Luke Chueh (born March 7, 1973) is a painter and graphic designer active in the artist community in Los Angeles. Originally from Philadelphia, he grew up in the Central California agricultural community of Fresno, California. He was formally trained in Graphic Design at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. During that period, he also worked for guitar manufacturing company Ernie Ball, as an illustrator and designer. His works during that time garnered him several awards, from such notable publications as Communication Arts and Print Magazine. During this time, he was also a publisher of a ‘zine focused on intelligent dance music.

His images have been remarked upon for their juxtaposition of cuteness with the macabre. His paintings and illustrations are noted for bringing together influences as diverse as Mark Rothko and Sanrio. His work stems from the intolerance he suffered as child growing up as a Chinese-American.

In an interview with Art Prostitute Magazine he stated that he is influenced by his contemporaries utilizing strong illustrative elements. He mentioned Chiho Aoshima, Marcel Dzama, Jeremy Fish, Camille Rose Garcia, Barry McGee, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Mark Ryden and Ralph Steadman.

In his recent work, he has designed the album artwork for Fall Out Boy’s new album Folie à Deux.

(Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Chueh)

Victor Allen Crawford III (born March 22, 1968), better known by the sobriquet Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy, is an author, graphic designer, and illustrator. His first book, The Affected Provincial’s Companion, Vol. I, was published by .

In 1994 he created the popular Apogee typeface, which was exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and used in the Sci-Fi Channel series Andromeda.

Crawford currently lives with his wife Susan Crawford in New Egypt, New Jersey, where the pair run the creative firm Plankton Art Co. Among their most notable commissions is a 400-illustration ocean identification key for the American Museum of Natural History, which was completed in 2003 and will remain on display for thirty years.

(Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Crawford)

David Charles Cooper (born 1967) is a cartoonist, commercial illustrator and a graphic designer who lives in Ottawa, Canada>. In addition to comics, Cooper has worked extensively as a designer, producer, and creator in the field of animation. Several of his designs were used on Futurama, notably various areas of the Planet Express office.

Cooper became a published cartoonist in his teens, creating sci-fi comics stories for Barry Blair’s Aircel Comics. Blair has caused controversy with some comics that have featured young boys being tortured or eroticized, and while Cooper has never said that he was molested by Blair, he told The Comics Journal that their relationship was awkward and “inappropriate” and it served as the inspiration for Cooper’s book Dan and Larry in: Don’t Do That! The book features a childlike, “duckish” creature named Dan who is mentored by a pushy, older creature named Larry, and at one point Larry holds Dan down and presses against him, saying, “THIS is how we should play sometimes.” (In the same Journal interview, Cooper took pains to point out that although some readers believe Larry is actually raping Dan, Larry’s pants are on through the whole encounter.) Despite Larry’s disturbing relationship with their son, Dan’s parents are cheerfully oblivious. The Dan and Larry graphic novel culminates in a scene wherein Larry dons a leotard that reveals his small, erect genitalia and invites Larry to “touch it if you want to.” This leads into a sexual encounter that culminates with what appears to be a cathartic expression, as Larry trips and suffers a gruesome accidental death.

After gradually giving up working for Aircel, Cooper spent a few years in a band before eventually returning to comics. In his 20s he created books such as Puke and Explode and Cynthia Petal’s Alien Sex Frenzy, lavishly illustrated stories that featured dark subject matter with incongruous “cute” touches such as letter i’s dotted with little circles. (Puke and Explode has a cameo in the 1995 film Crumb, when R. Crumb briefly examines the cover in a comics store and then rather disdainfully passes it by).

With Suckle, his graphic novel published in 1997, Cooper broke through to a new level of critical acclaim with the story of an innocent, childlike fellow, Basil, who is confronted by strange, sexualized horrors in a futuristic world. It was nominated for the Harvey Award. He followed this up with the even darker book Crumple (first serialized in the pages of Zero Zero), about a square-headed little man in a world ultimately overrun by militant feminists, and the multi-issue series Weasel, which featured the ongoing story Ripple, about a frustrated illustrator who enters an obsessive relationship with one of his models. With each book, Cooper’s work grew darker in subject matter while more accomplished visually. During this time, Cooper also contributed to Nickelodeon’s children’s magazine along with other anthologies. He also created a line of deluxe toys with the firm Critterbox Toys.

In recent years, Cooper has, to the dismay of fans of his comics, moved away from making comics, and is now focusing on fine art, often painting sexy but disturbing portraits of chubbyish women with overbites (or, as he has put it, “mostly pillowy girls”).

(Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cooper)

Rob Clayton (b.1963, Dayton, Ohio) and Christian Clayton (b.1967, Denver, Colorado) are painters based in California.

Both Rob and Christian Clayton hold BFA degrees from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California (1989 and 1991 respectively).

Their work has been exhibited widely throughout America and Europe, and has been featured in several important shows including The Armory Show in New York, and USA Today at The Royal Academy in London. In 2004, Rob and Christian Clayton were invited to participate with a solo exhibition in the Art Statements section of Art Basel Miami. They are represented by Bellwether Gallery in New York City.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Brothers