Brian Gets A Job
The history of my life with Emily The Strange by Brian Brooks
Introduction | Calling | Possession | Ordination | Exorcism | Exile | Reckoning | Transcendence | Epilogue
Introduction
This memoir chronicles my creative life inside—and outside—the Emily the Strange brand. What began as a phone call from my college friend Rob Reger became a decades-long collaboration marked by obsession, burnout, reinvention, and return. Structured in seven acts—Calling, Possession, Ordination, Exorcism, Exile, Reckoning, and Transcendence—it captures the creative highs and personal reckonings that shaped both my career and identity. I returned to the Emily universe in 2019 with renewed perspective, drawing her in new ways through Strange Cat Art School. This isn’t just a story of a character. It’s a story of art, identity, and the long path to reclaiming both.
Calling (1995–1998)
The inception of my journey. I met Rob at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995. After graduating, we collaborated on several projects, including an early version of what would become Oopsy Daisy—another brand from Cosmic Debris.
I moved to Boston to study design at graduate school, but Rob kept calling and leaving messages—urging me to skip school and the loans and come back to the Bay Area to join the art department at Cosmic Debris. Learn while getting paid. Let’s make something big.
After persistent calls from Rob, I agreed to return to the Bay Area and work with him and his Emily the Strange character.
Possession (1999–2002)
A period of deep immersion, consuming identity, intertwining personal and professional realms.
For the first three years, it was just Rob, Nöel, Seth and me in the Cosmic Debris art department. Seth, also part of Bunnyhop, kept all the computers and software running. In those early catalogs, we grouped shirts into Emily the Strange, collections by Amy Davis and Fawn Geihweiler, and a line called Cosmic Girls. Nöel began building Yum Pop, and Rob and I soon developed Oopsy Daisy—I first created Oopsy as a project to learn Adobe Illustrator.
In my early Emily the Strange illustrations (1999–2001), I formalized the shine on her head. I returned from Boston a year later as the first employee Cosmic Debris hired specifically for Emily the Strange. It didn’t take long before a full-time artist made sense. We built the brand one catalog at a time, releasing four new collections a year.
The Emily logo evolved over the years—in 1999, 2003 and 2004. Her first book, which I co-wrote (though later copies removed my name), has been translated into over a dozen languages. I worked anonymously as part of a growing team, sometimes using the pseudonym “pillowgoat”—also the name under which I published my zines. I believed Emily would be stronger without an artist’s name attached. As lead T-shirt designer for many years, I helped shape the brand’s voice and visual world.
Ordination (2003–2006)
Transition into leadership, guiding other artists, and shaping the creative vision collectively.
After a few years—and as the brand expanded—Cosmic Debris began hiring illustrators Adele Pederson, Grace Fontaine and Buzz Parker, and designers Stacy Rodgers, Lee Tom and Kim West. My role shifted to art director.
The brand grew in size, complexity and reach. Hot Topic came on board, Chronicle Books continued publishing, and Dark Horse Comics launched a comic-book series. International licenses multiplied, and a larger domestic sales team formed. Meanwhile, Oopsy Daisy expanded into mid-tier and big-box stores such as Target and Sears, becoming more mainstream than Emily.
As a final swan song, Rob and I created Boyz on Da Run and pitched it to the Disney Channel—it was picked up as a series of three animated shorts, which we co-wrote.
As with all good things, cracks began to show. After a partial buyout split the original team in two, Rob and I remained but the company culture had changed. Mounting demands and endless busywork made it unrewarding. The cracks were too much to repair; I needed my freedom.
Exorcism (2007)
A pivotal moment of breaking free from overwhelming aspects of creation to reclaim personal identity.
By 2006, I was so burned out and overworked. The line had expanded; there were trade-show booths to design and never-ending demands from domestic and international licensees. Four design seasons a year, plus all the design and production work for the Oopsy Daisy brand, made it non-stop.
Physically and mentally, I had to step away. I had to take a break. I had to walk away.
Exile (2006–2019)
A 13-year break: separation, reflection, and personal growth.
How does an artist reinvent themselves—and walk away from what they’re known for?
In the summer of 2006, I stepped away from Cosmic Debris and decided to take time off. The success of Oopsy Daisy T-shirt sales had given me enough savings to quit “work,” especially while living in my “dilapidated flat,” as the East Bay Express described it. I wanted to escape being known as “the Emily guy” or “the Oopsy guy,” take a break from character artwork, and return to making fine art—away from the computer.
Little did I know I would soon become “the Smokey’s guy.” Emily Wick and I rented a studio space with a storefront on Telegraph Avenue, called it Smokey’s Tangle, and hung a sign over the door. We ran it as a funky gallery—no idea what we were doing, yet it transformed our lives and built a new community. Smokey’s specialized in “creative photo booths”: events where we turned the studio into a single conceptual backdrop and captured visitors’ images. Themes ranged from Imaginary Pizza Restaurant to Imaginary Pool Store. We also organized local galleries and helped facilitate biannual neighborhood art nights, running the space for almost ten years.
My personal artwork during this period ranged from books to paintings to videos. I attempted several book series—What If? and Cool Coloring Book among them—but was terrible at promotion. I published books of paintings (Dogs), drawings (Earth Messages, Adventures of Everything), and anthologies of my zines (Rock ’n’ Roll Coloring Books, We Like Bugs & Books Like That). My focus shifted toward site-specific work and neighborhood documentation, such as mapping the McDonald’s parking lot across the street (Temescal Now).
When I discovered the Oopsy archives, Emily Wick suggested we start an Instagram page for Oopsy Daisy—her first social channel. It soon expanded to feature other characters in her world and launched an online, print-on-demand Oopsy Shop.
Reckoning (2019–2023)
A return to character: confronting the emotional baggage of the work, redefining your relationship with it, and seeking understanding and closure.
In 2019, Emily Wick and I took over the Emily the Strange® Instagram account and began curating past artwork while introducing new designs. I soon started creating new “content,” remixing decades of existing art, and we launched new T-shirt collections—the first Emily the Strange T-shirts I’d designed in 13 years.
Creating moving images was a milestone—not easy, but at least we now had movement. The labor proved intensive enough that I overworked my hands and arms. I also wrestled daily with identity issues, writing for a fictional character I did not fully “own.”
Eventually, a new team emerged to assume daily Instagram duties, allowing Emily Wick and me to take a much-needed break from posting.
Transcendence (2024–Present)
Achieving creative freedom, moving beyond previous confines and embracing new horizons.
In 2022, I gifted myself an iPad Air and Apple Pencil—tools I’d never used after two decades of Illustrator and pen-and-paper work. Months passed before an airplane seat constraint pushed me to try the stylus. In 2023, I completed my first series of freehand digital illustrations of Emily, discovering I couldn’t draw her “straight.” Each version felt like a glimpse of an alternate Emily, born from pure imagination rather than existing canon.
To preserve a hand-drawn feel, I limit myself to one pencil width, only black ink, and minimal zoom. I follow wherever the Pencil leads. I call the experiment Strange Cat Art School, where each drawing lesson doubles as a creative exploration—proof that even our oldest characters can teach us new ways to see.
Epilogue
How does an artist escape the work that made them—and what does it mean when that work refuses to let go?
This seven-act story traces a cycle of devotion, collapse, and return. In many ways Brian Gets A Job is like the Book of Job, it ends not in triumph but in transformation. The character still haunts me. And sometimes, she still makes me draw her.
©2025 Brian Brooks