Jay Howell

Long before he designed the main characters on the Fox cartoon series Bob's Burgers or co- created Nickelodeons Sanjay and Craig, Jay Howell liked to draw his lanky bug-eyed fig­ures onto the pages of found magazines (like this one) and free-bin erotic novels. "It kind of satisfied my sick desire to feel like I'd accomplished something bigger," he says. "It's like, Hey, I'm part of the magazine now!" In addition to showing his work up and down the coast and illustrating skateboard decks for Consolidated and for Creature, the Bay Area native is probably the only artist with both Vans and Gucci collaborations under his belt. And now that the self-described "posh spaz" is our inaugural Artist in Residence, Howell's dream of appearing in the magazine has actually come true. He tells us he loves to "get high and fly first class" with a playboy in hand, and he excitedly describes how the great Shel Silverstein, having served as head cartoonist here in the 1950s and 1960s, traveled the globe as a sort of illustrator-journalist for the magazine. "I mean, imagine that. That's so fun!" Clearly the two artists have a connection beyond the Rabbit banner: Their work just feels good. "I try to be in a good mood constantly, so yeah, I'm a hippie, "Howell says, adding, "but I also own guns and love to drive fast cars."—