Pseudo Hobo Boho

This is a drawing of Tom Waits that was published in a rock 'zine called THE VILLAGE NOIZE back in the 90s. For a period of time I had a one page comic in every issue for about 5 or 6 issues. The 'zine was a labor of love by its editor and came out irregularly, maybe twice a year, at most. It did appear on select newstands around NYC, and on the magazine shelf at Tower Books. I had drawn a portrait of Waits in my sketchbook, strictly as a portrait exercise, as I have never liked Waits' work. From the first time I heard and saw him, he struck me as someone aping the vocal mannerisms and dress of older black jazz hepcats, along with a heaping of faux-hobo-isms. It all seemed very self-conscious. I like Captain Beefheart very much, a similar vocalist (of very different music), in that his singing is very a pastiche of Howlin' Wolf's style. However, Beefheart was able to incorporate Wolf's timbre and mannerisms into his own singing and produce something genuine to him. With Waits, I've never NOT heard his singing as mere mimicry of his betters. Beyond that, it seems maudlin and caricatured, just a form of minstrelsy. My title for this post expresses my feelings about Waits.

In any case, the editor of THE VILLAGE NOIZE was doing an article on Waits and he asked me if I could provide a drawing to accompany the article. At first I thought I would draw a brand new portrait, but I hit upon the idea of making a copy of the sketchbook head portrait, and pasting it onto a separate new drawing of the upper half of a male torso in black leather...and so, voila! For the backdrop, I photocopied a black and white photo of the Manhattan skyline a few times to make it more graphic black and white, and I pasted that behind the figure in the foreground. This was all done by hand, as I did not have Photoshop, or even a computer, at the time I drew this. The head and leather jacket are drawn with a black Prismacolor pencil; the striped t-shirt was achieved by laying down strips of Liquid Friskit, which dries to a rubbery consistency, and then spattering ink with a tooth brush over the area. When the ink dried, I rubbed the dried, rubbery Liquid Friskit off the paper, and underneath those areas remained white. I think the end result is reasonably successful.