Robert Williams
(Wikipedia citation)
One major influence I had going way back was an L.A. artist who's -gasp- 77 now! His name was Robert Williams, and was featured in a page or two of that thick Underground Comix tome I bought in 1977.
He got his start with art and Hot Rod culture back in the 1960s working for Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth -whose life's output is enough for another email post- down in Los Angeles, doing artistic layouts and some hot-rod t-shirts. Roth himself made a comfortable living while not customizing cars making and selling t-shirts at custom car shows.
Williams' style can be summed up as meticulous, male-perspective, and raw. There's a lot of pop art influences and references to low-rent, sub-par Americana. Anything that came from cheap, humble, tawdry beginnings got thrown into his world and spat out as if coming from a meat grinder.
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