Pure Fiction

Part of my recent work load was a plum assignment for the Chicago Reader, a well established free weekly paper. When I was stomping around Chi-town winters, fueled by strong drink and welding fumes (doing big metal, kinetic sculptures another lifetime ago), I always made sure to pick up the latest issue. So when they asked me to do a cover for them, I was psyched. And when I found out it was for their annual "Pure Fiction" issue AND I would have carte blanche on the illustration I was doubly (triply even) psyched.

For my subject matter I worked off some old Japanese pop culture from the mid 70's, the Kamen Riders, a line of cybernetic half-human, half-grasshopper motorcycle riding superheroes. Kind of the like if the officers from C.H.I.P.S. had been cultivated from magic mushrooms. The old Kamen Rider shows are incredibly bad and trippy and somehow seemed (to me at least) to fit the notion of "pure fiction" well. There's really no logic to my choice, it just seemed to work. Here's a larger view of the illustration:



If you like to know more about the freakiness that is the Kamen Riders, go here. And if you'd to read a pdf of the "Pure Fiction" issue, go here.

Tags: Japanese | illustration | kamen rider