The Village Voice: 2012 Year in Review

The Village Voice is the great-grandaddy of alt-newsweeklies. As you can imagine, I was super-pumped to work for them! 

The job was to do a series of illustrations depicting various entertainment highlights of 2012. Starring in those highlights was the inimitable Michael Musto, who has written for the magazine since 1984. Musto is famous for his "year in review" pieces, where he dresses as various celebrities and graces the cover and inside pages of The Village Voice -- often quite gloriously in immaculate drag. 

So I got to do a bunch of portraits of Michael Musto as the Queen, Mitt Romney, Alfred Hitchcock and Honey Boo-boo, not to mention Gandalf, Bilbo, and a pair of adventurous dwarves! Too much fun. 

Here are a few, when they appeared on the Village Voice's site: One and two!

Firstly there's Musto as the Queen, as seen on one of those lovely commemorative plates. Complete with doily. And deliriously happy corgi. I love corgis.

Next, there's...

Musto as Romney, choking the feathers out of Big Bird as BB tries to hawk some PBS mugs and tote bags!

And then there's...

Musto as Hitchcock, enjoying some bath-time.

Followed by...

Musto as Honey Boo-boo, mischievously spiking the party punch with that deadliest of deadly cocktails: Mountain Dew and Red Bull. Go-go juice, indeed! I enjoyed making Musto's face plump and doll-like, sort of like a Cabbage Patch Kid. Or Chucky.

We conclude with:

Musto as Gandalf, Bilbo, and two dwarves. I love the creepiness of having his face on all the characters, and having them all looking at the viewer. And we all know that I never pass up the chance to draw food! The art director's favourite Musto of them all was Gandalf-Musto!

Sketches:

Hope you like them!

-- Julia

Portfolio site