Ewwww…
Today’s Link cover:ÂÂ
The illustration is by a local artist who apparently enjoys shocking people with his work. Be glad I can’t find a copy of a piece Link ran inside showing a jellyfish swimming out of the mouth of a blindfolded girl with green hair.
His name is Jason Levesque. But he likes to be called Stuntkid. He’s from Chesapeake and works as an interactive designer for Grow Interactive in Norfolk.
About that cover: Link got Levesque to draw it especially for today’s front, writes Link’s Deanne Bradley:
Jason Levesque stumbled upon his inspiration for the cover art in a BBC documentary, “Life in the Undergrowth.”
“There was just lots of slugs and slugs mating. It was disgusting. I was just kind of repulsed,” he said.
“I was thinking about stepping barefoot on slugs and how nasty they are, and then taking slugs and making them gummy-colored like decisious candies.”
The background is filled with all the “creepy crawlies” he’s obsessed with. The illustration took about six hours, he said.
For a closer look — although I can’t imagine why you’d want one — squish on this thumbnail:
I don’t think Link has the story or the other art featured inside posted on its site. But here it is, just the same.
This is part of a series of covers Link has solicited from area artists, each running on Mondays this month. One printed last week — Wallace Berkley Gibbs III — known as Berkvisual — did the honors:
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You can catch others, obviously, on April 21 and April 28. All four are by men; Cover illustrations by female area artists will run this fall.
This seems like a very interesting idea — getting local artists to guest-design your cover. I’m not sure what’s the rationale for splitting up the male and female artists by the time of year.
And I’m really not sure about those snails. I find them really, really distubing. As I do the inside images.
By the way, I tried to give you a link to Stuntkid’s online portfolio, but I’m told there is nudity involved. I’ll, um, have to check it out later.
Link is a free five-days-a-week publication owned by Landmark Communications, the corporate parent of my employer, The Virginian-Pilot. Their offices are located a floor below us here in downtown Norfolk.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
EWWW is right. Neat idea, though. Sixteen Blocks and New River Voice here both use original cover art from artists. By the way I sent you a message on ning and an invite to Newstrust to your work email, but in the latter case got back an auto reply. Wanted to let you know that NewsTrust the non-profit I work with is looking for good journalism on the environment, including videos in partnership with Scientific American and the University of Nevada-Reno j school. See the blurb at SciAm:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=newstrust-news-hunt
your fan,
Beth
April 15th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Those make me happy, they are wonderfully smart and sexy.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
i love the illo! more oohs and ahs than ewwwws… reminds me of marcos chin’s work:
http://www.marcoschin.com/
April 15th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
That’s a great illustration, and it’s not icky at all - not even after you notice the trails the little critters are leaving. Beautiful. Nice job, Link.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Thanks for the note, Charles.
Here’s the back story: The series was a brainchild of Bill Manley, our photographer, who was meeting interesting young artists in his wanderings about town. We tried to get a mix of male and female artists, but mainly because of their schedules, we just happened to end up with four men who were up for it right then, and no women. This happens in newspaper land, sometimes, and usually there is a frantic scramble to balance out the lineup. Instead, we decided we’d do another series of female artists later. At that point, we had seen the covers and knew we liked them so much, we’d want to do it again. The fall marks a bit of a lull here between the lively touristy summer and the busy holidays.
Thanks for the comments. We heard from a person or two in the building that it creeped them out, too; otherwise, it seems to have gone over really well.
-Brianne Warner, Link editor