Two paintings will be going out to Gallery 1988 very soon. I'm sitting on this one for the moment to see if anything else needs resolved that I'm not seeing right now. It's gouache on heavy watercolor paper. There are a few in-jokes. I remember when the X-Files started getting more absurd and humorous at times. One o the surprising episodes was the alien  in the Hawaiian shirt that would talk to Mulder when he would be in a somewhat dreamlike state. Up to that point the aliens had been treated in a realistic manner that was a threat or an unknown thing we should be serious about for many seasons. Then one time this alien appears and I think he's introduced as "Bob" or something. I think it was a reference to an abductee's tale that was making the rounds of the UFO junkies in the mid 90's. I don't know if "UFO Junkie" is the official name of that group. Maybe UFO enthusiasts? Regardless, it made an impression on me when I saw it.

The title of this image is, "It's Yours"... For the moment. I sort of want to reference the idea that most alien abduction stories tend to involve magically winding up on a cold metal table (on a space ship?), aliens with scary medical looking tools bending over them, telekinesis calming their minds as they are afraid over the fact they are paralyzed and confused. Later, they realize they are missing time and the pieces they remember are scary and involved some unwanted surgery or pregnancy.

I was playing on the idea that to them, humans all look the same. Much like we would probably say the same about the aliens. So of course when they operate on humans they might mix up a head or two when putting them back on the body.

Just a couple of stuffs.  Here is my Ran Xerox and a bit of what I said on my commercial art site.

"This is a sci-fi illustration. The bg is totally up to me. I wanted enough information in it to put the figures in context. I was riffing off of one of my favorite artists I looked at in Heavy Metal mag. in the 80's, Tanino Liberatore. He always drew/painted Ran Xerox. Being the early 80's and I lived in a small town with not much art scene, let alone European comics scene, no one had any idea who he was or what else he had done. Then I saw a Frank Zappa album in a record store, "The Man From Utopia". Even in my early high school naivete in art I recognized his style. I didn't know much about Frank Zappa but I purchased the record immediately just for the art. I ended up getting several more Zappa albums over the years, but "Man From Utopia" was my first and probably my favorite. Especially since it was weird enough to aggravate my parents!"