve got a place to crap.

I Was a Hellboy II Fan Art Contest Winner!

So by now, most of you should have seen Hellboy II by now. If not, go soon. Go now. Drop what yer doing and get ready for a super fun bonkers time at the theater! Mad props to Guillermo Del Toro for delivering such a sweet gift of goodness. Though I’ve never talked to the jolly genius, I sent him off a Hellboy drawing made for him after catching the first flick. Some might have seen this sketch somewhere in my various online galleries. Kind of a mix of Hellboy & the snake creature from the Barbarian Bros. movie!



So here we are a few years later & good ol’ Hellboy II has finally seen the light of day. The lead-up to the release saw some fun ad ploys, starting with a fan art contest on the main Hellboy movie website. Given my background in doing special Hellboy drawings, I figured that I might as well - especially if Guillermo & Dark Horse would get to take a peek at it. So I whipped up the little sucker that you’ll find below.



Pretty spiffy, huh? Below are some pics of the art in progress, starting with the pencil rough…



Next up, the final pencils inked, but with the blacks not yet filled in with Sharpee…



This is usually my favorite part of the drawing process. There’s something clean about the lines that gets lost when the rendering is finished.





But then again, there’s nothin’ quite as satisfying as seeing the final inked product…



Though I felt pretty good about it, I noticed some stuff when I threw it into the computer — namely that the suckers near the sword were confusing the design, so you’ll see them gone in the final version. Another change is Hellboy’s mouth, which ended up looking a whole lot better angling down rather than the slight smirk I threw on there.



So anyway, I finished this sucker & proceeded to upload it onto the main site — a process that bugged the shit out of me only because the damn thing wouldn’t take. For a few days I kept on trying to reupload it, but to no avail. It never showed up on the site. With one final hail mary, I did one final upload before saying fuggit. So imagine my surprise when the day after that, I got an e-mai saying that I randomly won the first leg of the contest! Yeah — say whaaa?

Soooo, my drawing never did hit the site, but there was some 10 buck prize heading my way. Funny enough, by the time it finally got to me a month & a half later, I’d almost given up hope. Now imagine my surprise when I sliced open the box only to reveal — A BPRD BELT BUCKLE, complete with a wicked Hellboy II leather belt.







Was it kismet that this sorta piece of gold was sent to me, namely a dude that prides himself on his belt buckle collection? Shit, I dunno. Either way, I’ve been rockin’ it ever since, including the midnight show last night! So what if Mignola & Co. weren’t able to see it on the main page’s gallery? & so what if this Marketing group didn’t really judge me on the craft of the work. Hell, maybe they were sick of me uploading it so many times. In the end, I can’t complain. I’m still the proud owner of a bodacious BPRD belt buckle — and that’s somethin’ I’ll never have to give up — no matter how big my ol’ gut gets in time.

For now, I’m happy to have such a great flick to dig into for years to come. & plus, it makes for a good story. Buy me a brew someday & I’ll tell you a few more. For now, see Hellboy II & check All Movie for my review come Monday. It’ll no doubt be a good one!

Crazy Catch-Up...

Hooo-wee! Where the hell did the first leg of summer go?!? I dunno, but so far, it’s been a b-l-a-s-t! From fantastic fun on the big screen to wild nights out on the town to highly satisfying creative output, I’d say that this summer is off to a fine & genuine start. But enough of my babble – onto the goods…

NEW POSTERS

First up, a few Bang! posters to feast yer peepers upon. The first one was for the third installment of our super-live Physical Bang! series. The night was nuts. One of those rare packed summer gigs that remind us why we throw these ridiculous parties in the first place. Loads of sweaty, beautiful people all smiling & dancing to outrageous sights + soundz. If you were there, I thank & salute you. As far as the poster goes, it’s one of those rare horizontal jobs that I save for only the most special of prints.



Up next is our July Bang! – a rare no-theme party that managed to please half our crowd & piss off the other half. It’s funny how you never know how people will react to this stuff. The good news is that we’ll still be decking the joint out with insane decorations, as well as feature the return of one of our most beloved stage sets, so the kids can look forward to that on the 19th. Poster-wise, I was happy to not have to play into this or that theme, even if the final product does give off a certain “wet” vibe (not helped by my “hydro-sexual” choice of words). Ahh well, if people come in sexual raincoats, more power to them! Maybe I’ll bring a super soaker. I’m sure the Pig would LOVE that.



Moving on, here’s the newest poster for the ongoing 42nd St. Drive-In film series @ the Emagine Novi. Hmmm, I’m noticing a similar choice of blue colors in this & the last poster! Well, why not. The only important thing to me is that I keep the colors limited – plus, the blue goes with Blue Sunshine – just one of the fabulous double features on tap for this installment. Can’t wait to see this sucker in all it’s 27x40 glory – soon to be up on Miss M & mine’s wall sometime soon.



Finally, here’s the newest bit of hotness – the poster for the first of what could be a series of parties @ the best place in town, the Elks. Ever since that first fashion show – shit, nearly two years ago (!) – I’ve been waiting to be involved in a party there. Well the time has come & needless to say, this weekend, it’s gonna get H.O.T. down there! Poster-wise, I’d been looking to use the pink on red lately & was surprised how well it fit into what was to be a stripped down b&w piece. Hopefully in the future, I’ll take that color scheme to the next level – for now, they can happily coexist in this steamy flyer.




PICTURES

So I’ve got my own Flickr account now. Feel free to add me to your friends list – or not. Either way, this’ll be a good spot to dump my own stuff, after managing The Bang!’s for a few years now. So, perfect speed-round style, here’s a few sets that are worth checking out (click the pics for the galleries)…

G-Fest 2008

What’s better than a non-stop July 4th party visit to Chicago? Why, the 16th Annual Godzilla Convention, of course! Genius stuff. Extremely hardcore in the best of ways. Only got to spend a few hours there, but that was enough. Little Ultramen. Lordi metal dudes. Tons of toys. Great company (LP+Deafula). SPIDER-ZILLA! What more could you ask for?





Novi Comicon 2008

This stuff’s taken a while to get up – and for that, I’ve got no excuse. What kills me is that our buddy Kile has about 3x as many sitting somewhere in his camera back in GR! Gotta love the pics of Gibner getting’ down @ Saturday night’s karaoke dance party, plus the after pic of us beat down to the ground hungover on Sunday. Add in Gibs’ pompadour paintings & slick Rick Weed in his Elvis sunglasses & you’ve got another fantastic year of comicondom (whoa! Why hasn’t anyone thought of that yet!??). News Flash – The Bang! is set to throw the official party for next year’s Motor City Comicon with the 501st. Believe it!



My AMG Cube

And since I’m throwing around Flickr sets, here’s one of my ever-expanding cube @ AMG — itself, a constant source of inspiration & distraction while I grind away for my copy-protection overlords. It’s also the spot that most tours stop at while the suits chuckle to themselves and wonder what the hell kind of company they got themselves into. Ahh, how good it is to be interesting in a bland world of khakis and denim shirts!





Well, that’s just about it. Tune in later this week when I divulge my award-winning entry in a big movie art contest! Oh, how good it is to be randomly awarded for your hard work. But then again, that’s life, innit? Till next time, kiddies…