Things have slowed down a bit on the blog lately, but not in vain! One of the great new things I’ve been working on is the Strong Odors shop on Society6!

Sometimes I’ll create an illustration that I just love. Usually these are the least popular among readers, but that just figures. Other times readers really resonate with a particular image (like Denial, for example) that would make a great print, but isn’t quite right for the limited edition prints that I have in my Etsy shop.

So I’ve been excited to launch this fun new shop on Society6! Not only does it offer fabulous prints in a variety of sizes (so everyone can afford one), but you can even get yours shipped to your door already framed!

What makes this shop extra fun is they have cool other items too, like skins/cases for your iPhone and even Strong Odors t-shirts.

Check out the shop now, and make sure to share it with your friends!

Here are a few cool items in the Strong Odors · Society6 shop:

Bon Iver iPhone case · Woverine iPhone case

The Beatles t-shirt · Wyld Stallyns t-shirt

Man or Muppet iPhone skin · Skywalker iPhone skin

So sad to hear of another creative brother’s death this week. Maurice Sendak was so many things to so many different people.

I did this little Carol illustration to accompany a quote on our Old & New blog. It turned out so nice I thought I’d share it here too. For a moment I considered making the print available in my Society6 shop, but I never feel right about exploiting the loss of a real, live and remarkable person in that way.

So I’ve made a high-rez version available for anyone who’d like to print it off and hang up in remembrance of one heckuva inspiring fellow.

There is something that happens when you cross a dark valley.

If you’re lucky enough to reach the other side, you discover all these other individuals who had been in there with you. People you know, some you don’t and some whom you never will. They are all down there together, you just can’t see one another through the pitch black.

But when you’ve made it out, whether by scraping and clawing; being dragged or drugged, the valley leaves you charged with static electricity.

You don’t know it’s there, and you don’t know the next person has it until you come in contact… and then something pops.

Whenever I see or hear stories of cancer, I get really emotional.

I somehow managed to make it through that movie 50/50 recently, despite the knots of familiarity in my stomach, but today when I heard that  that Adam Yauch (aka MCA) had died, it really got to me.

He was my favorite Beastie, and though I’ve always rooted for those guys as underdogs, I’ve been rooting just that much harder for him these past few years.

It’s tough to hear, man.

But little do you know about something that I talk about

I’m tired of driving it’s due time that I walk about

Somewhere in outer space Spiritualized must have hit some sort of space-time wormhole.

They’ve traveled over the past twenty years from the future to the past.

While their space rock of the 90s had us all floating through the cosmos, we’re now grounded somewhere in the classic-rock era (with some traditional gospel thrown in?) in this awesome Beates/Velvet Underground-esque record.

As you’d expect from Spiritualized (and all their adopted genre’s), Sweet Heart Sweet Light has enough theological content to potentially qualify for a Dove award…. IF it weren’t so brutally honest.

The song “So Long You Pretty Thing” conjurs a lot of the feelings of forsakenness that Peter Rollins investigates in his recent book Insurrection. The focus of the book is the forsakenness of Christ on the cross (illustrated for Old & New Project by Scott Allen Hill) as one of the most fundamental aspects of the gospel message, and the single one we “Christians” seem most unwilling to acknowlege.

Radical doubt, suffering, and the sense of divine forsakenness are central aspects of Christ’s experience and thus a central part of what it means to participate in Christ’s death.

The problem is that fully embracing this is so painful, we want to avoid it altogether. Avoiding is destined to fail though, because the doubts and fear and aloneness will find you. In our attempts to focus on the positive we’re merely applying a thick layer of paint over our rusted-fender condition.

Honestly, it’s a complicated idea.. but something of which I’m attempting to be more acutely aware in my own life.

So Long You Pretty Thing

If you feel lonely

And the world’s against you

Take the long way home

Past the scary Jesus

And you’ll find

With your maybe diamonds

And you’ll feel lonely

No more

Help me Lord, help me Jesus

Cause I’m lonely and tired

Help me Lord; it ain’t easy

Cause I’m living with the blind

I got no reason to believe in anything

Help me Lord; help me Jesus

Cause I’m hurting inside

Help me Lord; it ain’t easy

Cause I’m living a lie

And God I’m hoping for a reason to be here

Help me Lord; help me Father

Cause I’m losing my mind

Help me Lord; it’s getting harder

Cause I’m losing all the time

I got no reason to believe in anymore (?)

Help me Lord; help me Father

Cause I wasted all my time

Help me Lord; it’s getting harder

Cause I’ve made a mess of mine

And God I’m hoping for the reason to be clear

So long you pretty thing (?)

God save your little soul

The music that you played so hard

On your radio

All your dreams and diamond rings

And all that rock and roll can bring you

So long… so long.

My own design for Old & New Project was posted today. When Jim and I were sorting through our list of passages and assigning them to each designer (based on his/her favorite options), we each decided that we’d take whatever stories were left over.

We both lucked out and ended up with the passage we’d hoped for anyway!

I’m not sure why none of our contributing designers wanted to illustrate Lot’s wife, and I’m not exactly sure why I did want to do this passage… I just had a vision for it from the start and was excited I got to do this piece.

I hope to post some of my processes on the Old & New blog, but for now here are a couple close up detail images that are difficult to see on the site. Click each for a larger preview.

Please buy a print! Proceeds are donated to Blood:Water Mission to help provide better access to safe water for those without.

Today my old friend @blueskyfalconer suggested “underwater unicorn with flaming lips at night time” for my reader-suggestion #CollabFriday illustration.

Why do i keep getting suggestions like this? How many times do I have to tell you people that I am not actually on drugs?

Not even legal ones!

Whatever… I liked the Flaming Lips part so I put on some Yoshimi and here you go.

Love collaborating on Fridays! Check out other collabs from past weeks.

Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the DA
Look out kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don’t try, ‘No Doz’
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.

from “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” Bob Dylan

Prints & other (awesome) merchandise featuring this illustration is available in the Strong Odors Society6 shop!