Nothing but Star Wars...

For the Twentieth Anniversary of the first Star Wars trilogy, I was hired by Parham Santana Agency 

to create cartoon portraits of the various iconic characters and spacecraft, which appeared internationally on bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew. It amazes me 

that this happened nearly twenty years ago, but that's time for you.

 Longtime Tooks Family friend, Chief Osceola Townsend of the Matinecock Tribal Nation of Queens and Long Island, NY tipped off a reporter at New York Newsday about my involvement in the project, and the newspaper sent a photographer to snap my photo in our local Key Food Supermarket in front of several rows of two liter soda bottles, then sent journalist Collin Nash to interview me in my home.

 Here are a few of the finished bottles, complete with agency, client and art director's notes. It was a fun project to work on, and it paid well too. All images copyright Lucasfilm and Pepsico.

 And here, never before shared publicly, are the full set of my drawings for the project. They went with three images for the final labels, but there were quite a few other images sold. The various ships and crafts were practically traced from the Star Wars stylebook, as per the client's instructions, with little embellishments of my own. I share those too in the interest of completeness, which as you can 

probably imagine, is a requirement to participate fully in the Tribal Nation of Star Wars Nerd-dom.

 Happy Holidays fellow travelers, from Lance Tooks

Now Showing in Italy and Spain...

My Madrid Show at Bar El Fin Del Mundo (in Lavapies) is up until November 15th, so stop by if you're in the neighborhood! Here some pictures of the  IMF Foundation's Jazz & Comics Exhibition, held last weekend in Bari, Italy! 

I'm sorry I was unable to attend, but I'm appreciative of the warm reception my art was given, and I'm grateful for having been asked to participate!

Here's a recent piece written about my old friend NARCISSA by Len Webb of Black Tribbles Radio fame.

Editor of that same Graphic Novel NARCISSA, Deborah Cowell is no stranger to the world of published fiction, having also acquired for Doubleday Books and edited key works by Jason Little, Jonathan Lethem and Will Eisner. I'm thrilled to reunite with her at WATER and LIME, an online literary magazine at MEDIUM.

Please enjoy the introductory chapter of SHALOM: Love in the Time of Homeland Security.

Hope 2015 has been a productive year for you!

Lance Tooks

A Virtual Tour of the October 2015 Lance Tooks Art Exposition...

Get ready for a staggering number of amazing photos of my latest art show at the magnificent Taberna Fin Del Mundo on Calle Doctor Fourquet 28 in Madrid, Spain! It runs the entire month of October, with a closing Halloween Party at the end of the month, so I urge you to stop by and take part! All Prints are for sale at 200 euros a piece, 150 each if you buy more than one. Also on sale is the Spanish language version of NARCISSA for only 10 euros a pop! These pictures should vividly convey what it was like for all who attended (you have my deepest thanks, of course) and a good time was truly had by all. As always, I'll keep the chatter to a minimum... suffice it to say that I took all the photos myself, with the exception of any that appear at all professional... those were shot by my dear friend Sabrina Zanardini!

Half of the pieces on display are new ones, not featured in my April - June shows at Bar Donde Chelo earlier in the year. Sergio Rivas at Amarillo Pollo did the usual beautiful job turning my illustrations into posters,

 and I laid them out on my sofa same as last time to give them one last look before hanging.

And now, see for yourself... Taberna Fin Del Mundo is one of my favorite bars in Madrid, and I passed many an hour sketching there, creating work that would eventually find its way into a host of comics projects over the last half dozen years. Thanks to Carlos, the host with the most, for all of the help and encouragement over the years. I'm honored to show my work in his bar, after all, so much of my art has been inspired by the comfortable setting and lively clientele! Scroll freely through the photos... perhaps you'll see someone you know! 

Thanks to all who came for making the event a rousing success!

Perhaps it's nostalgia, but I've been doing more than a few superheroine drawings of late! It's a nice change from my current project, the long germinating Thelonious Monk biography for Duke University Press, and I've been getting a bit of a kick out of the switch. I have another Art Exhibition coming up the last weekend in October, in of all wonderful places, the town of Bari, Italy... if you're in town I urge you to stop by for their festival of Jazz and Comics... it features my work on MONK, images from my graphic novel NARCISSA and art from LUCIFER'S GARDEN OF VERSES VOL. 4, BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND MILES DAVIS, as well as live music and the best Italian food! Perhaps I'll see you there!

As always, thanks for stopping by... hasta muy pronto!

Lance Tooks