Shtick Figures

"I've always been a huge fan of the work of Drew Friedman, the king of the 'warts and all' school of caricature art. And I've been waiting my entire life to get old, decrepit, and craggy enough to merit a Friedman portrait of my own -- hurray!--""Weird Al"" Yankovic I don't know how Drew Friedman does it. In my social encounters with him he comes off as an attractive, un-neurotic man whom you wouldn't imagine could produce the quality of detailed, intensely focused, and expressive art that he has turned out in his life. He doesn't fit the profile at all. I suspect there is another Friedman brother who is kept hidden, confined to a back bedroom, a total misfit, who actually does all the artwork. Drew takes the credit but in return he has to take care of the maladjusted, dysfunctional brother. Something like that... only thing I can figure. Someday it'll all come out, like the story of Walter Keane's wife who secretly did all the paintings of the big-eyed children.--R. Crumb Friedman's illustrations capture the most fascinating corners, blind alleys, and cul-de-sacs of show business -- and the brilliant, weird, one-of-a-kind geniuses who dwell there. Their dark, self-made worlds seem so much happier than ours, and Friedman captures that joy with every pen stroke.--Patton Oswalt"