Tilteed

Artist Interview: gimetzco

Curator’s Statement:

When I was a child, I went to see monster trucks a couple times. It was alright, but in retrospect, I would have much preferred monstrous lizard jumping. You know you agree.

Hey there, Gimetzco! We know you’re awesome enough to warrant an exclamation point, but besides that, tell us a little about yourself.

I’m 6’4”. I have HUGE hands. I lived in Europe until I was ten years old, but was born in Florida. I know karate. I love genre cinema (think Grindhouse & drive-in with a little less sleaze). I have a fake band called STATION! with my best pal (but it’s real on the internet). We make songs about GENRE CINEMA!!!! I really love poster artwork from the 50s to the 80s (...the 90s posters got lame) so you’ll see that I emulate some of those kinds of designs from time to time.

Much of your work has a definite comic-book feel to it. Were/are you a big comic fan, and what are some of your favorite titles?

I cut my teeth with comics and my mom’s old sketch instruction books. The Comics were as follows: Archies, Smurfs & an occasional Batman or G.I.Joe or Marvel Presents. Of those that I read the most were the Archies digests. All of those were in the 70s and 80s. In the 90s I got into Ren & Stimpy and later I was way into Madman & a little bit of Hellboy. To be honest, was never heavily saturated with comics. I never became a fanboy. I have, however, recently dove headfirst into all things Tank Girl. I i love stuff by Philip Bond, Rufus Dayglo, Jamie Hewlett…pretty much all of the Tank Girl gang.

If your art is like a comic, your lead hero is clearly the Yeticorn. Tell us a little bit about his origins.

Yeti-C is mythical, or at very least, legendary like his cousin Big Foot et al.  So really there’s no actual origin. He Simply exists. He runs with the Cryptid Crew and they have various adventures that often don’t relate from one to the next. If i had a comic or tv show featuring the Cryptid Crew, it’d be much like Ren & Stimpy in that from one episode to the next they could be or do anything; Astronauts, super spies, sleuths or what have you. Anything goes! but the two main ingredients! FUN! & ADVENTURE!

Outside of tee design, what is your art life like? Have you had any particularly awesome clients?

I’ve worked for a few bands here and there, Weezer (green), Phantom planet, Reel Big Fish. stuff like that. I often work for those free weekly magazines, namely the Kansas City Pitch. I’ve had my work featured in a couple of gallery shows. The kind folks at Journeys like my stuff as well. I recently designed a poster using ZERO illustrations for director Chris Young (he was an actor as a young man; he was in the Great Outdoors, Max Headroom & PCU).

Lizard Jumping is pretty extreme. What is your favorite extreme sport, real or not-yet-real-because-people-are-wimps?

Well, since I didn’t grow up in the States. I missed out on all those Evel Knievel style stunt shows. I’d like to see more of that. none of the X-games jerky attitude stunt shows. I’m also rather fond of Parkour, that stuff is CRAZY!

For your new fans: where can one go to get their fill of more Gimetzco work and information?

http://www.gimetzco.com
http://gimetzco.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/gimetzco
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gimetzco/101895893838
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gimetzco/
http://www.society6.com/studio/gimetzco/store
my fake band:
http://stationexclamation.bandcamp.com/album/fantastic-cinematic

Anything else you’d like to say?

As a freelance illustrator & graphic designer, I am FOR-EV-ER grateful for any support for what I do. Especially grateful for the support of purchases made. For realz, it helps put food on my feet and shoes on my table!