Victor Cayro

Wow, it's been more than a year and a half and I completely forgot about this blog. A shame, since the number of artists I admire has only increased since then. Let's see if I can get back into the swing of things by finally making the post I promised to make Feburary of last year: Victor Cayro!

The world of underground comics is daunting and intimidating. Similar to music, there's such a vast array of new material out there, it's easy to be overwhelmed. Also, like music, it exists under a multimillion dollar mainstream industry that probably brought you to the medium in the first place, but after so many rehashes and so much commercialism, you're left wanting a bit more. This isn't meant as a stab against Batman, or X-men, and the like, since many of these properties feature gorgeous art, and brilliant stories featuring iconic characters. But sometimes, however, you want to see what else the medium is capable of, which is where I found myself a few years ago. And it was thumbing through the pages of Kramer's Ergot, at the request of my professor, that I discovered Victor Cayro, better known as BALD EAGLES.

Much like the underground comics world, Cayro's art is raw and unapologetic.

There may very well be more lines in the above drawings then in all my works combined up to this point. And it's not a sketchy mess either. Meticulously laying down each line, like an engineer, building a computer from its base circuitry. The visual style serves as an appropriate vessel for his equally labyrinthine storytelling. Long rambling tirades, a hodgepodge of metaphors and references, and a narrative that clicks from incomprehensible to simple once it all clicks, much like his drawings, if you're willing to devote the time and energy into studying.

Finding out more information on Bald Eagles is challenging. His artwork isn't exactly suited for most audiences, and even within the underground community there is strife and rivalry. Even his most recent projects and updates were old when I first considered this entry a year and a half ago, and it seems little has changed. Hopefully, BALD EAGLES is still out there, somewhere, still making his art, and still not giving a damn what anyone has to say about it.

Emroca Flores

Jose Emroca Flores. You most likely know him for this work...

Perhaps the most famous piece from the "I am 8-Bit" collection, and for good reason. Just look at the "?" box glowing with energy. The jagged bricks look solid and real, the magic vine jutting up into the smoggy skies above, the late evening sun still poking holes in the cloudy blankets above. If there's one thing Emroca can do, its atmosphere. I've often heard this piece refereed to as Burton-esque. Hell, I've said it myself. But the more I've researched his portfolio, the more I've learned what a snap judgment I had made on him. It's easy to slap the Burton label on anything with dark foreboding skies, plants with wicked features, and female protagonists with long spindly limbs, but let's look at some of Emroca's other stuff...

Dripping with character.


Notice how, especially in the third piece, Emroca doesn't need to populate his work with activity or characters. Just moody fog, barely masking the vast cityscape in the distance, the lights of the mine cart pierce the drab rainy skies about, an excellent use of contrast against the negative space. Emroca's has woven in alot of design sensibilities into his work. Contrast, negative space, hierarchy, Emroca is every bit a Graphic Designer as he is an Illustrator. He was employed by EA for a time as a graphic artist, but has since moved on to High Moon Studios as Senior Concept Designer.

He has a bit in common with some of the other Californian Illustrators of the past couple of decades. Characters with heavy facial exaggerations twisted with a bit of cynicism (take a look at the cow and the crocodile pics). A subdued earthy color palette, that is only occasionally broken by a soft glowing yellow. Generous applications of deep heavy shadows. Check out Lane Smith and/or Joe Murray for other examples of this Californian style of Illustration (or wait till I'll get to them on my own).

In any case, Emroca, you'll forever be known as the first artist I ever consciously sought out. I regret that our all to brief e-mail correspondence, while pleasant, could not have ended with me declining the invitation to your show (poor college student), but thank you for your time, not just answering my questions, but for helping to light the path of the first few steps when I truly started to learn what style means.

I think next time I'll show off Victor Cayro. Later y'all!