GROSS ANATOMY (part 23)

Plague Log May 2, 2020: I'm gonna hide this GROSS ANATOMY post when I finish. If none of us make it, at least they'll be some kind of record. If you are reading this, it means the pandemic has come to the world as prophesied. Humanity has been forced underground into total social isolation. Nobody trusts anybody now. Before the plague, my brothers in AUTOPSY called and asked me to design their 2020 world tour shirt. This is my fifth shirt for Autopsy. It was to accompany them for all of their 2020 appearances, including our highly anticipated Halloween show here in Portland, Oregon that it appears may need to be pushed way back now. Only time will tell. My artistic direction was Chris Reifert's perfect nomenclature for this string of dates: Blood on the Scythe. I immediately had a vision of Death gleefully fucking the world and having the last laugh, as Death always does. I had no idea when I drew this over one hectic weekend in February just how eerily appropriate this image would become a few weeks later when the world was plunged into total global panic. Or maybe somehow I felt this coming? Long live death. FTW.

As always, it begins with a very primitive scribble that contains the essence of the symmetry I am intuitively moving towards. 

I wanted four bells on the scythe to represent Chris, Eric, Danny and Joe.

Once the pencils are tight enough to see where the hell I'm going, it's time for ink.

Drop the logo on and it is time to print!

These shirts were printed by my good friend Adam Rooster at Nightgaunt Graphics, who does all of Autopsy's shirts (along with the only official Discharge and Amebix shirts in the world!), and he did a damn fine job as always. Proud to have this one emblazoned across my chest, and, well, now it is destined to become something of a collectors item since it sold out at their wild Chicago show on Saturday March 7, just days before a national state of emergency was declared and most of the country (world!) was ordered to shelter-in-place to one degree or another. You can get yours directly from the band's online store HERE while supplies last! Let's hope we "flatten the curve," so live music can return someday, hopefully sooner than later. Until that day, remember...

HEAVY METAL IS THE LAW. 
PHYSICAL DISTANCING IS ADVISED.