Ross MacDonald
see ross-macdonald.com and Another Perfect Day
Brilliant illustrator, letterpress printer, family man, streetfighter, and now children's book author. Ross is as close as you're gonna get to a true Renaissance man.
James Victore
see jamesvictore.com
"Open 23 Hours"
Omatic Design
see omaticdesign.com
The studio responsible for the illustrations of the shirt outlines we use all over this bleedin' site. You like 'em? Yeah, you should. They cost us $700 each. Over 300 TF staffers, and not one can even draw a stick.
A.G. Rizzoli
see A.G. Rizzoli: Architect of Magnificent Visions
Rizzoli lived his entire life in the house of this mother, who he took care of until her death. Even after that, he continued to sleep in a cot at the foot of her bed. He left the house only for work (as a draftsman) and church. The rest of the time, he worked on a collection of precise architectural renderings that comprised the YTTE (Yield To Total Elation) utopia, many of which were representations of people he knew, especially his mother. He created a world, and few saw it before his death.
Joan Miro
see Fundacio Joan Miro or their retrospective, Joan Miro 1893-1993, or search moma.org
Even his simplest compositions exude so much joy and wonder that it's impossible not to smile. His paintings are like rolling down a grassy hill on a sunny day with no one else around, not caring what time or day it is.
Henry Darger
see Henry Darger: Art and Selected Writings by Michael Bonesteel
If you're gonna do something, do it to death. That's what Darger did with his 15,000 page opus, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, accompanied by many illustrations, some of them 12 feet long and double-sided. No one knew about it while he was alive, and there's no evidence that he cared.
Tom Friedman
see Tom Friedman
Simple ideas using mundane materials executed with obsessive attention to detail, such as signing his name with a blue ballpoint pen repeatedly in a perfect inward spiral until it runs out of ink.
Jim Woodring
see The Book of Jim and jimwoodring.com
Pavel Tchelitchew
specifically, see Hide and Seek, Phenomena, and Fata Morgana
You can find mediocre reproductions of his magnificent paintings in a less-than-mediocre biography titled The Divine Comedy of Pavel Tchelitchew by Parker Tyler. (It reads like it was written by a snotty Englishman who wore his silk top hat and monocle even at the typewriter.) Psychedelic art wishes it could be this evocative, but these were all created around the 1930s and 40s, for the love of god! I first saw Hide and Seek in full 78"x84" form at the Museum of Modern Art during one part of an exhibition called Making Choices. Returning another day and seeing it nowhere, I asked a wandering docent where it was. After informing me the painting had been removed to storage for the second part of the exhibition, he added that it was a favorite among the security guards and SMIRKED. So what? What's that smirk mean, you elitist fuck? Sadly, it's now no one's favorite because it's only on display inside the seven-foot asshole of a smug docent who used to work at the MoMA. The security guards and I think that's really funny. Funny enough to bring a smirk to our faces.
Mark Ryden
see Anima Mundi and markryden.com
Oooooooohhhhhh, it KILLS us - stabs the collective Torso Fever heart - that he recently collaborated with Paul Frank! Oh! Cute 70s-style iconography on a cute bag! Oh! That's so, er, cute! I love it! You know what else I love? Dead hipsters! Paul Frank is the reason knives are mandatory when travelling outside the TF compound. His head in a box gets you a free set of all Torso Fever shirts (please include your choice of colors and size with the head).
Okay, you wanna know the partics on our rabid anti-Paul Frankness? Remember, you asked... Basically, we hate his design because it is absolutely palatable. It is so inoffensive, so utterly insipid, that it might as well not exist at all. And that is where the appeal lies for fans of Paul Frank. The total lack of inherent character in his work provokes subconscious projections from the viewer, thereby personalizing what is otherwise meaningless and dead, and creating personal value. It says nothing, so it can say anything; hence its universal appeal. That appeal allows the survival of moronic slogans like, "I'm a weenie... dog, that is!" because the whole brand is already accepted as valid or hip so its offspring receive the same classification by default since their vapidness defies any differentiation from the remaining body on the basis of individual variation, because there is none. There is no attempt at cleverness, charm, affront, beauty, or wit. There is nothing. It's crap. It's the worst kind of crap, because it aspires to be nothing, and it should burn.
Hey, man, you asked.
