was always a big fan of watch- ing Bob Ross paint,” says Justin Osbourn with a laugh. The late host of TV’s The Joy of Painting, who was known for his
huge curly hair and upbeat demeanour, seems like the last person to influence an artist making a name for him- self with retro VHS cover-style art. But then again, Osbourn’s style is distinctly painterly, even if he prefers gaping head wounds to “happy little clouds.” A diehard fan of the Hal-
loween series, Nail Gun Mas- sacre and the Friday the 13th franchise – he even chris- tened his company Slasher Design – it was the ghastly illus- tration on the cover of 1987’s The Video Dead that initially electrified the artist in him. “I think, for a lot of horror fans, including myself, it’s just the preferred style of
poster and VHS art,” he offers from his home base in Kansas City, Missouri. “If you look at the way movie posters are now, or if you walk down the aisles of a Wal-mart and look at all of the DVD covers, 90 percent of them look alike and just kind of blend together. It’s a very different experience from when I was growing up. I would want to see a movie just based on its cover art. Even though, a lot of the time, the cover made the movie look far better than it actually was, it didn’t seem to matter.” After taking commercial art courses in the small town of Salina, Kansas, Osbourn
cut his teeth on band flyers, album covers and merch for the local music scene, even- tually starting his own band. While the group became his primary focus, he wisely worked on the side whenever time permitted, eventually building up enough of a clien- tele to support a freelance career. Osbourn’s illustrations are created digitally these days, using his trusty Wacom
Cintiq screen, which allows him to draw or paint directly onto the device, much like working with a conventional canvas. Dubbing his clients “victims,” Osbourn has created bloody art for metal and punk acts such as Troglodyte, 3 Inches of Blood, Skeletonwitch, Municipal Waste and the UK psychobilly outfit Demented Are Go. He’s also a star player on the roster of artists for Fright Rags, having created some of the company’s best-selling T-shirt designs, including tributes to Phantasm, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2, Hatchet and my personal favourite, Friday the 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter. Rue Morgue readers might also recognize his art from Monstro Bizarro columnist Lyle Blackburn’s book The Beast of Boggy Creek, for which he riffed on the famous poster artwork for the film The Leg-
RM60
end of Boggy Creek. Osbourn isn’t only celebrating genre classics, however; he’s also been instrumental
in the Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for a proposed prequel to Scott Glosser- man’s 2006 feature debut Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (facebook.com/BeforeTheMask). Being a big fan of the original movie, the artist created a poster to help jump-start the effort, which quickly sold out. “I really hope this movie comes to fruition,” says Osbourn. “From what I’ve heard
from either people involved or from fans is that the poster was a pretty big hit...so hopefully it helped out in some way to get the [prequel] made.” Currently, he’s been busy carving out art for Astron 6’s No Sleep, No Surrender, the
controversial documentary Troma doesn’t want you to see about the making of Father’s Day (RM#120), a new Troglodyte album cover and a couple of new Fright Rags T-shirts, including one for Nail Gun Massacre. Now, go check out sites.google.com/site/slash- erdesign for a visual buffet of gory treats – you’ll find no happy little clouds here...