Nick Marino

I started using this garish image as my user icon around the web this week. But I'm not exactly sure how to explain what's going on here.

If I were to describe it based upon my original drawing, I guess I'd say "a squid getting stabbed through the head by a very liberal interpretation Aquaman's freakish hook hand."

But I'm not really sure that description properly captures the effect of this cropped image, one which eliminates both Aquaman and the tentacles of the squid. Not to mention that the squid is orange and the background is pink, thus altering the meaning of both the creature and the setting.

So I dunno what to say about this cartoon other than "I like it." If you can think of a better way to describe it, lemme know!

Originally drawn for Sequential Underground's Strip Club v1.

Here's a doodle of mine that was nearly lost to time:

I drew this back in 2006, when I first started dating Justique. She dug the Harry Potter books, and I wanted to sketch something that'd be familiar to her.

So I fused my love of antiquated, macho, gun-toting action heroes with her love of magical, modern, sensitive teen heroes... and voila! Arnold meets Radcliffe to birth a "Badass Bloodbath."

Justique unearthed this gem the other day when she was flipping through one of her old journals. And, as you can see, the ink from my Paper Mate Flair pen has bled a little bit, giving the drawing a nice extra sloppy effect in places.

Share this on: Facebook -- Tumblr -- deviantART -- Flickr -- Google+

When I thought both my first and second 500th Twitter followers ignored my offer of a personalized sketch, I decided to contact a third person -- someone who was already following the Super Haters on Twitter.

See, Lisa-Marie Wilson (@upsetapplecart) had expressed regret that she was already following me because she wanted a combination animal sketch too. So who better than to make my honorary 500th follower?

She requested an echidna tortoise, which is a brilliantly crazy combination. Her request was the first time I'd ever heard of an echidna, and it took me several tries to get this sketch right.

Anyway, suffice to say that I was all sketched out after this. So when I gained my 600th follower a week ago, I offered them a non-art related prize. However, I'm sure I'll be back to sketching by the time I hit 700. Stay tuned for the results!!!

ALSO:
Echidna Tortoise on Twitter
Echidna Tortoise on Tumblr
Echidna Tortoise on deviantART
Echidna Tortoise on Flickr

Last time, I explained how I ended up drawing three different combination animals for my three 500th Super Haters Twitter followers.

There isn't too much of a story behind this sketch -- when I thought my first 500th follower didn't reply to my sketch offer, I contacted a second person (who had literally become my new 500th follower... I assume someone unfollowed me).

And just like my previous 500th follower, Stafford Huyler sent me his request for a Duck Cat Horse as a direct message. And by the time I realized that, I'd already sent a tweet to a third person.

I found Stafford's request to be unique in that I was comfortable drawing all of the animals he wanted, but creating the combination was tricky!

FRIDAY: My third and final combination animal sketch!!!

ALSO:
Duck Cat Horse on Twitter
Duck Cat Horse on Tumblr
Duck Cat Horse on deviantART
Duck Cat Horse on Flickr

I made a mistake. See, for the Super Haters Twitter account, I like to offer special incentives for my milestone followers (300th, 400th, etc.). And for my 500th follower, I offered a free personalized sketch of a combination animal (for examples, see Napoleon Dynamite or Avatar: The Last Airbender).

Author David Corbet was my original 500th follower. So I tweeted him and asked him what he wanted for his sketch. And I waited. And waited.

I never saw a reply from him even though he was tweeting other stuff. So I figured he was ignoring me. And I decided to select another 500th follower for the prize.

But I failed to cover all my bases! See, I never expected David to send me a DM. However that's exactly what he did and I found it days later after I'd already offered the sketch to two other people.

So I decided to do the honorable thing and draw all three of the requests. Hence David's Monkey Bear that you see here.

WEDNESDAY: The combination animal requested by my 2nd 500th follower!!!

ALSO:
Monkey Bear on Twitter
Monkey Bear on Tumblr
Monkey Bear on deviantART
Monkey Bear on Flickr

I can't believe I forgot to post this!

Nearly a month ago, I completed this piece for my 400th Twitter follower, Chris K of Zany Comics (@zanycomics). I offered to draw a personalized mythical creature for the 400th person to follow Super Haters on Twitter, and Chris chose a dragon. And when I asked him if he wanted to kick it up a notch, he suggested a machine gun arm and an eye patch. BRILLIANT!

If you dig this sketch, then git yerself back here next Monday when I'll be sharing the first of three Combination Animals that I drew for my three 500th followers on Twitter. (Yes, "three 500th followers." It's a long story.)

ALSO:
Dragon with a Machine Gun Arm on Tumblr
Dragon with a Machine Gun Arm on deviantART
Dragon with a Machine Gun Arm on Flickr

NIK FURIOUS IS BACK! I've been laying low for the past few months, working hard on my comics and mostly ignoring my music.

But the drought is over! I've got two new music videos, one for an old beat and one for a new beat.

Let's get the old stuff out of the way first. Silver Centurion is smooth-house-meets-mellow-funk track off of the Superior Tech mixtape:

And Sunday Best is a brand new beat with an old school funk flavor:

For each of these beats, I created original digital paintings to accompany them. And I would be remiss if I didn't share those with you right now!!!

Here's the painting for Sunday Best, inspired by the sound of the song and light of the rising sun:

And here's the painting for Silver Centurion, inspired by both of its namesakes -- the song and the armor:

Thx for listening and hopefully I'll have more Furious for you soon.

Just like my recent Sabertooth Unicorn sketch, this cartoon was a prize for one of the followers of my Super Haters Twitter account... in fact, it was drawn for @PeteRogers, my 333rd follower.

By now, I'm already well past 333 followers, and I'll be doing another crazy sketch for the 400th Super Haters follower, so hurry up and start following Super Haters before it's too late! (And, yes, I follow back.)

Three on deviantART
Three on Tumblr
Three on Flickr

This Stick Cats pin up was originally drawn (and I know this is gonna sound ridiculous, so bear with me) as a mural for the indie book store experiment, Fleeting Pages.

See, the book store was occupying the space of a closed down Borders. And the former Borders was so big that Fleeting Pages could only fill up the second floor with books. That meant there was a giant first floor that was sitting around empty!

Jodi, the creator and manager of Fleeting Pages, put out a request for black and white art that could be printed out on a large scale and turned into an installation sort of thing. Not a mural exactly, but I don't really know a better word for it.

To be more specific, it wasn't as simple as being printed out and taped up -- Jodi wanted the image to be something with multiple planes because she has a unique process for turning a single image into a three-dimensional display. So I took an hour or so and dreamed up this Stick Cats scene with a foreground, midground, and background (obviously there's no background here in this pin up... that's because I think the action looks better without it!).

Honestly, I never quite understood the process she was planning to use. I'm a cartoonist that makes 2D digital images. Jodi knows all about about mixing art and spaces, but explaining the technical aspects of preparing my digital art for her 3D display was tough. So the mural/installation/3D display was never printed.

But that's all good because I'm psyched to share this moody Stick Cats action scene with you, mural or not!