Art and violence shaped my future!

Art is simply communication. The mediums are vast, but I’ve been drawn to visual my entire life. My earliest days, drawing crude illustrations of Disney characters, my own Garbage Pail Kids and then the Simpson’s. I drew comics throughout middle school and high school, then went to college for Painting Illustration Specialization. My second year, I got side tracked with photography which took me down a rabbit hole for some ten years, but illustration was my first love. 

Another love of mine throughout my teenage years, and throughout most of my twenties was this bizarre subculture of professional wrestling […also known as death match wrestling]. Imagine WWE performances, but with barbed-wire, thumbtacks, fire, florescent light bulbs. Anything you can think of that would inflict bodily harm. It’s all still predetermined outcomes. The wrestlers are aware of what they’re expected to endure […the worst stunts or ‘spots’ as their known in the business, are usually thought up by the wrestler taking it]. It’s an extremely violent theater performance, scripted from beginning to end. Did you see Darren Aronofsky’s film “The Wrestler”. Remember that brutal scene where the guy was stapling dollars to Mickey Rourke’s body? That guy is a good friend of mine named Necrobutcher. Dylan Summers, as I know him. So, why am I telling you about the death match wrestling subculture and what does it have to do with art? In a weird detour of fate, it’s responsible for my entire career. 

I know so much about this world, because I myself was a professional wrestler for five years, and yes…I did all this crazy shit. Around 2001 I became friends with a guy named “Sick” Nick Mondo. His real name was Matt, and he was one of the top guys for a company called Combat Zone Wrestling […they’re still around today]. Matt knew I had some illustration chops, and since merchandise was a big part [often times the only part] of how these wrestlers made money, he asked if I could come up with a shirt for him. 

Thus launched my career as a t-shirt designer. I’ve mentioned in previous blogs here on Steemit that comic book illustration was my dream job. It didn’t pan out at the time because the industry was virtually slave labor, but surprisingly, designing t-shirts was somewhat lucrative. My comic book friends were fetching $125 a page [which could take takes to finish], and there were times I was making $600 or more for a shirt design […eventually, much more than that]. Once my buddy Matt started selling his wears, a lot of the other guys came to me to get shirts made. It picked up momentum, and I set up a company and brand called BrutalButcherShoppe.com. 

Mid 2010, the owner of CZW came to me and asked me to design a shirt for their annual death match tournament, one of the biggest shows of the year. I was in the midst of the biggest of life changes, moving from Scranton, PA to Minneapolis, MN. The crazy thing is, I was just approved to move in to a great apartment in NE Minneapolis. Panic set in when I realized I had absolutely NO way to pay for it.

I did the death match tournament shirt under really risky terms. DJ [the owner of Combat Zone Wrestling] didn’t want to pay me for the artwork, OR buy the shirts. That would all be on me, but if they sold well I’d keep the profits, less $2/shirt for using the company brand. I don’t know why I agreed to that looking back on it now, but it ended up being the right decision. I made a fucking bankroll that weekend in Smyrna, DE selling every single Tournament Of Death shirt I brought. I distinctly remember standing in a port-a-potty in mid August, lid down, counting stacks of $20’s […if you think the concept of death match wrestling is unbelievable, imagine that fans that pay to see it. Not the crowd you want to counting your profits in front of]. All in all, I made $3600 and with that money, made my move to Minneapolis less than two weeks later.

Since moving to Minneapolis, my life has changed more drastically than I could have ever imagined. I was hopeful to start a career working in a hospital near the Twin Cities, but as it went, I didn’t get a single interview and decided to try my hand at freelance art. It’s now been six years and I’ve worked for myself every single day. The most rewarding, satisfying career I didn’t know I was missing.

After the success of that first shirt for Combat Zone Wrestling, other companies began reaching out to me for designs. Westside Xtreme Wrestling on Oberhausen, Germany and FREEDOM’s in Japan. Within a year or so, I was designing shirts for independent wrestling companies all over the world, and many of their wrestlers hired me individually as well. Here are a few of my favorite designs from over the years.

MASADA "Exile" Shirt

This is one of the scariest guys in the death match wrestling industry. He's been all over at the world and made a name for himself for his violent tactics in the ring. Outside the ring, however, he's a sweetheart. Texas gentleman. I went on to do three more shirts for MASADA. This one in particular, I was heavily influenced by the Kentucky based artist AngryBlue. I attempted the skull similarly to how he would have approached it. Little bit of Pushead in there as well.

Westside Xtreme Wrestling 16 Carat Gold Tournament Shirt

This was the first shirt I did for the Oberhausen based wrestling promotion. Annually, they have a big tournament of high flying, fast paced wrestling with influences ranging from Lucha Libre to Puroresu. I love the design of this shirt as it beckons the signature style of German beer steins and flags of the cities throughout Deutschland. It gave the printers a terrible headache because we used gold fleck textile ink that was apparently next to impossible to push through 280 mesh screens.

Tournament Of Death vs. Gorefest 

TOD vs. Gorefest was a massive inter promotional event held in Germany. Combat Zone Wrestling and Westside Xtreme Wrestling brought their roster to Oberhausen. This was one of the most stressful jobs I've ever had. I finished the design and separated the artwork at 6:30a.m. in Minneapolis, emailed it to the printer in Pennsylvania. It was printed and boxed by 3:00p.m. and handed off to one of the wrestlers in Philadelphia at 6:00p.m. He told me they were still warm when they went in to his bag. All in all, they sold out and I made a little over $3,000 for this one shirt.

Raven "Nevermore" Shirt

This was about as big a career milestone at the time as one could achieve. Raven was a legend. He was a player in WWE and WCW before coming to Extreme Championship Wrestling during the mid 90's. I watched this guy growing up a fan of the sport. He came across my work and talked about me doing a shirt for him. He even paid me, which if you would have told 18 year old Lars Kommienezuspadt "One day Raven is going to hire you to design a shirt for him", would have said "FUCK OFF!". It happened, though. It was a great project because Raven is a huge comic book fan [...he's written few titles out there as well], and we wanted to do something that looked like it could be on the cover of a graphic novel.

CZW Samurai Shirt

This was the second shirt I did for Combat Zone Wrestling. It kind of broke the mold for shirts in the indy wrestling world because no one ever printed on anything but black. This tan color was a gamble, but it did really well. Within a few months, I sold out of three printings. Looking back now, this thing reeks of cultural appropriation, especially considering it was targeted to....well...I'm sorry. A bunch of white trash, lol.

Scotty Vortekz Shirt

Scotty was a good friend of mine I met through Drake Younger [now a referee for WWE]. Hard working kid. Always had a hard time getting over with the crowd. This ended up being one of my favorite shirts [...I still have one that I wear even though it's falling apart] because I was so happy with the illustration. I drew from a photo of him bleeding after a death match and loved the comic book style.

Westside Xtreme Wrestling "Lamb" Shirt

Another I did for the German based WXW. One thing I loved about working for these companies is that they didn't typically have much input. I got to come up with the concepts and run with the artwork, as long as it looked "cool" to them. I thought this one was haunting and a little disturbing, while never hitting the viewer over the head with blood and skulls. Just a subtle, creepy impending feeling. I also really like how the illustration on the butcher turned out.

Thanks for getting through all the artwork. I really love sharing all these weird depths of my past lives with the Steemit community. I don't do this kind of work any more, but I'm extremely proud of that portfolio I accrued since moving to Minneapolis. It's been a golden age for art and creativity, and reflecting on this work is a great feeling.

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