Noises by Bell

New EP by a New Secret Awesome Recording Artist, Noises by Bell, is up for free download!

Maegan LeMay Interview

With Halloween nearly upon us, we present to you an interview with the epic and macabre illustrator and tattoo artist, Maegan LeMay! Check her work out here! Or follow her on instagram @irontit666

For starts tell us about yourself. Where are you from? What do you do?

My name is Maegan LeMay, and I was born and raised here on Cape Cod. Been here all my life. I'm a tattoo artist at Spilt Milk Tattoo in Hyannis, and I have been working as a full time tattooer for about three years. In the time spent away from tattooing, I do freelance illustration. I like to dabble in other crafty avenues from time to time as well.

When did you start taking art seriously? Do you take it seriously (I'm making wild assumptions here)?

I absolutely take it seriously! It's something I've been occupied by since childhood. So, it's always been something important to me. 

You work as a tattoo artist yes? Does your art fit right in with tattoo tradition, or do you find yourself going "Oh great, another Red Sox 

tattoo"? Do you ever get to work on a piece and say "Fuck yea, I'm in to this!"?

   I'm sure most tattooers feel similarly about this, but you get a little of both. There's always a struggle with finding the balance between giving people what they want and being able to really use your own vision and artistic style. Some clients are more open than others. It's about finding a way of taking that Red Sox tattoo, for example, and putting a spin on it that makes it something you're interested in doing. Obviously I'd love to tattoo skeletons and evil shit on everyone, but it's a specialized genre! I'm still young in my career, and being able to do the stuff you like is something you work for. I'll gladly tattoo a variety of things, religious imagery, sports, frilly girly stuff, and I'll give it full focus and effort. However, when someone comes in with an idea suited to my taste, that's when I really feel like I have an opportunity to shine. 

Your drawings heavily feature death, destruction, and decay. These are some compelling themes, and they tend to have a "can't look away" quality to them. How do you approach them?

       I grew up on heavy metal and horror, so it has become the thing that inspires me. That sounds kind of pretentious, but it's true. My Dad is a huge horror fan and I just remember watching movies like Creepshow and Hellraiser with him as a kid. He introduced me to Bathory! I like reflecting these interests in my art, and it's sort of grown into a response to how sensitive and easily offended the general population is. That's my biggest pet peeve, so I channel that. So, yeah, I draw a lot of dead people. Personally, i don't really even find my work all that extreme. There's much more dark disturbing stuff out there!

     

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your work has a connection to the vibrant world of heavy metal illustration. Am I wrong? Talk about that if you don't mind. How does metal music influence art and vice versa, and where does your work fit in in this world?

        The imagery I use is pretty typical of a lot of art associated heavy metal. Metal fans are extremely passionate about their music, so naturally it finds it's way into the things you do. I like to use my illustrations as a way of contributing. Cover art is an important part of the presentation of a music release. It's always an honor to represent someone's artistic output with your own, and I appreciate every band who has commissioned me for work. 

Do people think you are a badass when they see your work? Are you a badass (again with the assumptions)?

     I'm far from a badass, personally! I'm dork. Haha. A lot of my tattoo clients are a little surprised by the subject matter of my art when they check out my website, especially after meeting me in person. 

What are some of your artistic influences?

     Album art of course. I'm largely influenced by artists like Chris Moyen or Necrolord. I like fantasy art, such as Frazetta or Boris Vallejo. Lately, I like to reference the inking styles in older issues of Eerie, Creepy, or Conan comics. There are some fantastic artists on Instagram that I follow, and my fellow Nightwatch zine contributors.

Your drawings clearly take some time, do you listen to anything while you work?

        Always. I listen to LPs mostly when I'm at home. As a music fan and artist how can someone not appreciate a record!? The graphic design, the bigger cover art, it's a much better presentation. I like the experience of listening to an album from start to finish while I work. Other than that, I have my trusty old Zune MP3 player for when I draw between tattoos at the shop. Mostly metal, a lot of older Black Death Thrash Speed NWOBHM. Tormentor, Deathhammer, Stormwitch, Vulcano, Candlemass, Riot, are a few of the kicks I'm currently on. Dio always.

If you could illustrate an album cover for any band, who would it be?

        That's too hard. Haha. 

Also, you do some crazy detailed beadwork?! What's that about?

              I worked at a bead store for like eight years before becoming a tattooer. Oddly enough, it was a result of crafting chain maille that led me to making jewelry. That was my first job right out of high school, and aside from the typical retail job annoyances, I did enjoy working there. I haven't had much time lately for any beadwork, as my other artistic avenues have taken the forefront. 

Shout outs?

Friends, family, Spilt Milk family, Nightwatch, Patac records, and my dude Drew. Thanks for the opportunities and the motivation. Hail and kill!!!!

Maegan LeMay Art

Diamond Guts Tape

The Debut Cassette EP from Diamond Guts, "Short Rips", is available at the store!

Diamond Guts Album

Listen to the debut album by Diamond Guts here!

SHITBOX DERBY

The first ever Shitbox Derby presented by Bike or Garbage went off without a hitch, injury or mechanical failure (unbelievably)! Check out some sweet photo's by Ben Allsup here! 

(Not a Ben Allsup photo. Just a cell phone shot of Allen protecting his garbage.)

JOE BANDA INTERVIEW

Skateboards! Art! Algebra Books! and a Rad Community Skatepark called The Market Skatepark! All Will Be Revealed in This Interview With Artist Joe Banda! See His Work HERE!

First off: Who are you? Where do you come from? and What are you doing?

Well, my name is Joe Banda, but most people just call me by my last name. 

I was born and raised in Bristol Connecticut, and after a couple years in Delaware 

I've been living in Beverly Massachusetts. As for what I am doing, I guess I'd say I'm

an artist by morning, an HVLP spray painter by afternoon, and a doodler by night.

How did you get into skateboarding? What's the connection to your art?

I first got into skateboarding around 1999 or 2000, I randomly happened to watch Tony Hawk

land the 900 on the X-Games and I remember thinking it was pretty cool how all of his

"competitors" were cheering him on and being supportive rather than rooting against him.

At that time I was playing a lot of baseball and basketball, and the amount

of competition and negative energy was super stressful, especially when you're a kid 

and all you want to do is play a game. I'd say around mid 2000 I finally got a crappy 

Toys 'R Us board and 2 of my best friends growing up

got boards too, and after that I never really stopped.

      Skateboarding connected me to art pretty quickly. I was always doodling

but never really took it seriously. I think when I was 14 or 15 I saw segment

about Chris Pastras, and his paintings. He was talking about the first run

Stereo Skateboards had (before they came back) and I was so blown away.

I thought the whole aesthetic they had was amazing, I really liked how

his work was inspired by Jazz album art, and I really related to that because

of how loose, and scribbly everything looked. In addition to that I always liked

Ed Templeton's work too, I think I saw a segment on his art in either a 411 or an 

ON video, where he was doing an art show in paris. And he just had this massive

collection of paintings for the show. They showed a time lapse of him painting

the walls of the gallery, he made it look so easy and beautiful. After that I really wanted

to learn how to paint.

Your paintings have a great sense of humor, like these folk art treatments of some real funny hallucinatory ideas, what kind of subconscious waters do these ideas bubble up from?

I think I've always leaned toward trying to make my art humorous. I think it all stems

from being in high school, where my friend Alex was a master doodler. He was the king

of drawing really weird funny images. We had a similar sense of humor, so I always

wanted to try to draw weird funny things to show him, basically just to make him laugh.

So when Alex or my other friend Jesse would get a good laugh out of something I drew

I felt like it was a good piece of art. So I feel like I'm basically doing the same thing now,

except I prefer to use acryla gouache on wood, instead of ball point pen on Algebra 1 books.

Do you remember your first skateboard deck?

My first couple boards were those really horrible "fake" skateboards you'd get from

K-Mart, or a toy store, with plastic trucks and wheels. My first real deck was a Birdhouse

Tony Hawk Pterodactyl skull. I actually just saw one hanging on the wall

at Red Alert skatepark in Dover, New Hampshire a couple weeks ago. It was pretty

cool seeing it, I definitely had a rush of memories come to me just seeing that graphic.

What are your artistic influences?

I've had so many artistic influences over the years that its hard to narrow down. Other than the

guys I mentioned earlier, I'd say Graham Roumieu made a huge impact on me as an illustrator. 

He is a master of humorous illustration, I remember getting one of his big foot books

when I was 19 and laughing so hard at every page, I'd never seen anything like it before.

Other than that I'd say my circle of friends are all really incredibly talented artists, and I'm

always inspired when I see the stuff they're doing. 

What are your skating influences?

As for skating my biggest inspiration is my friends. It's always been kind of a social thing

for me so I hate skating alone. Growing up I was lucky to have a solid crew of guys to skate 

with back in Connecticut, and now living in Massachusetts I have another really solid crew

to skate with too. There's nothing as motivating as a heated session with your best friends.

Do you listen to anything when you paint or draw?

When I'm painting or drawing my go to is usually Marc Maron's podcast WTF. I kind

of like being entertained when I work, so if I'm not listening to a podcast I usually go for stand-up comedy.

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Todd Barry, Eugene Mirman, and Wyatt Cenac. 

As for music, as of right now I've been into Titus Andronicus, Pile, the Clash, and Velvet Underground.

Tell us about the market skatepark. Is it fun for all? Does it have a good vibe? Who's involved? What are the hours?

The Market Skatepark was a pretty far out idea that actual came to be something. It's a pretty long story

but I'll try to keep it short. There had been a vacant grocery store in downtown Beverly for about 6 years.

My good friend Jake "Bo Vice" White and his brother Nick "Bro Vice" White both had expressed interest

in opening a skatepark, but it never really seemed like it was going to happen. One day our friend J Rodricks

,owner of North of Boston Studios, came at Bo Vice with the idea of maybe getting some ramps into the abandoned

grocery store. Kind of like a pop up indoor skatepark. Long story short a group of us met with the land lord

of the grocery store, and surprisingly he was really open to the idea. Under a few conditions (insurance, utilities, cheap rent)

and a couple months later we finally got the keys to the building. The whole experience was trippy because we needed

$5,000 to get started so we made a go fund me page, and we raised the money in less than a week. In addition

to support from the community Converse wanted to help us out too, which really helped us take the park to the next level.

 It was surreal, we couldn't believe how psyched, and supportive the community was for the project. 

    When we finally got the keys

it was the first night of the first (of 3) blizzard(s) the North Shore got that year. When we started we had a few 

ramps donated by North of Boston Studios. Then for the next month the Brothers Vice built all the ramps 

and renovated this really run down building, while Jake Cassavoy handled pretty much everything having to do with money, 

insurance, public relations and so on. I think it was early February when we finally opened, and the park

was absolutely packed. It lasted until the end of April when our lease ended, but during those 2 months 

we had so many cool people visit from all over New England, we had a really cool flea market called "odd farm",

and we hosted Converse's CONS project, where Paul Shcmidt and Todd Francis, flew out here to teach and

help kids shape and create their own custom skate decks, for free. 

   As of right now all of the ramps are in storage, we've been looking for a new locations but we've been having

a really hard time. Surprisingly not everyone in the area wants a skatepark on their property, and it seems like 

the landlords that actually want to talk to us, are kind of shady, untrustworthy people. We're trying to stay positive 

though, and we're really hoping to find a permanent location before the end of the year so we can be open for winter again.

    Also as a quick side note I just want to thank Nick White, Jake White, and Jake Cassavoy for killing it so hard

on this project, I feel super lucky and appreciative to be involved in the whole experience. I also want to mention

Kevin Quinn for doing all of our welding, Brian Glenney (and family) for helping us getting in the space, J Rodricks for

keeping us motivated, Kevin Leslie for helping us connect with Converse while also helping out at the park, Joe Lydon (stega clothes)

for painting the coolest mural ever on our wall, Amy Moore for working the counter when the rest of us wanted to skate,

and also Daijel White, Alex Martyn, and Jason Ross for helping us clean and cover the odds and ends of our park. There are

a million other people who helped out also and I'm sorry if I forgot your name but I honestly do appreciate any one and

everyone who helped out or donated.

What is Dead and Ugly?

Dead and Ugly originally started out as a band I was in with my friend Zac Goldstein. We never recorded anything or played

any shows, but I always liked the name. A couple years later when I finally made an instagram I thought I should use it as my handle.

When I decided to try to make a zine I thought it would make the most sense to just call it Dead and Ugly, and when I wanted 

to print shirts I thought it would be cool to use it just to keep things consistent. I'd like to make more Dead and Ugly products

down the road when I get a little more money, and I really want to make another zine before the end of the year. I guess if I had

to label it as anything its a part time zine, and a half assed brand. 

Shout outs?

I'd like to thank my friends, family, ALC, SDC, Anchor Hardware, and Tent Shitty '09!!

Pick up a sweet zine or boneless t-shirt from Joe's Dead and Ugly online store!

Produced to Hell and Back Zine

"Produced to Hell and Back" a Review of Pitchfork's 2014 album review by Liz Talley

Liz Talley sat her Dad down and listened to tracks from Pitchfork Media's top ten albums of 2014 and got his opinion on them. Drawings of her dad as well as his verdicts on popular new songs makes for a superb and funny zine! "I'm looking for a window to jump out of but I'm only on the first floor". They are for sale at the store!

Bike or Garbage Koozies

Bike or Garbage "Flavor Country" koozies are now in stock! HERE!

This lightweight koozie is perfect for keeping beers cold at the end of a ride, or whenever you want your beer to stay as cold as possible for as long as possible, which is always. Head over to the Secret Awesome online store!!!!?!?!?!?!?

Eddy Merckx Poster!

Eddy "The Cannibal" Merckx poster for sale here!

The Cannibal himself is available in an 11" x 17" poster on some sweet satin finish fancy paper at the store.

Vacation Pin

Leland Taylor's Vacation Pin is now for sale!

This 1" enamel pin embodies good trips on cape cod.  It's for anyone that's enjoyed a vacation, day off, or even a acid trip while on cape cod.  Once you drop in and clear the canal the cape is your oyster, grab it by the horns ladies and gentlemen.  Drink on the main streets, and pass out on the sand.

Finish em' all. Don't touch em' twice. Get them HERE!

Ryan Kelley Interview

Fun interview with skater and artist Ryan Kelley. He Just came out with an awesome art book called "This Took Me All Year". We talked about smoking at gas pumps, hypothetical moms, stealing skateboards from department stores and... oh yea, art and drawing and stuff! Dig in!

First off, introduce yerself! What's your creative background?

  --Hello! I post stuff on instagram under the name thisisasandwich, more people probably know me by that than my given name: Ryan Kelley if anyone cares to get formal. I'm basically just another anonymous avatar with a nonsense name attached floating around instagarble posting my drivel and liking posts of people I've never met. I'm a self taught artist in the sense that I've had no formal training. I've managed to surround myself with a group of creatively diverse friends throughout my life that have opened my eyes to a lot of stuff art wise that I may have otherwise overlooked. They are my defacto teachers. So yeah, I mostly just draw and paint and have sort of been a hermit and haven't taken part in many shows or anything like that. In the future though I would really like to do more shows, attend more shows, etc.. more face to face stuff you know, the "networking" artists are supposed to do?  I've been really bad at that thus far. I actually just
 did a flea market last weekend. It was the first event like that I ever took part in and one of the best experiences I've ever had. I have always really slacked when it comes to "marketing" myself or my art. I hate even using that term. The flea market vibe was so unpretentious and layed back though, I really dug it. My stuff is generally that way too. Its not super polished high minded fine art, at least I don't think of it that way. Its just kind of folky and jokey and dumb but fun. 

I mean, I want whatever I'm doing to make a strong impression visually, whether its a painting commission or a panel comic, and I surely take pride in my work, but at the end of the day most of my stuff is pretty light hearted and just kind of goofy.

How did you get into skateboarding, and how has it affected your drawing style, your creative outlook?        

 --Well, I got my first board when I was 14 ('93/94). It was a barely used Schmitt Stix handed down from an older relative. I had no frame of reference as to what the thing was and wasnt presented with any example of how to use it though. I didnt have friends who skated or anything, so I got tired of kicking around my driveway on it pretty quickly. I was more into graffiti back then anyway, so I just wrote all over the thing and threw it in the basement. (kind of a funny aside: the relative i got it from asked for it back years later when boards of that same era started going for hundreds and thousands of dollars on the internet. I was like "sure you can have it back.." and gave it back to him just covered nose to tail with the ugliest, blackest marker tags. Needless to say he was bummed on me.) I didnt really think about  skating again for a few years, until I was about 17 and met some friends of a friend a few towns over who skated. I watched them skating around in front of a friends house one day, couple weeks later they showed me Mouse, something sort of clicked and I saw how much fun you can have on a board. I was so dumb and scared to ask where to get a board so I ended up just stealing one when I saw it on the rack at Dick's sporting goods. Total kook move on many levels. Thing had a wack shape, fuckin plastic wheels, ABEC pea gravel bearings. Just a barely rolling piece of garbage, but thats what i tried to learn on until I finally asked somebody and went to a legit skateshop and bought an actual board: a Rudy Johnson Girl. That was 1997. I was really into painting graffiti then though, that was like my full time thing and I didn't really devote much time or pay much attention to skateboarding until 98 or 99 when I met some other local kids and would skate around downtown and cause trouble with them. It was wierd though, I was like an older kook who was terrible at skating and always writing on stuff and putting up stickers at spots. I sort of had a little rep though, like they knew who I was because of graffiti so I kind of got a pass I guess? I wouldn't have rolled with me if I was them haha. As far as skateboarding influencing my drawing style,  I wouldn't say it did until about '99 when I saw the "life is joy, life is pain" graphic that Todd Bratrud did for Consolidated Skateboards. To this day thats still my favorite board graphic. Something about it, the mix of sentiment, the comic/cartoony style, and the boldness of the image really appealed to me in a way that graphics hadn't before. Plus coming from graffiti, I was familiar with the work Todd had done for LifeSucksDie magazine which gave it the layer of context I guess I needed in order to give it more than just a passing glance on the wall at the skate shop. That particular image had a little back story to it. Seeing that was really influential for me to start drawing different things other than just drawing letters all the time. I guess I was a late bloomer, I say that as if I've bloomed.

 
 What's your process for drawing? How does a piece come together for you, start to finish?  

I would say it always starts with an idea, or at least a fragment of an idea that I think I could build a visual narrative around. I don't often just sit and doodle random shapes or anything. I never found that to help me loosen me up, or get me out of a creative slump. Most of what I do is trying to either express an idea I have or add on to a previous idea, or build a tangent off of someone else's idea. If I think an idea for a drawing or piece has legs and is interesting enough, then I'll source reference material and plan out a composition, sometimes sketch out a couple versions, think about a color palette, just try to have it be as cohesive as I can. Other times I simply overhear someone say something dumb or whatever.. "I always think outside the box" for example, I overheard someone say that recently and pictured a huge box falling out of the sky on them.
 So theres a possible idea for a drawing, a guy walking down the street saying to his friend how he always thinks outside the box. Meanwhile, little does he know, in the frame theres an angry box falling from the sky and then it covers him and hes trapped and the box just says something like "not today". Thats a not very funny example, but as far as the process goes, its that simple sometimes. Hear something, or have a random thought, try to draw it.

Influences? Inspirations?

Well, I have a son who is 15 months old now, and he's like learning to walk and talk and subjugate his body to his will, so for me just watching him grow and play and figure life out is the most inspiring thing I've ever seen. Hes like a little uninhibited critter just trying everything with no frame of reference; a sponge looking for water. I watch him and I can see him thinking and coming up with ideas in his head. I watched him figure out how a doorknob works the other day which was like woah dude, you seriously just taught yourself that!. So thats hugely inspiring for me right now to watch that stuff happen first hand.  Of course also theres a ton of art out there that I see that gets me hyped and inspires me to want to try a different medium, or attempt a different style or look or take a different approach. Going skating is always a good time too. I dont know, I get most of my inspiration from just being out in the world,
 looking around, listening.

You just put out an art book called "This Took Me All Year", which is chock full of sweet comics, drawings and illustrations, talk about how it came together.. (check it out here and buy it!)

    I had made a book at the end of 2012 of drawings and paintings I did that year on a www.website. I called it "Wait, what?" Which someone told me was "a great title". It was probably the most relevant art book to come out that year, if ever. Problem was it was too good (and expensive to produce and poorly   -read: not at all- advertised) so very few people even knew about it. I only ordered 2 copies from the wwwebsite and they cost like $40,000 each if I remember correctly. I had to mortgage one of my houses to cover the cost. The layout tool online was kind of annoying too, it was like draggy and droppy so it was pretty easy, but I couldnt overlap the images or layer anything. It just had this boring and flat feel, no texture. So a few months into 2013 I knew I wanted to try to do another book, but this time I wanted do the layout myself with no templates, just all freeform. My idea was to just layer drawings on other drawings on top of jpegs
 gathered from the world wide internet in a kind of collage. Digital cut and paste. Theres no, like, plot or particular order, Its very spastic, but I'm happy with how it turned out and the flow. The cover image is a snail writing "this took me all year" in slime on a leaf. I thought that was a funny allusion to the fact that all the work inside was done literally within a year and sort of grimy and slimy. Its basically a compendium of random drawings, and comics. Some of my favorite highlights I produced that year.  As far as actual production of the book, it took me a couple months of the following year to figure out how to use photoshop well enough to organize it, then a friend of a friend was going to print it so I gave the file to him on a flash drive and just forgot about it for another year or so. Things were pretty hectic around that time too. We had the new baby, work was busy, and I was doing a bunch of new drawings and other art stuff. The
 friend of a friend never ended up doing the printing and I got the flash drive back and just threw it in a drawer without much thought. Then recently some friends were doing this flea market and they asked if I wanted to get a table and try to sell some stuff. I was psyched, but a little worried I didn't have enough wares to peddle. So I figured I would do a small run, 30 copies, of the book and see what happens.

The letters "Y" and "L", what do they mean to you? 

    -Good times, laughs at others expense, never being sorry for partying.. Those letters break rules man. They dont care what you think either. When they get together, things happen. They smoke at gas pumps and write on things.

Do you listen to anything when you draw? Skate? Any jams lately?

   When I'm drawing I like pretty mellow music usually, Soma FM was my go to station on Itunes for a couple years..  I definitely go on kicks sometimes though where its like all old country, or rock and roll, or hip hop. I love hardcore gangster rappers like Willy Smith and Drizzy and them.. any of the real hip hoppers like all the yungs and 'lil's.  And  rap ballads like fuck the police and ante up.. Lately I've been listening to more podcasts than music though. I think podcasts are cool because I like to hear interesting people in conversation. Ted talks too, those are always interesting.

I wont wear headphones while skating ever.. Thats a pet peeve of mine, I really dislike seeing some kook at a park or pushing down the street with both earbuds in.. come on man. Both earbuds? At least leave one out so you can hear whats going on around you. The sounds are part of skating in my opinion. You want to drown that shit out with what, some disposable bullshit you can hear again literally whenever you want, or some shit you've heard a million times? That rumble of bearings, pop of the board, shing of a rail, crunch of a grind, screeching  urethane, thats life happening right now man, it only happens one time, and in real time. There should be a sense of urgency to be aware of whats unfolding around you, it may never happen again, you're short changing your experience by voluntarily blocking one of your senses in my opinion. Maybe thats corny and I'm being a little dramatic or old and cranky, but seriously, I want to hear all the noises of
 skating, thats part of the experience to me. Its about engaging with the terrain, the board, the sounds, the other people at the spot. Headphones are not for when youre riding your skateboard, headphones are for like when you're at home and you hear your mom yell up the stairs and you know shes probably yelling for you to take the garbage out to the curb or whatever, but you also know that she won't come all the way up the stairs because shes fuckin lazy and tired, and you just need to buy yourself a few minutes until she over exerts herself with all the yelling and needs to lay on the couch and ultimately she forgets about you and the garbage altogether because now shes totally lost in some singing pageant or Frasier re-runs or whatever, I dont know, whatever  stupid shit hypothetical moms watch on tv. The point is she was yelling some shit you didn't want to hear so you throw on your beats by Dre headphones and listen to a few tracks off the new Björk album and get weird in your room. You don't take out the garbage. Somebody else will probably take care of it, maybe not. Maybe it'll just pile up until the neighbors complain. Whatever. Thats fine at home, but when you wear your headphones to a skatespot, know that your behavior is wierd and anti-social and nobody is going to clap for that blunt kickflip out you just made because you wouldn't hear it even if we did and we're smarter than exerting extra energy for no reason during a sesh. Lose the headphones, for real. Lady du du or M.C. 'lil yung flash in the pan or whatever will be waiting for you after the session.


What's your take on Flameboy TM

Flameboy the world industries icon? I mean, I would say It probably isn't the thing Marc Mckee would want to be remembered for as an artist you know? You're talking about a guy with some pretty well known board graphics under his belt. I will say that I think Flameboy is a character who has persisted a long time due in large part to the fact that he lives to help others. The same way wet willy, or the Hook-Ups girls do, or how D-3's do, but in a way that also shows people how to help themselves you know? I feel like Flameboy doesn't believe in holding out for a hero: His ultimate goal is that one day, when the people need a hero, they can be the hero themselves.

What's your next project?

Well, in the abstract- artistically and generally, I just want to keep growing and try to stay open to new ideas and change. Be a good dad and husband. Eventually get around to doing another book, maybe one thats a little more cohesive somehow, like with a theme? Maybe a children's book? I dont know. More drawings and paintings for sure. I want to make more zines, write more words, take on fun commissions, try to skate when I can. Smell flowers, breathe, create, just stay humble and thankful for the opportunities I get. I'm going to continue to think big but feel small.

 -(closing words?)-       Thanks to supportive family and friends, '09 / YL. And big thanks to you for asking me to do this interview! To anyone who stayed until the end, thanks to you too, I do have a tendency to be long winded.

follow Ryan on instagram, really. and check out his store!

The Preteens "Pick Me Up Now" Video

Official video for The Preteens single "Pick Me Up Now"