I have to say that the most unexpected use of my work to date was when Moussy (pronounced Moo-cee), made some gold jewelry with my work. 

 As in: "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? HOW COOL IS THIS??? WOWIE WOW WOW!"

 

I never ever imagined that my artwork would be made into a gold object. But my team in Japan made it happen, thanks to the very cool people at Moussy, who also produced the Juice cans, the rice cookies, and so much more with my work.

 

It's difficult to photograph the beautiful jewelry that Moussy made with my work, but I am so happy to present a few images here. They made so many items: rings, necklaces, etc. I get the feeling these will become collector items, since everyone I show these things to goes a little bit nuts and wants to grab them out of my hands! 

 

 

I drew a few different drawings, as you can see.

All in the PUNK magazine-logo style. 

 

 And yeah, I am not really a "metal head," but they asked me to draw some "devil-horns." I have to admit that they look very cool! Please tell me what you think! Am I wrong? 

Okay, I am interrupting my usual commercial messages to talk about something else that happened in the world. To me, this was an event of momentous, cosmic, eternal cultural significance. However, as usual, the mainstream media totally ignored something this important.

It was the appearance of The Three Stooges on the World Wrestling Entertainment's Monday Night Raw program. 

 

A new version has been created for a Farrelly Brother film! You know, the brudders who made "Dumb & Dumber," "There's Something About Mary," "Shallow Hal," etc. which just happen to be some of the funniest movies ever! And let's not forget "Me, Myself and Irene," which I think is one of the most underrated films of all time.

I have waited a lifetime for this. I have been a professional wrestling fan since the 1970s, when Marc "Rosie" Rosenthal of the CBGB scene brought me to a card held by the WWF back around 1978: Haystacks Calhoun, the Grand Wizard, etc. It was a great show, and back then these shows were held in high school gymnasiums!

Anyhow, to get back to the Three Stooges appearance on Monday Night RAW:

It was... Good! Better than I thought! Definitely better than OK! 

 

It was weird! I would have thought that WWE fans would WELCOME the Three Stooges to the wrestling ring! Instead,they were booed so bad that one of them could be heard asking: "Should we keep going?" I have to admit that I've never heard ANYONE on live TV talk about quitting! But this is how bad they were getting booed...

See, this is why I keep watching WWE: It's live! Stuff happens that you won't see anywhere else. So they kept going, and I got to admit that the "New Stooges" did such a great job of bringing back the Old Stooges that I wanna see the film.

 

 To get back to the Stooges on WWE Raw? They did everything right. Curly (played by Michael Chiklis, who also played The Thing in the Fantastic Four films, which I was disappointed by but sort of enjoyed), did a spot-on impersonation of Hulk Hogan, but the crowd was still booing throughout.

(Hey, even before Bruce Carleton drew "The Three Stooges of Death" for Comical Funnies, I thought the Three Stooges would make a great tag team for the World Wrestling Federation. But it never happened, and our culture is all the worse for that.)

 

Well, anyhow... Back to the WWE Monday Night Raw program:

Curly of the Three Stooges was power-bombed by Kane, the "evil monster" of the WWE, who also power-bombed Pete Rose during a Wrestle Mania And so the crowd went wild! And so The Three Stooges were redeemed!

I guess you just had to be there... 

 

 

 

Okay, I am interrupting my usual commercial messages to talk about something else that happened in the world. To me, this was an event of momentous, cosmic, eternal cultural significance. However, as usual, the mainstream media totally ignored something this important.

It was the appearance of The Three Stooges on the World Wrestling Entertainment's Monday Night Raw program. 

 

A new version has been created for a Farrelly Brother film! You know, the brudders who made "Dumb & Dumber," "There's Something About Mary," "Shallow Hal," etc. which just happen to be some of the funniest movies ever! And let's not forget "Me, Myself and Irene," which I think is one of the most underrated films of all time.

I have waited a lifetime for this. I have been a professional wrestling fan since the 1970s, when Marc "Rosie" Rosenthal of the CBGB scene brought me to a card held by the WWF back around 1978: Haystacks Calhoun, the Grand Wizard, etc. It was a great show, and back then these shows were held in high school gymnasiums!

Anyhow, to get back to the Three Stooges appearance on Monday Night RAW:

It was... Good! Better than I thought! Definitely better than OK! 

 

It was weird! I would have thought that WWE fans would WELCOME the Three Stooges to the wrestling ring! Instead,they were booed so bad that one of them could be heard asking: "Should we keep going?" I have to admit that I've never heard ANYONE on live TV talk about quitting! But this is how bad they were getting booed...

See, this is why I keep watching WWE: It's live! Stuff happens that you won't see anywhere else. So they kept going, and I got to admit that the "New Stooges" did such a great job of bringing back the Old Stooges that I wanna see the film.

 

 To get back to the Stooges on WWE Raw? They did everything right. Curly (played by Michael Chiklis, who also played The Thing in the Fantastic Four films, which I was disappointed by but sort of enjoyed), did a spot-on impersonation of Hulk Hogan, but the crowd was still booing throughout.

(Hey, even before Bruce Carleton drew "The Three Stooges of Death" for Comical Funnies, I thought the Three Stooges would make a great tag team for the World Wrestling Federation. But it never happened, and our culture is all the worse for that.)

 

Well, anyhow... Back to the WWE Monday Night Raw program:

Curly of the Three Stooges was power-bombed by Kane, the "evil monster" of the WWE, who also power-bombed Pete Rose during a Wrestle Mania And so the crowd went wild! And so The Three Stooges were redeemed!

I guess you just had to be there... 

 

 

 

So, anyhow, this is how it all happened: A few years ago, I got a request from some crazy cartoonist guys from Italy! And they asked to contribute to their cartoon jam for their cartoon character: PUCK!

Well, just mention stuff like PUCK magazine (Or Judge) to me (or any late 1880s or early 1900s cartoonists), and I melt. I love this stuff!  When PUNK magazine moved our offices to 225 Lafayette Street, I was amazed, astounded, amused and thrilled that we were now just two blocks away from the original PUCK magazine building, which still stands at Broadway and Lafayette in all of its glory. 

 

 PUCK magazine was like the original MAD magazine.

 

"Puck" was the Robin Goodfellow character from the Shakespeare play "A Midsummer's Night Dream," who plays the "trickster" or whatever, I always fashioned my character Bosko after this kind of guy. He's most famous for his saying: "What fools these mortals be." 

I could not agree more. Do you think you are intelligent? Do you think you are smarter than the rest? Sorry, we are all a bunch of dummies: Shakespeare had you pegged. But I am getting off the subject,

 

Anyhow, I just wanted to mention that I was involved in a wonderful, amazing, unbelievable international comic strip collaboration put together by Ivan Hurricane in Italy: The PUCK Comic Party, published in Italy. 

It brings together comic artists from all over the world! For instance: Tom Bunk (the amazing MAD magazine illustrator, who did the amazing cover above and represents the original anarchic art style of the eternal spirit of MAD), Danny Hellman (who deserves a whole book about his work!), Howard Cruse (who did work with me at Bananas for many years!), Foolbert Sturgeon, Mark Bode (son of Vaughn Bode, who was a HUGE influence on my work), Milton Knight (a good friend for many years whose work is sadly neglected lately and could use a revival--just look at it!), as well as so many GREAT cartoonists as Bruce Carleton,  Al (Mad Magazine "Fold-In"), Jay (Nard 'N' Pat) Lynch, Skip Williamson, Johnny Ryan, Glenn Head, Bill Griffith, Robert Armstrong... Cheez Whiz, I can't keep track of everyone!Even my best friend Bruce Carleton contributed!

Especially because many other contributors are international cartoonists like Sergio Ponchione, Giorgio Franzaroli, and Ivan Hurricane, who made it all happen.

Thanks, Ivan!!! 

 

 

 Above: My contributions to the PUCK Comic Party. Pretty good, right?

I did a session for a portrait for my old friend Curt Hoppe several months ago, but I had no idea it would come out this great:

 

Photo above: copyright Curt Hoppe courtesy Woodward Gallery, New York

This painting is bigger than life. I mean--look at this thing, it's several feet behind me, and it's still bigger than me! It's huge! It took Curt two months to render the thing. And it is as photo-realistic as you can get. To the left, you can see a bit of the portrait Curt did of East Village graffiti art legend Richard Hambleton. These portraits will be part of a series of living East Village art guys and gals, and the gallery opening is set to take place in early 2013. It's part of a series of paintings of East Village denizens like me, Clayton Patterson, Penny Arcade, Arturo Vega and others. 

I first met Curt in 1978, when the WPA show was being put together by Marc Miller. His painting of the Ramones created a lot of media attention: This was the first time the punk rock scene got some concrete attention from the art scene. Also, the WPA show became an influence on the East Village art scene in the 1980s. For instance I remember meeting Patti Astor, who started the Fun Gallery a few years later, at a WPA show event.

Anyhow, check out Curt's work. He was one of us: the NYC artists who worked in the underground scene of the 1970s. Back then we paid the rent by working for porno rags like Screw magazine (no self-respecting underground artist didn't contribute to Screw back in the day). No offense to any other "East Village artist," but to me if you didn't work for Screw? You weren't part of the New York City underground scene. For instance, Bruce Carleton, Punk magazine's art director, worked there for several years, and after Bruce finished, Ken Weiner took over. Kevin Hein, who worked for Ken as an assistant, and then continued the Screw tradition of supporting the NYC underground scene.

I'd like to thank Curt for including me in his series of portraits. He's a good guy and I am very glad that this series of portraits look like they'll gain him some art cred, and some well-deserved bucks. 

 

One of my favorite Japanese companies is Chubbygang. They've been using my work on all kinds of great stuff, and best of all they sell most of their designs to kids. Punk rock kid clothing is big in the USA as well, but as usual the Japanese do it better. I've posted a lot of their stuff on this blog, and people always love to see those cute Japanese kids dressed in a PUNK t-shirt or whatever, but this one is the best so far. 

 Shortly after I got back from my Japan trip, Morrison & Co. sent me these amazing photos of a little kid who was wearing a PUNK magazine t-shirt on TV! From what I understand, this is a very popular quiz show in Japan, so millions of people watched...

 

 

 

Yes, it's weird that a kid is wearing a skeleton drawing on his t-shirt. But I like to think that he really likes this shirt, and wanted to wear it on TV. I understand that he won! So this is one very intelligent kid, right? And he has good taste!

 What's more than a bit weird is that this t-shirt also features the "Death to Disco Shit" editorial I wrote and lettered for PUNK #1! Honestly, people always ask me if I thought this or that about what's happened with punk over the years, but I promise you that I never ever thought that my "Death to Disco" editorial would end up on a t-shirt that a young kid wore on a Japanese game show 35 years later.

Shortly after my trip to Japan, I was invited to draw the next CD cover for The 50 Kaitenz! Actually, their next THREE CD covers! I was really excited to do this, since I am a big fan of their music and performance, and had such a great time hanging out with them.

They gave me a long list of very specific instructions, and photos of what the drawing(s) were supposed to look like. The main theme seemed to be inspired by Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise. I actually saw this when it hit the theaters back in 1974, so I was even more impressed by 50 Kaitenz's knowledge. (Since their main musical influences are the Ramones and Dr. Feelgood, well... You know.) DePalma is best known for directing Scarface of course, as well as Carrie, Dressed to Kill and Blow Out.Phantom of the Paradise was an early success for him, not a blockbuster but it helped put him on the map. 

The logo was taken from the original theatrical poster for the film (and the most difficult part of the project to draw), and the girl at the top right of the poster is wearing the Phantom's mask. They even took photos of models wearing the mask! They were the most organized and efficient band I have ever worked with. Here are some of the photos (which I think look much better than my drawings):

 
Evil Girls with the Phantom Girl

 

Hippies!

 

Bikini Zombies

Dory, bass and vocals

Danny, guitar and vocals

 

Bogie, drums

The coolest thing was the guitar Danny played... This was the weirdest looking rock 'n' roll instrument I've ever seen! 

 

It was a lotto squeeze all of this into one drawing, but somehow we managed to do it.

 Best of all, you can buy the CD online! It's available at amazon.com, just search "Japan Import CDs" and then "50 Kaitenz." They have almost all of The 50 Kaitenz music there, so buy everything! "Rock 'N' Roll Magic" also features a very funny video, starring the band. So now you have no excuse--you must buy a copy right now, before they're sold out.

 The thing I like best about working with my friends in Japan is that they always give me full credit, and add my "© John Holmstrom" to everything I do. A lot of people I've worked with in the states fight me on this, as if I'm not supposed to own my own artwork, but in Japan they treat artists with a great deal of respect.Well, they're just a lot of fun to work with as well!

Someone from Belgium just asked me if they could find a Website selling the Rolling Stones stuff, I found one on a clothing tag. I have no idea if they ship worldwide, and everything is in Japanese, but they do display everything I did and all the other artists from every year. So this only for informational purposes:

www.buddyz.co.jp

So, anyhow, that trip to Japan took place way back in 2009! It's already a long time ago! It has become a huge event in terms of my work, as you'll see as I update this blog. Unfortunately, due to all the work I had to do since then for Japan and the upcoming Best of PUNK Magazine book took me away from writing here, but the book is 99.9% done, things are going great in Japan and so I've got some time to bring this thing up to date. 

 As soon as I got back from the trip, my beloved Japanese team said they wanted me to enter the Rolling Stones "collaboration project." Every few years, the Rolling Stones hold a contest for Japanese artists to design something based on their tongue logo. Apparently this is a very prestigious thing over there, and they thought I had a shot to win a slot.

 So I sent a bunch of designs to Japan, and sure enough, many months later, I learned that my design (among others), won. Oddly enough my winning design featured a skeleton figure based on the t-shirt advertisement in PUNK's first issue. This skeleton character became very popular in Japan, so we named him "Oscar Bones," taken from a joke in my high school yearbook. I dressed him in some shorts and a t-shirt, and stuck the trademark Rolling Stones lips on his jaw (at the suggestion of Morrison, my Japanese team).

 It seems that my design (which can be seen in the middle of this photo) sold pretty well. At first it was used for a baseball cap, a top and some shorts, and a t-shirt, but since then lots more stuff has been produced! They used "Oscar" on hoodies, a bunch of different tops and shirts--even underwear!!!

Above: The shirt/top--for women. 

 

Above: the baseball cap.

 

 

Above: The official Rolling Stones underwear, with my artwork on them. I've never had my work on underwear before, so this was a bit weird for me. I never expected my artwork to be on "undies," but I am proud of my Rolling Stones underwear! I think it looks great!

The 12-year-old kid in me, who listened to their first album over and over again, and voted for them in the vote for best rock band in 6th grade (Herman's Hermits won, Beatles came in second, Rolling Stones only got my vote) is thrilled. The only thing that could be better for my 12-year-old self is if I could do something for the Fantastic Four, Thor or Spider-Man. And you know how it is, guys and gals... We never really grow up, do we?

 

 The next day, all of our professional responsibilities were done so we had fun! Above is the photo from the climax of it all--a great dinner at Sukiyaki, the restaurant that inspired the 1960s pop song of the same name and also helped introduce Japanese cuisine to the United States. It was so much fun! It was the Morrison crew and the guys from 50 Kaitenz (Japan's greatest punk rock band) drinking and partying! But let me digress... 

 

The day began when we met 50 Kaitenz for a shopping trip. Here we posed for a photo below a famous tourist landmark... I'm not sure what the landmark is supposed to represent. Danny is showing off the PUNK Magazine book we gave him earlier. Like I said before, he's also a great cartoonist, so he truly appreciated it, as you can see--he's so happy he's about to explode!  

 

There were all kinds of little tourist things for photo-taking. This one had something to do with crying, so we all got a little bit teary-eyed... By the way, that's Dory (bass guitar) on the left, Bogie (drums) on the far right and Danny (lead vocals and guitar) in between us.

Check them out!

Their MySpace page. 

They're AMAZING. They remind me a lot of the Dead Boys: same sense of humor, energy level, and appreciation and knowledge of rock 'n''roll.  In fact, Danny reminds me a lot of Stiv Bators. Never a dull moment, high energy, funny, great guys.

 

Even though 50 Kaitenz are a punk band they are also wildly popular! Yes, Japan is the land of opportunity, where punk is not an impediment. So when stopped off for a few beers before dinner and some fans recognized them, we took a photo with them. As you can see, the fans were so happy! I think ti was the highlight of their life. (Honest!)

 

When we arrived at Sukiyaki, we were ushered into a private room, where we shared great food and many beers and drinks! As you can see, I had many serious discussions with the 50 Kaitenz guys about punk rock, the Situationist movement, anarchy, environmental politics, East/West trade relations, and many other important topics. 

 

The Sukiyaki serving staff wear the traditional garb of the geisha, which makes the restaurant such a favorite of both tourists and the Japanese people.  

 

The next day, we had lunch with Ena and Ray from Poni-Camp, and we gave them personalized copies of the PUNK book. (Don't forget--the biggest and best edition will be out soon! So keep an eye out for signing events!)

 

Anyhow, we owe them both many thanks because they put together the wildly successful show at Shelter! Thanks, Ena! Thanks Ray! Thanks Poni-Camp!

Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you the best part: Poni-Camp wrote and performed a song about PUNK Magazine!!! It's the first song ever about PUNK magazine! So thanks again, Poni-Camp! (I wish I could tell you the lyrics, but they sang it in Japanese!) They rule! And I ended my trip with a big crush on Ena. 

So check this out:

Poni-Camp's Myspace Page

After that Taka took us shopping, to a part of Tokyo that had so many amazing comic book shops and toy stores, where I saw so many action figures and manga and robots and... then... I saw a young woman in a French maid outfit giving away post cards. I've always had a fondness for women dressed in French maid outfits, even as a little kid! I don't know what it is but anyhow, Taka had read my mind! He took us to French maid heaven! 

 

I didn't know this beforehand, but there are clubs that cater to fetishes like mine! In this building, there were six floors devoted to different theme clubs: one for French maids, another for nurses, etc. etc. Of course, I am not allowed to tell you what happens behind closed doors.

 

Okay, Okay! You twisted my arm! The young women dressed in French maid outfits serve ice cream drinks and sing songs when they do. No touching, of course--this is Japan! For the big climax, they bring you and your party to a small stage, dress you in bunny ears and paws, take your photo, and then draw cute little things all over the snapshot. Nothing sexual at all, just pure, clean fun. Man, do I ever love Japan!

Oddly enough, just after we sat down a couple of Sumo wrestlers arrived, and we talked them into joining our photo. On their request I PhotoShopped their faces so they can't be recognized, but the crazy thing was how big they were compared to the tiny, young, Japanese French maids. The photo doesn't do the whole experience justice. These guys are bigger than NFL players, and Japanese women are all around five feet tall. Anyhow, it seemed fitting to end my trip on a bizarre note like this.This was even more crazy fun!

 

At the end of the night, it was time to say good-bye... Taka-san (Our Boss Man) took this photo of Suzuko-san (The Young and the Charming), Yuki-san (Our Translator and my new best buddy, who's busy showing off the back of the "Official Morrison Crew Jacket"), and Motohiro-san (wing man extraordinaire, who also works as an actor in his spare time). Man, this trip was the most fun I ever had in my whole life. It was even better than being on the Sex Pistols tour in 1978!

 And yeah, I know it was probably an ordeal to get through my whole travel story, but honest there's a method to the madness... Stay tuned! This was an important event.