Author: ellen

How to make Oscar less grouchy (who knew?):

I’m assuming Twisted Sister wouldn’t mind that I turned their logo into a pussy.

When I had a show of my Big Paintings of Sexy Women at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival a few years ago, Audra approached me to do a similar portrait of her. Voila! It’s 3′ x 4′ (very big on the Ellen Forney scale) and 3″ deep (it’s a wooden structure and sticks out from the wall). The one I did of my friend Janet is on my COMMISSIONS page.

I used real lipstick to write the text (and it smeared all over my scanner, of course).

A few years ago, I started a sketch of my friend Janet on her Vespa, but never finished it… until now! Lo, an “exhibition of scooter themed pin-up art” is going up next week, and though this cutie doesn’t look like Janet anymore, hopefully she’ll still rate as one of the:

KICKSTART KUTIES

Opening September 30, 2006, 7pm

Cafe Racer, 5828 Roosevelt Way, Seattle

Including work from me, Jim Woodring, Krysztof Nemeth, David Lasky, Matt Rodriguez, and more!

Here’s my Kickstart Kutie (the original is ink and gouache on paper):

I lo-o-ove working on my car (silver ’68 Cougar, 302). I love tools. I tried to get the curves and angles of the wrenches just right on this one.

Dude, what a show!! It was already sold out Thursday morning!

The show started out with Sarah Rudinoff and Christopher Frizzelle doing a genius, hilarious dance routine to Stairway to Heaven, including invoking an awkward school dance, freaked-out air guitar-playing, and crowd surfing. Then Miss Indigo Blue‘s first number, her charming Wonder Woman routine.

Next up, my multimedia performance: me narrating from stage-right in front of video adaptations of four of my comics: “The Final Soundtrack” (a fantasy about death, glamour, and Led Zeppelin), “Seattle’s Erotic Landmarks,” “My Date With Camille Paglia,” and “How to Be a Fabulous Fag Hag” (based on an interview with Margaret Cho). My genius animator friend Matt Rodriguez of Plexipixel put together the eye-poppin’ visuals and ear-smackin’ audio. I wore a full-length sparkling gown, and I was VERY excited to finally wear my new Fluevogs.

Then oh my god, people are still talking about this: Miss Indigo Blue did a new routine to The Lemon Song, and it was fucking brilliant. She started out in a Sunday-finest yellow dress, hat, and heels, with a table of lemons, a pitcher with lemon slices, and some stemmed glasses. Before long she was down to her heels, panties, and tasseled pasties, squeezing lemons down her front (and natch, down her leg) and catching the juice in glasses, delicately adding sugar water from the pitcher, and serving the lemonade to enthusiastic audience members. Then she took the pitcher and – will she really do it? – poured the lemonade all over herself and in her hair! And then! when the music got high energy at the end, she yanked off her heels, flung them across the stage, and stomped around barefoot in the big puddle on the stage and whipped her wet hair around in a big arc, and twirled her tassels furiously. And the song ended, and she retrieved her shoes and tipped them to her mouth, smiled at the audience, and strolled offstage. I was in the booth at that point and I was just howling.

And then I thanked our sponsors (Fantagraphics Books, Gary Groth, Kim Thompson, and Eric Reynolds; The Stranger, Caroline Dodge, Mike Nipper, and Kelly O; Miller Beer, Kerri Harrop; Vera Project; Plexipixel), Northwest Film Forum, Adam Sekuler and Nick Vroman; my co-producer Larry Reid, and all the performers; and then introduced the totally entertaining Zeppelin tribute band, No Quarter. And No Quarter played, and everyone hung out in the lobby and drank beer, and Nipper deejayed, and Eric sold books and I signed them, and Indigo Blue sold panties and pasties, and it was good vibes all around.

Some photos Kelly O took of the party after the show:

Signing. (No, I do not write “Keep on rockin’!” in people’s books.)

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Eric Reynolds, money, beer, merch.

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With Adam Sekuler, Northwest Film Forum’s Program Director (in velvet!)

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Miss Indigo Blue (hair still wet from pouring lemonade all over herself). I drew her logo, it’s in the introduction of my book.

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She brought me a present, a pineapple sugar bowl. She found it in Provincetown. It matches my pineapple teapot.

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New shoes.

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Larry Reid, my co-producer.

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Mike Nipper was a very groovy DJ, made a very groovy party.

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The stairs to Nipper’s DJ perch, with Holly and Dre. Rock, paper… hey, that’s not scissors!

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Nipper-eye view

Here’s another classic! How many phallic symbols can you count on this garden gnome? Tee hee, mushrooms; tee hee, finger in the air. But really… how do you masturbate on a garden gnome?

My hair stylist Michael got tickets from a music industry client and took me to see Devo last night at the Paramount. It was a totally awesome concert and the band was hyped up and looked like they were having a great time. It made me think of my best friend in high school and that I really have to get in touch with her, and that it’s fine to retread old material if it’s good and you can do it well. Michael and I were both dancing in our seats.

My friend Shawn Wolfe knows the bassist, Jerry Casale, and I got to join them afterwards for drinks and food. Big long table and I was all the way at the opposite end, but I ambled over and shook his hand, and told him that I saw Devo when I was in high school and he yelled at and then spit on someone in the audience. This cherished experience had given me punk cred in my own bookish/artsy mind, but he insisted that it wasn’t him, that it was probably Bob Mothersbaugh. No matter. We chatted about art.

I gave him a postcard for my upcoming I Love Led Zeppelin show (“here’s what my work looks like”), which has my “Slitlicker” graphic where the postage stamp goes, which he thought was amusing:

which is why we look like this in the inevitable photo session at the end of the evening:

Some Kama Sutra sideways thing from me there, I don’t know. His turban is on account of his current Jihad Jerry persona, involving his new blog and CD and abundant political ranting.

I used to love these phones. I found one on eBay for a photo reference and was half-tempted to buy it, but I can’t imagine using a phone with a cord anymore. You know?