It’s amazing what you can do when you remember your password. I’m starting 2011 with all kinds of goodwill and wishes and exercising and eating better and vows to post regularly and to actually enact my harebrained scheme for world domination. So expect another post or two, and then for me to drift back into obscurity and the waiting arms of complacency. Eh…no point in being negative, but still stating the grim reality of so many resolutions and best intentions.

So I’m offering up “Todor & Petru”. (Maybe that should be italicized rather than within quotes, but I’m probably the only one who has a rat’s ass to give around here for that sort of thing. Please note that I probably will not spellcheck this post before publishing. Conundrums rule everything around me.)

So yeah, I’m following up my New Year’s reality check with a bit of unreality in the form of a short film from Wizz. I love the combination of motion graphics and still photography injecting some living colour into what by comparison is a much bleaker world. If only these cartoon creations started to live and breathe in the physical realm, we might need them to stave of the clone armies our military must certainly be working on. Or am I only suggesting that because Cartoon Network had the gall to introduce what looks like Darth Maul 2.0 in a Star Wars: Clone Wars episode, but start it a half hour earlier, and I’ve been denied getting my geek on for the evening.

Bastards.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Surfing on the Street and Scary Ideas for finding this clip. And yeah I’ll be looking for Thunderclaps track, “Judgement Day” that’s featured in the video. Happy New Year.

Let’s start off with where you’re from, where you’ve been, and where you’re at now?

I was born in Atlantic City, NJ, lived in Manahawkin, NJ (really amazing place) until I was 19, then I moved to Arizona for about 9 years. I met my wife in NJ, so I packed up and left Arizona for NJ again. So what got you interested in tattooing? Well besides being a total fuck-up when I was a kid, I used to do stick and pokes (tattoos done with a sewing needle) on my buddies, but I never really thought much of it. When I got into my 20’s I stopped being a fuck-up for the most part and and got interested in doing artwork again. I got my fi rst professional tattoo when I was 21 and that was it – I was hooked.

Outside of the tattoo scene, what have been some of your biggest artistic influences?

14th and 15th century painters, that stuff is amazing. I never made it to college so I don’t know anything about art history, but any museum I go to, that’s all I look at. Like most things from the past, people had so much more passion and time, we live in chaos. But i guess that helps sometimes. What is your all-time favorite album cover? Iron Maiden, Number of the Beast. Actually, I love all the Maiden album cover because the dude that painted them is sick. I forget his name, but I forget EVERYONES name.

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THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1

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So where did your interest in Bigfoot come from and why did you decide to startpainting Bigfoot characters?

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It’s been about 14 years now since I decided to start writing Bigfoot. I realized the symbolism of Bigfoot was the culmination of all things I was into portraying, nature, magic and an opposition to the modern human world.

“If I stayed in Jersey I would definitely be making art but wouldn’t have started writing Bigfoot and would’ve ended up doing hard time for like 2 grams of weed.”

Graffiti artists have the luxury of hiding behind their artwork. I have met tons of graffiti artists and there are a lot of dorks, social idiots and loners in the graffiti game myself included. But they have a unique talent, graffiti is illegal, above the law, the act of graffiti has street credibility, so for a lot of people it serves as an alter ego. Is this the case for you as well?

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THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1.

For the past 25 years Derek Riggs has supplied us with countless images of the most well know monster in heavy metal history, Eddie Maiden. Eddie has transformed Iron Maiden into a merchandising giant. The attraction to Eddie is as strong today as it was with his first appearance in 1979. Riggs is opinionated, upfront, and out to impress no one. We linked up with him to talk about art, religion, politics and of course Eddie. Enjoy.

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Iron Maiden’s management came across a painting of yours that featured a character called Electric Matthew. Electric Matthew would later be transformed into Eddie Maiden. Obviously the original Electric Matthew wasn’t designed specifically for Iron Maiden. What was your initial inspiration for the character you were creating?

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The original picture was inspired by a photo of a dead soldier’s skull that I found in TIME magazine when I was about 15. I used it in a photo-montage, stuck it to the front of a folder and covered it in plastic. Years later I found it and decided to use it for the basis for a picture. It was the late 1970’s and Punk rock was big in England. I thought that maybe some punk band might be able to use it.

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What was the creation process like when doing the Iron Maiden album covers? Did you have free reign on the designs or did most of that come from the band?

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Most of the time almost nothing came from the band. I would get a title or the title and a direction to go in and then I would send a sketch to the manager Rod Smallwood. We would talk over the idea and decide if Rod felt it needed anything. Quite often he would just say go ahead and I would get on with the job. For example, the brief I got for Somewhere in Time was, “We want a city like the one in Blade Runner,” and the rest was left pretty much up to me. The look of Eddie was my invention, as was the content of the city. Steve came to me near the end of the work and asked if I could include some little details, like the names of his previous bands.

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Of all the Iron Maiden covers you created, which one is your favorite?

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Somewhere in Time, because of the detail. I like detail. Clairvoyant and Can I Play with Madness because they are so ape shit, and Stranger in a Strange Land because it looks like Clint Eastwood.

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For the 80’s, some of the album covers were very over the top. The Sanctuary single’s sleeve had a picture of Eddie with a knife in his hand, standing over the dead body of Margaret Thatcher who had just been caught tearing down an Iron Maiden poster. Did you come under attack for that and did you have any issues with doing a cover with that kind of imagery?

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How does military grade nerve gas get out of a secure facility? From that time on my experiences with the medical profession indicated to me that my health has been monitored by someone other than the local doctor.

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