Nobody's Lunch

Illustration, Work

The Civilians — an interesting New York-based independent theater company — contacted me about collaborating with them earlier this year. Their mission is to “develop original projects based in the creative investigation of actual experience.” Right up my alley. I’m working on a two-pager comix adaptation of a monologue from a previous show, Gone Missing, which I gather was well-attended and critically acclaimed. I hope to post that collaboration soon.

In the meantime, Civilians artistic director Steve Cossen asked me to draw the announcement card for their next show, (I am) Nobody’s Lunch (A Cabaret About How We Know What We Know When Nobody Knows if Everyone Else is Lying and When Someone or Something Wants to Have You for Lunch). Whew! (The show will run Jan. 19 – Feb. 6 at 59E59 in NYC before moving on to Philly and Cambridge, MA.)

As Steve put it, “The show is about the floating fear and paranoia in post 9/11-America, and that while the show’s subject is dark, our approach is eccentric and well, funny… So as our main marketing piece, the card should encourage someone to come have a good time watching a show about bad things. Basically — creepy in a fun way.” And then he mentioned that he wanted the card to feature a suspicious package, and a bartender who turns into lizard. (That’s a theme of the play, which I read and is AMAZING.) No problem! Oh, and the card is almost a foot long (and, yes, it’s supposed to be cut off like that.)

So here’s what I came up with:

Nobody's Lunch

10 thoughts on “Nobody's Lunch

        1. Icky!
          YES!!! Icke is one of the “characters” in the play! So this kooky guy is a well-known kooky guy?
          Anyway, the lizard thing is just part of the production. There’s also a “remote viewer,” an invisible extraterrestrial, and real interviews with (among other) everyone named Jessica Lynch in the phone book

    1. thanks! ya know, i colored it at first entirely in light and dark green, but it just wasn’t coming alive.
      then this brilliant idea struck me to pick out certain details in white. that really made the card sing.
      i am such a genius!!!

      1. Josh is indeed the BESTEST
        Hi – Steve here, author of said show – just ran into this online and must agree that Josh is indeed super brilliant illustrator extraordinaire. We’ve just come back from workshopping the show with the Sundance Theatre Lab and sadly we’ve cut David Icke from the piece… though we miss him dearly. We do have a song in Arabic about giant lizard men however, so the lizard leitmotif is still valid. And it is still a good idea never to take a drink from a reptilian bartender.

        1. Re: Josh is indeed the BESTEST
          Thanks, Steve!
          Just so you don’t think I’m an ass, that comment about me being a genius was a shout-out to my buddy Dean Haspiel, who suggested I add the white highlights to pick out key parts of the illo.
          Sad to see the Icke stuff go, but at least you kept one lizard reference…
          Can’t wait to see the show!

  1. kitchen confidential
    I got this in the mail! Knew whose it was immediately. Hung it where I can see it when the morning coffee is made. The bartender is strangely comforting to me…
    (btw, a flood of backlogged LJ posts coming soon)

    1. Re: kitchen confidential
      so cool! i haven’t even seen the card yet myself. but sari & i are going to the premiere of the show friday night. i can’t wait.
      (i also can’t wait to see some more posts from you)

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