Rich Black

Rich Black

“I have yet to get a reli­able answer from Rich about his draw­ing tech­niques,” Ewing writes. “He guards those secrets like it was a mat­ter of national secu­rity. What I do know is that he uses an updated ver­sion of Adobe Illus­tra­tor and draws mostly on the com­puter over a pen­cil sketch with one of those round mice that came with the first iMac com­put­ers. The kind that gives you arthri­tis after ten min­utes and leaves your hand shriv­eled and gnarled like a mojo mon­key paw that one has one wish left on it.”

In a 2005 inter­view with 86 Mag­a­zine, Black said he began work­ing in the “gig art mar­ket” in 2000. He rides a vin­tage scooter — a ’79 P-200 — with the Pharoahs, and notes that “inspi­ra­tion can come from any­where as any artist can tell you; from meet­ing a girl with great style at a party who would make a good pin-up, or look­ing through mag­a­zines and pho­tos, or from other artist’s work.”

At the back of L’Art de R.Black (which costs only $19.95, and that includes the 3-D glasses), Black’s list of major artis­tic influ­ences includes Michelan­gelo, Chuck Jones, Picasso, Berke Breathed, Audrey Beard­s­ley and Kazu Kibuishi.