Artist Arrives In The Desert

by Brian Brooks

The Brooks family arrived in Phoenix in August of 1973. Mom, Dad, and 5-year old Michael made the cross country drive from their home town of Connellsville, Pennsylvania. I was 2 years old and made the journey by airplane in the care of Dad’s mother Nana.

Education

SFX | MM | BCP | CHS | PCC

Media

Television | Stereo Equipment | The Beatles | Queen

Locations

Sunnyslope | Metrocenter | Christown | Tracks In Wax | Zia Records

Artwork

Brian at his desk with dip-pen and ink. Polaroid photo by Mom, 1985.

This is how I got started

Comics: Michael got me into buying comic books. He liked Bat Man and Spiderman most. And Star Trek.I began drawing as a hobby around age 8, and was creating characters by age 10 [Alley Cat, Caveman, Jason the Cowboy]. My parents were very supportive of this hobby, especially Mom, she would take me to the art supply store to get pens and ink and paper. I was often was gifted books about cartooning, which showed me all you needed to know to get started.Among my earliest cartoony influences were: my jungle themed bedsheets, breakfast cereal boxes, Earnie & Bert/ Sesame Street® LP, Doodle Art® coloring posters, the comics section in the Arizona Republic. I enjoyed several but preferred single-panel comics. [Ziggy, Family Circus] Garfield,Michael gets into Dungeons & Dragons.Cartoons: I loved cartoons. I watched: Superheroes, He-Man, Scooby Doo, The Littles, Dungeons & Dragons, The Smurfs. We had a locally produced daily kids show in Phoenix, called The Wallace & Ladmo show. A cast of characters played by local talent. They showed cartoons and did skits. It was a huge part of our mornings before school, the TV would be on. The show was funny enough to keep mom laughing. I won a Ladmo Bag for drawing the show’s protagonist Gerald as parody of a scene from E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.

Michael goes Punk.

At a garage sale next to our house I purchased multiple Dennis The Menace, and Heathcliff books. I read a lot of Encyclapedia Brown, Choose Your Own Adventure books.

John Lennon’s drawings from his two books of In His Own Write, and A Spaniard in the Works. I was an active Beatle Collector beginning with a birthday gift of an “original copy” of Introducing the Beatles, that my mom purchased from Don at Track In Wax record shop. Begin hanging out at Tracks after school and with that was Phoenix New Times and Life Is Hell. Tracks also employed Gary Merril, an artist active the Phoenix down town art scene. Gary was the first artist I ever met. Through hanging out at Tracks I also met my best bud Damon and then Shane. Shane and I would go on to collaborate on music and drawings and later go off to art school together.

A selection of animated single-line poems created in the Instagram app in 2022.

Brian Charles Brooks Instagram

History

2015 Mark, Julian “Radically Sharing Temescal, A group of artists, hackers, and other creative people have launched Omni Commons, a new community resource center in North Oakland that they hope will be an antidote to gentrification.” East Bay Express, Jan 21, 2015 Link

2009 Woo, Stu “Oakland’s Temescal Goes From Rundown to Reborn, How Local Merchants Found Success After Years of Work to Attract New Businesses and Reshape Their Neighborhood” Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2009. Link

2007 Virella, Kelly ”The Strange Drawings of Brian Brooks, The artist behind Emily the Strange attempts to exorcise his creation from his art.” Eastbay Express Feature, October 31, 2007. Link

2004 Elder, Sean “Oops, they went goth! My daughter and her friends are suddenly wearing plaid miniskirts and carting around Living Dead Dolls. What do black lipstick and snap-on dog collars mean to a 10-year-old?” Salon.com, APRIL 13, 2004 Link

2001 Smith, Brian. “Zine Buddha, Local artist Brian Brooks watches his work go from sticky barroom floors to flying off international clothing racks”. Phoenix New Times Feature, May 10 2001.Link

2001 Searleman, Eric. The It Girl: As Emily Flourishes, Millions Turn and Face The Strange. Arizona Republic, March 29 2001. Link

1999 Athitakis, Mark. “Riff Raff, Morrissey Gets Colored Black on the Outside, Because Black Is How He Feels on the Inside”, SF Weekly, October 13 1999. Link

Top

www.briancharlesbrooks.com

Mom

Artist Arrives In The Desert

Brian The Cartoonist (1979-1988)

History