soft porn

Alec Marshall asked me a few months ago to draw a cover for the cassette split single of Hot Palms and Lehmann B Smith covering two Pip Proud songs. 'Hey Gus' was Pip's first single, but it was released about thirty years after he started making records, he was an albums artist in the sixties. 'Sleeping Jane' is, in my memory, either a 60s/70s lyric he wrote music for in the 90s, or a 60s/70s song he recorded for the first time in the 90s.

The cover versions are amazingly good.

I did a lot of drawings in the white spaces of the most recent issue received of the New Yorker. It's weird how if you don't draw for a while you need to do it before you are reminded why you like doing it. This is a soft porn drawing in recognition of Pip's saucy side. He would have been very into it, I suspect (I am not like Robert Crumb, I don't draw my fantasies, OK). The semi-circle and the accidental text are from an ad. I spent a lot of time looking at the ad and I can't really figure out what it's for.

The single will be out in April. (NB Jane is the slender girl in the bath. The semi circle is God, who is referenced quite a bit in 'Hey Gus').

(A few days later: Now I'm not sure I even really like this. It was inspired as I said by Pip's earthier side and I have to say that was not my favourite of his sides. On the one hand, I'm tempted to scrap it and do something else, though I'm also tempted to try and expand the scenario somewhat. As it stands it is the most sexless potential-sex-scene I can imagine. By 'expand the scenario' I mean perhaps add some more images to give it more dimension as a 'story'. But am I overthinking. Yes)