Easily the best freelance assignments I've ever had were traveling around looking for weird stuff. Local legends, murder mysteries, unexplained phenomena, roadside oddities, and the like.
The "Weird" franchise is a beloved franchise, so just being a part of that family will always have a special meaning to me, and the fans of these books are some of the nicest people you can imagine. It's always a thrill to regale them with one of my memories, or specifically to recount one of the tales I wrote that (for legal reasons) were sadly left out of the books at times.
The "Weird" franchise is a beloved franchise, so just being a part of that family will always have a special meaning to me, and the fans of these books are some of the nicest people you can imagine. It's always a thrill to regale them with one of my memories, or specifically to recount one of the tales I wrote that (for legal reasons) were sadly left out of the books at times.
Randy's Donuts in Los Angeles; The quintessential example of programmatic or novelty architecture. - Weird Las Vegas
The fabled Las Vegas, "Neon Boneyard." Now it's a an outdoor museum, with docents and a gift shop, but when I visited it was a bunch of priceless artifacts lying in the dirt behind an easily scalable wire fence. - Weird Las Vegas
Noah Purifoy's Outdoor Desert Art Museum consists of 7.5 acres of open land displaying Purifoy's assemblage sculptures, created between 1989 and 2004. The works themselves are great - as is the decay due to the harsh elements of their desert setting. Resisting the ideologies of institutionalized art, Purifoy proposed to find out what role nature could play in the history of an art piece, arguing that "changes are an integral part of life itself." - Weird Ca.
The Muffler Man and Woman. I don't remember where this is. Guess I'm going to have to reread my own book to find out. - Weird Ca.
Count Smokula. My favorite Borsht Belt, accordian-playing vampire. - Weird Hollywood
More Count Smokula. - Weird Hollywood
Illustration for the Spade Cooley story from Weird Hollywood.
Illustration from the Urban Legends section of Weird Las Vegas.
Illustration for the Davy Jones interview for the Weird Hollywood book.
Photo/Illustration collage I designed for the author page for the Weird Hollywood book.