Bad Asses

I recently got a fat pack of books from the folks over at Blue-Q, a company mostly known for making bacon air-fresheners and magnets of cats' butts. They have launched a pretty wide line of small-in-size art and photography books that range in price from $4 to $8 each. Not bad. Just at a glance it was easy to see that Mark Todd's Bad Asses was the cream of the crop.

Originally self-published as photocopied, 14-page zines (called Bad Ass's), this 104-page masterpiece is printed in black with red and brown highlights and shadows. The only thing soft about this book is the cover. It features portraits of heavy dudes, chicks, and cars from television, film, comics, music, and sports (well, ok, pro wrestling). Each drawing is accompanied by a little bit of text somehow relating to the subject.

Quickly, off the top of your head, think of a Bad Ass...
Chuck Norris - he's here. Pam Grier - she's in there. Rambo - right there. Jo from the Facts of Life - no problem. Darth Vader - yup. Johnny Cash - page one, motherfucker.
Almost all of your favorites are here: Bigfoot (the monster truck, not the creature), Mr. T, Skeletor, Lita Ford, Robocop, the Batmobile, Bruce Lee, Wonder Woman, Miss Piggy, and the DeLorean from Back to the Future.

If you are looking for spot-on renderings and anatomical correctness, you should get as far away from this book as possible. Mark Todd has created a very successful illustration career from "drawing badly" and this book highlights the charm and hilarity created from crude likenesses. Strangely, the selections within "Bad Ass Rides" are pretty well drawn. I find cars hard to draw so this kinda surprised me a bit.

What sets this publication atop the huge, huge pile of crudely drawn artworks (so hot right now) is the little tidbits of writing to go with each Bad Ass. Sometime they are simple descriptions or quotes from the films that feature each characters, and other times they are little personal anecdotes from Mark Todd's interaction with the character. Such as the first time he heard a Blondie song (to go with Bad Ass Debbie Harry), or how he used the cape from his Darth Vader costume as a kid to dress up as Dracula the next year.
Even better are Mark's opinionated commentary on some of the featured characters, such as labelling the Flying Monkeys from the Wizard of Oz as "total assholes". Or writing of K.I.T.T. (the car from Knight Rider), "That voice was kind of annoying. So smug. 'Michael' this, 'Michael' that."

So, yeah, Mark Todd's book, Bad Asses, is, well, bad ass.


Links: Mark Todd's Website - order the original zines here - order the book on Amazon here