Parody and Homage

My latest effort for the My Handsome Life project. Eventually most of the entries posted on the blog will be compiled into a  parody of the J. Peterman Catalog .  Note: "Put out your hand and touch the face of God" was adapted from the last line of the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee Jr. (1922-1941)

The Year the Comics Died

"It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now "grieving" for "Calvin and Hobbes" would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them."
Calvin and Hobbes creator, Bill Watterson to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, 2/1/10.

Watterson and I exchanged letters just before his new strip was launched in 1985. After previewing samples of his strip sent to the Palm Beach Post by Bill's syndicate, I sent him a fan letter  predicting a hit. This letter is dated the day after Christmas, 1985 and reads like Calvin himself wrote it (a few lines are edited out.) It  features an original drawing of Hobbes done in brush and india ink.

Watterson pulled the plug on the strip ten years later. In the same year, 1995, the other "best comic ever" ended when Gary Larson quit The Far Side.

One of the funniest captions ever written-
 (or was it "Look who just walked in- 'God's Gift to Warthogs."

The syndicates made half-hearted attempts to fill the massive void left by the loss of their highest rated features ( notably The Argyle Sweater, Red and Rover) but the "fresher, livelier talent" never materialized. Today, newspapers (and most of the cartoonists themselves) are content to let the whole business die a miserable, slow death. Internet fans of these two great talents will see to it that Watterson and Larson never suffer the same fate.

Caricature

Jerry Lewis

Watercolor, gouache, india ink and pencil.

Art School Ad

I built the matchbook from scratch in Photoshop. I can't resist doing a good lampoon- my favorite form of humor. I'm teaching art classes at a local school in the Fall and thought that a humorous approach would set the proper tone.

Prototype Book Cover

  Cover for a book of photography by Stephen Crowley. The type was added in fragments to give it a low-tech "analog" look - perfect for the time period. 

Update: I'm tweaking the cover a bit. The title needed to be larger. The font is too rounded for my taste and needs to be changed. A limited number of the books will feature glow-in-the-dark ink on the title and dial (numbers and tic-marks.)

Ain't Got No

Ain't got no apostrophe for this "aint!"

Our culture of complaint...the original was done in water color, gouache and india ink and measures approx. 25 x 30 inches.

Sketches for "Fresh Kills"

Pencil sketches for a  new series- not for print- inspired by Orwell and Animal Farm.

Business Card

I like to produce limited edition business cards that are hard to throw away. This one folds into a matchbook- like a little paper sculpture.

Mondobama

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/stephen-crowleys-aquarela-do-brasil/

              
This video, of Obama's recent trip to South America, was shot by New York Times Photographer Stephen Crowley using a Flip camera. Great editing, soundtrack and use of ambient sound.

Curiously Refreshing Vacations pt. II

We shot this scene at the Sponge Museum in Tarpon Springs on Florida's west coast.

Tarpon Springs once had a large Greek population who were attracted to the area's thriving natural sponge industry.

This scene features "Gomek," St. Augustine's fabled giant, albeit long dead and stuffed alligator.

This picture was taken at Miami's Monkey Jungle. The model is wearing a vintage Girl Scout uniform to match the vintage tourist attraction. We were covered in monkeys during the shoot.

All photos by Scott Wiseman.

Curiously Refreshing Vacations

We continued the Florida Travel series the following summer, this time shooting on location. The theme was "Curiously Refreshing Vacations." I enlisted my daughter, Jillian, who was attending the nearby University of Florida at the time, to model for us. She convinced a friend to play the role of "The Creature." We did some shots of "The Creature" in the water and nearly killed him.  

A shot from the previous series using the same backdrop as the mermaid picture. We hired this model from an agency in Miami and used her again the next year (below) at a bird sanctuary in the Florida Keys. Her uniform was a rental. I made her hat the night before in my hotel room using a handkerchief glued over a piece of cardboard.  Her other daytime job was as a pharmacist. Photo by Scott Wiseman with Ray Graham.

This is an amazing shot. The pelican, a patient at the sancutary, was a real pro! The birds in the background flew to this spot at the same time every day to be fed giving us a brief window of opportunity to make the shot. At one point, the bird took a bite at my head which was just below where the picture is cropped.

Third in the series. Same backdrop.The fourth in the series featured the same model on water skis. Photo by Scott Wiseman.

Cape Fear Unzipped

In 2006, Palm Beach Post Fashion Editor, Staci Sturrock and I conceived a fashion shoot that tapped into our storm-battered readers' anxiety (caused by some wicked storms the two years prior) over the approaching hurricane season. Photographer Ray Graham agreed to do the shoot.

Staci summed up the story here:

Cape Fear Unzipped!

A FASHION THRILLER RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES!
A HURRICANE FRENZY THREATENS THE FASHIONABLE SET
ONE MAN STRUGGLES TO SAVE HIS FAMILY - and his Brooks Brothers suit!
SAM: BATTENED DOWN AND BUTTONED UP, HE'S THE HANDSOME, HANDY HUSBAND EVERY GAL DREAMS OF!
ONE MAN MOCKS MOTHER NATURE - and Mr. Blackwell!
MAX: FLYING BY THE SEAT OF HIS UNPRESSED PANTS, HIS STORM PREPARATIONS ARE AS LOOSE AS HIS WOMEN!
Does hurricane season make you feel like there's a dark cloud over your head even when it's sunny?To give you a cheap laugh we've re-created scenes from the 1962 movie Cape Fear - with a style twist.
OUR (FASHIONABLE ) Cape Fear 2006.
Staci's writing is laugh-out-loud funny. Excerpts are included below. More of her text here.

A Style Disturbance in the  Atlantic

Cape Fear Unzipped opens with Max Cady (Nick Mochella) being interrogated by police detectives Mark Schwed, Pat Crowley and Officer Fred Marion (all are Palm Beach Post staff.) Max Cady has been accused of stealing Tapcon screws and cans of tuna from his neighbors as they prepared for a gathering storm.

 

"A Menace To Sobriety"

Max: "I got somethin' planned for your wife and kid that they ain't nevah gonna forget. They ain't nevah gonna forget it . . . and neither will you, Counselor! Nevah!"
Sam: "You shocking degenerate. I've seen the worst — the dregs — but you . . . you are the lowest. Makes me sick to breathe the same air." from Cape Fear, 1962

Enraged but resplendant in Tommy Bahama wear, Max stalks his equally fashionable neighbors. (Aime Dunstan, Michele Kelley, Mark Schwed)

Fear Grips Coastline

 "As style anxiety rises, Nancy and her pals dash for shelter. Madras and eyelet, vintage-inspired dresses and skinny jeans - they all pass inspection."

The models featured here were students at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach. Staci Sturrock plays the "teacher" at the top of the steps, right.

Stop in the Name of Layered Tanks

 "Although the mysteries of the four-way stop have flummoxed another young driver, there's no mishap in the way Nancy and her friends track the trends. Full skirts and fashion-forward denim are insurance against looking out of style."

The look on the driver's face is priceless. This is my favorite scene in the shoot.

Daddy Do Right

"Sam secures his shutters - and admires his family's stockpile of updated preppy classics."
All the sites we used were built circa the 1920's. Period props (including the 1950's paper bag she's holding) finished the look of the scenes and meshed with the classic style of the clothes.

Peggy Panics: "I've got Lake Worth Power!"

"She'll be dressing in the dark after the first gust but that'll be a breeze thanks to this stylishly simple caftan, left. (Where's her perfect hubby, Sam? On the lookout for Max, who is threatening to turn Sam's turbine caps into punch bowls.)"