THE ART OF ERIC PIGORS By John Rose

Today for The MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween we share the unique vision of a highly unique man--Eric Pigors. If you haven't heard of him, it's because his day job is as an animator at Disney Studios, which has not showcased one of its own animators except for Disney himself and the Nine Old Men, and that's mainly why you haven't heard of him. But that's all right, because his other job is creating Toxic Toons, a series of fantastic and generally crazed horror-themed artworks that include books, T-shirts, posters, prints, and many other things, including his own self-designed Ouija board.

Eric Pigors' Toxic Toons website features a bio that lists some of his favorite mediums as "droil and snot" and says that he began his creations with "a broken bone and some pig's blood." Most of his artwork is unique in the sense that it has a very creepy, unnerving, demented quality, yet somehow manages to remain appealing in a Looney Tunes/Mad Magazine sort of way. Neck braces, hooks, peg-legs, stitches, graveyards, funeral homes, Frankenstein and general Halloween-oriented fauna are common themes in his work. Hard to believe this dude has worked at Disney Studios for 15 years doing stuff like The Lion King and Beauty And The Beast (!!!).

Pigors has done artwork for various horror bands such as Psychocharger (and can even be heard on one track of their new CD, Curse of The Psycho) and he has also done character designs for the Cartoon Network Halloween special Ed, Edd And Eddy's Boo Haw Haw. He has published four books of his artwork, which demonstrate various collage and cut-and-paste techniques in addition to his cartoon drawings. His most recent book, Unkle Pigors' Cryptic Art, has been published by Baby Tattoo Books, and features a foreword by Norman "Baron Shivers" Cabrera of the Ghastly Ones (with whom Eric also filmed a goofy video of Sheldon Allman's "Children's Day At The Morgue" that showcases the Unkle Pigors alter-ego and some of his work for his own yearly Halloween spookhouses). All in all, Eric Pigors' art is spooky, ghastly, gross, disturbing, wacky and tremendous fun. Check him out at www.toxictoons.com, where he currently offers a "Spooky Activity Book" for free with purchase of two Toxictoons shirts, which will stand you in excellent stead if you have no costume this season.