James Jirat Patradoon

As a huge comic book nerd, I've bumbled my way through dozens of colorful narratives, most of the time nitpicking through all the oversized breasts and made up muscle groups that make comics so great. It is not often, however, that I am stunned by this kind of art--I mean, you can only go so far with your art without detracting from the plot (ask Frank Miller), so you could say comic book art is limited. For this reason, I find the comic-book like stylings of James Jirat to be a delightfully funky fresh punch in the face. His colors are aweful and awesome, and who doesn't love hooded luchador wrestler bikers popping pills and punching out super heros? While many of his themes are a throw-back to the amazing punk poster artists of the late 70's and 80's, the tasteful use of punch-out color and bitmap-style line renderings make it all work together somehow. His art is on display out Californie-way this month, so if you're out there, dig on some of this.

All of these works belong to James Jirat Patradoon, and can be found with more of his work at:

www.jiratpatradoon.com 

Alfons Mucha

Little needs to be said about the tightly controlled, whimsical work of Art Nouveau artsist, Alfons Mucha. His beautiful females have probably graced more puzzles, t-shirts, and black light posters than Bob Marley, and his work never ceases to amaze. Few artists have the intricate mastery of line and color that together make Mucha's work so stunning, and his smooth shading techniques would make a digitial artist envious. Mucha's work is now mostly over 100 years old, however, with his work's emphasis on advertising, it makes you wonder where the "Ad men" went wrong, and how things like "wuu-u-u-uh-zu-u-u-u-uhhh" and that stupid gecko manage to sell anything. One drawback that I've noticed only after researching Mucha's work is the prevalence of horrible Mucha tattoos out there. Take a gander toward google images, and you'll see what I mean. While Mucha's work captures a moment in stunning lines and color, its intricacy and detail doesn't lend itself to good tattoo material without covering, say, your entire back, or...without adaptation by a very good tattoo artist. Moral of the story--tattoo artists are called artists for a reason--if you hand them an image and they say it can't be done, it probably shouldn't be.