Down Home Southern Fried Caricatures

 Another recent caricature commission from down heah in the Heart of Dixie:

 If you would like a watercolor caricature to frame and give to your friend or loved one on some special occasion, contact me, Tim Rocks, with your initial ideas. Email rocksgraphic@hotmail.com or you can also call 205-251-0763. I'm based in Birmingham, AL but can ship anywhere thanks to an extensive network of roads that lead right up to my shack.

“They Keep Changing Things on Us” - A Response to the Common Refrain (Part I)

People say health recommendations change every decade, if not every month or year, and it gets to be darn frustrating. In the following post therefore, I classify two ineffective ways people typically deal with this problem, for the sake of laughing at them. In the next part I will offer my brilliant solution.

“First they tell us eggs are good, then they're bad; drink coffee, don't drink coffee. You might as well just eat whatever you want in moderation and you'll be fine. Also, my grandpappy smoked six packs a day and he lived to be 100, what about that Mr. Scientist?”

Talk to most people about health and nutrition and they'll fall into one of two broad camps: the first camp – let's call them Fatalistic Invulnerables – laugh at your egghead warnings with the indifference of Greek gods (even if it is a raspy smoker's laugh.) They would probably buy the soda that advertised “Contains EXTRA Hi-Fructose Corn Syrup” if given the option to do so. Either they don't care if they die young after years of dialysis, or they don't believe that little tiny things can actually effect their health – I mean come on, something they can't even see is going to get them? Yeah right! They'd rather hear about real dangers to their health: that dude who comes in here all unshaved and looks like he's got a bowie knife in his jacket, now that might be a threat. Or maybe a lion or a tiger. Not some microbe somewheres. Hell, they advertise that stuff on the T.V. How bad can it be?

sports sports sports

At least at the moment, I kind of like this one despite some &#%$ ups.

The Time Has Come to Talk of Shrimp Pimps

For a friend of a friend's shrimp import business:

Actually the version I submitted was just two colors, no white highlights. Rather subdued. My pal added bright colors and removed some of my dramatic shadows (based on photo reference, incidentally.) If you're curious, that version is at swimminglastnight.com.

Here's the original sketch I did. I like the vinegar in this lettering, but it was difficult to ink by hand without wavering, so I found a font. Maybe I should have braved it and just left the imperfections.

How Webcrawlers Make the Web Worse

Reading about how to improve small business search rankings reveals the way webcrawler design leads businesses to create so-called "content" that does everyone a disservice --- both their own customers as well as people actually looking for useful information.

I started reading about "search engine optimization", or SEO, partly at the behest of my dad who's trying to improve his sign shop's website, but also to help with promoting the stuff I do. Anyway, SEO tends to be a lot of fairly boring technical little stuff, mainly about all the relentless ways you can squeeze in "keywords" and "keyphrases" into every last pixel of your site, for the benefit of Google's (and others') webcrawlers and "robots". But then it got interesting (or perhaps it only seemed so by comparison) when my RepKoverTM bound guidebook (lays flat for easy reading) started advising me to simulate "content" to draw in the flies --- to get some Content Management Software (CMS) and perhaps hire a copywriter to fob off some faux-info on the hoi polloi (assonant aside: I dream of one day opening a competitor to Hobby Lobby, either catty-corner or across the street, to be called The Hobber Lobber. Additional aside, non-assonant: perhaps these very words are only a content simulacrum, cynically generated to ensnare you in some commercial agenda?)

Fancy Free (or Cheap Anyway) and Footloose

The world offers many paradoxes to the observant. I speak today of a certain foot-based conundrum that is once again upon me as spring and summer draw near. It first hit me last summer, and now I suppose it threatens to be an annual occurrence, barring a minor revolution in low-end footwear manufacturing practices.

Sandals, you see, apparently have to be "fancy" if they're also cheap. By "fancy", I mean they have to have elaborate leather (or leather-like?) strappage, with lots of buckles and doodads, and in general suggest that the wearer commands armies of Roman legionaires, or has servants who feed him grapes while he lies on one of his many divans. Then again, some of the designs cross that influence with a bit of standard 1990s "extreme" stylings, for the Roman emperor who also likes to drive 4-wheelers and stomp on small creatures from time to time.

Old Magazine Cartoons Today