Pittsburgh City Paper art director Lisa Cunningham was willing to overlook the fact that I'd never been to Pennsylvania and hired me to illustrate a cover featuring a spoof on the immensely popular video game Grand Theft Auto.
The story was about Pittsburgh trying to encourage video game companies to set up shop in steel town and hold on to the few that were already there.
I was asked to draw
1.) the Pittsburgh TV news helicopter
2.) a big haired beer swigging bikini girl (try saying that fast five times)
3.) a kid doing a "wheelie" on a bicycle (do they call it that anymore?)
4.) a car forced to make a detour (apparently there was an excess of road work being done in Pittsburgh)
5.) a mullet haired Steelers fan
6.) the local sightseeing ferryboat
7.) an old "punk" lady
8.) a couple with matching sunglasses, and
9.) a police wheel boot. Careful where you park once you've made that detour, pal!
Each image was drawn separately (ink on paper), scanned and colored in Photoshop, then pasted into the framework I created based on other Grand Theft Auto ads. Lisa added the CP logo and additional lettering.
Not only was I allotted just four days to do this cover, I did it while I had the flu.