Fred Harper is a New York City illustrator who’s wielded his pen for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal Sports Illustrated, … and soon enough, you.

Born in the wilds of Western PA, Fred began his career drawing caricatures in the carnival (traumatizing many a teenage girl in the process.)  A few years later, he was drawing Spiderman, Conan and Dr. Strange for Marvel and DC Comics.

Fred now does caricatures and editorial illustrations for places like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Village Voice, and Sports Illustrated. He also paints three out of four covers for The Week Magazine.  Fred’s art has been published from Hong Kong to Honolulu.  He’s visually mocked everything from pug dogs to motorcycles, landscapes to Angelina Jolie’s lips.  Fred mostly works in gouache and Bristol (good for a fast turnaround!), but he’s also happy with oil paints, pencils, and Photoshop.

Sick of stock photography?  Fred is too.  So use the magic of his illustration to punch up annual reports, bedazzle your corporate communications, and polish your marketing brochures to a high sheen.  Fred can even do a portrait of that special executive someone.  And boy will investor relations improve when you give them something swank to look at!

So, use your sales collateral and hire Fred.

Latest for The Week Magazine. The challenge was to make a visually boring idea more cover worthy. I tried to channel Jack Davis a little and give each person a little more personality.

Another one from The Week. A similar challenge with the crowd. This is my version. The final had some changes. The fellow in the front is very loosely based on my brother-in-law. I didn’t have a picture in front of me, or for anyone except the statue. The curious thing is after I stopped and the dust cleared the faces in the crowd started looking like famous people I’ve seen. Which makes sense I guess. Johnny Damon, John Goodman, David Koechner, to name a few. The rest are a stretch.

Cover for The Week. This took longer than I thought it would. I’m not a fan of drawing and painting architecture. I wish I had a few more days, but most of the deadlines for The Week tend to be 2 days or less. And I still have to fit grocery shopping in there!

The Week. I like this one.

Cover for The Week. Peace Prize winner. um, yeah.

The late edition of the drips were added in photoshop. We didn’t hash that part out so clearly in the sketch. I imagined a puddle collecting at the bottom but was hung up with the initial explanation from the editors using a reference to when the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz had water thrown on her and she began to melt. The scene showing her feet shrivelling up under her skirt was stuck in my head. It took a little extra work around deadline time, but I think we got it pretty good.

Cover for The Week again. They changed the format of the cover beginning with this issue. Anthony, the main designer from London who works for Mr. Dennis (the guy who owns everything) came out to art direct this one. They really wanted to emphasise the crowd. My first sketch was more of a panoramic view to show thousands, but several revisions later, it was a little more intimate so you could see facial expressions on the people.

Cover for The Week.

New York is getting wacky again. Cool!

Cover for The Week Magazine. Painted in gouache and polished in photoshop. I just did a fun illo for Sports Illustrated I can post in a few days. Oh, for the google searches… Obama looks in to a crystal ball to see the image of FDR.

They didn’t want much exaggeration on this one. But notice the ball has no base.

I can’t take credit for the idea, but once they described what they wanted, I was inspired!

for The Week Magazine.

I was going to post this tomorrow, but I guess it’s already out.

More or less, these are in order. I’m sure I missed one here or there. They were all done for The Week Magazine over the last 2 years. I think it’s cool to see the story condensed. It’s almost a historical record in covers. I think the first GW Bush caricatures I did followed the same line. Getting to know the new guy, high hopes, so he’s depicted as a super hero or wrestler. Then the flaws come out and you’re depicting him in less than flattering environments. I like drawing the super hero guys, hopefully Obama will be depicted like that more often! The last one is the current cover for The Week magazine that just came out Nov, 28, ‘08.

Cover for The Week Magazine.

Sports Illustrated. Lance Armstrong rides again, for cancer awareness.

Cover for The Week Magazine.

Sports Illustrated, Players article. Fred Merkle. Didn’t touch 2nd base, Giants lost the world series. Sports’ first “goat”.