For this “Artist Statement” series, I share the influences and decisions behind the artwork in Fashionably Late Takes.
Earlier this month,
released the final chapter of his serialized novel Henchman, which I had the joy of illustrating. It's a satire of some of my favorite stories — James Bond, Indiana Jones, John Wick, Flash Gordon — told from the perspective of an introspective henchman named Banx Mulvaney. The story begins with Banx reflecting, “So many of my friends are dead.”When you meet Banx in the cover art, he's posed like Auguste Rodin's The Thinker, surrounded by the still-warm bodies of his vanquished friends. Behind him, a nuclear missile sits ready on a launch pad beside a glowing control panel, and a femme fatale gazes down at the sad scene from a suspended walkway. Banx is hopelessly in love with her, but no mere henchman gets the Bond girl.
These three elements — the dead and disposable henchmen that Banx mourns, the career in villainy that he takes pride in perfecting, the unrequited love that haunts his hopes — are the preoccupations that motivate Banx throughout the novel. The cover art is like a large thought bubble that introduces readers to the mind of our protagonist.
