People’s cluelessness about what goods are worth to them makes them vulnerable to what behavioral economists call “anchoring.” As every luxury retailer knows, an anchor is a high-priced product that may never sell but “makes everything else look affordable by comparison.”

And this is the result:

Here are some of the concept sketches I came up with, followed by the final image:

The final choice fell on this close up composition where an anonymous voyeur is carefully watching a dish from behind a keyhole. The AD wanted two smaller illustrations to follow up which will describe different moments and places in this obscure space where food lurks. Here’s the result:

This is the solution I came up with which worked immediately for the art director and editors. It’s always nice when things move smoothly from sketch to finish:

In other news, I’m spending this month in the northwest – south of Seattle, part of the benefits of having your work be portable is that you can go live somewhere else for a bit and not have to give up assignments. Can’t say it’s anything like Brooklyn here and I don’t especially miss the busses and trucks screeching under my apartment…
This is the view from my window:

In other news, my comic ‘Antoinette’ has been featured in the new ‘Best American Comics 2009′ edited by Charles Burns. This is a very big honor for me, seeing that some of my favorite cartoonists are included in the book: R. Crumb, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware and many others! I haven’t read the whole thing yet since I only got it yesterday in the mail; overall though it looks like a pretty good collection, so check it out if your in the local book store.

Also in other news, several of my illustrations are featured in the new and fantastic looking Illustration Now 3 from Taschen. I used to spend many hours looking at Taschen art book as a kid, and still have some on my shelf back home – so it’s pretty exciting to have work in one of their books. I think this one is not yet in stores in the US but keep an eye for it anyhow.

I was asked by the Design Director of Runner’s World magazine to illustrate the main article for their September issue. The article dealt with advice for runners that is counter to the norm, and reflect an uncommon approach for anything from training to the kind of shoes that runners should use. This article, divided into sub sections for different advice, is a prime example of a place where illustration works and photography wouldn’t. I decided to go for a conceptual solution that would exemplify the ‘road less ventured’. the main image showing a landscape with giant megaphones emitting advice, while our runner finds his own hidden and quiet source of knowledge. The other illustrations present more simplified conceptual solutions.

(Note the cool design which compliments the illustration by Desgin Director Kory Kennedy)

Here’s the main illustration and a few samples of the other images I made.

And in other news, I have a new book out in italy: ‘Anatomia Del Desiderio’ or- Anatomy of Desire. This book is a mish mash of old and new work. If you happen to be in italy look it up in the local comic book store.