Who: Ghostshrimp | Pendleton Ward
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Websites: Ghostshrimp | Pendleton Ward | Adventure Time | Adventure Time Blog

Ghostshrimp (a.k.a. Dan James) is one of those illustrators where once you see his work, it is burned into your retinas so severely that you’ll never miss one of his drawings again. Calling his drawing style unique is an understatement – nobody draws like Ghostshrimp, which should keep him employed and unfireable forever. This stuff is amazing and awesome and all the other superlatives you can think of. Untouchable greatness, my friends. Untouchable.

Pendleton Ward, as if you don’t already know, is the creator of Cartoon Network’s algebraic! new show, Adventure Time. The pilot he made with Frederator Studios is hilarious and weird and amazing, and there’s nothing else like it. Lumping great, people. The show is nothing but enhanced by Pen’s wise decision to hire Ghostshrimp to help design backgrounds for the cartoon.

I stumbled onto Ghostshrimp’s fantastic The Octopi and the Ocean comic on my way out of the Giant Robot store in San Francisco several years ago, and it made me miss my bus. If I could, I would move into the backgrounds he draws for Pen’s Adventure Time. Instead I’ve bought everything he’s made with Tiny Showcase, and I’m thinking about wallpapering a closet with it all, so I can pretend I’m there anyway. (Bonus: if you are a fan of LOST and/or Ghostshrimp, you have to see this commission he drew for Dustin Harbin.)

Though I haven’t known about him for as long as I have Ghostshrimp, I got to meet Pen Ward at SPX in the fall of 2009. He was walking the floor, quietly and humbly, just looking at the art. I didn’t realize who he was when he stopped at my table and chuckled at a few of my offerings, so I was spared the awkward star-struck-ness. That came later when my tablemate told me who he was, and I gushed loudly across the crowded floor about how much I loved the show. And then again when some friends and I were drinking and drawing after the end of TCAF this spring, and someone sent Pen a drawing I’d done on top of some infographics, and it turned out my lewd scrawlings kind of looked like Pen’s comic character of himself. Oops.