panic room flyer

Digital - 297x210mm - 2019

The Panic Room was a short lived punk show space in Melbourne. Unfortunately shows no longer take place there but it was a fun little spot that was close to home while it lasted. The organisers have my respect because they created a community space for punks to get together, make noise and form new friendships or revel in old ones. From time to time I think of how I’d love to create a space like the Panic Room but I lack the drive and any kind of organisational abilities, I struggle to plan my life more than a week in advance so I imagine it would be a train wreck if I attempted making plans for a large group of people. To support the people running the space I offered to create some artwork for a gig.

It’s pretty rare to be given creative freedom for a drawing so I went a bit silly with this one, I take most of my drawings quite seriously so I wanted to let my hair out and have a bit of fun. Given the name Panic Room I thought of a bunch of punks trying to escape a claustrophobic shifting room. I thought the spiraling squares would also create a fun way to present the gig information.

For reasons long since lost to be I went for a poorly drawn Las Vegas aesthetic to the piece, hence all the stars. Rather than chase down band logos or try and redraw them I drew the band names in whatever style tickled my fancy. I particularly liked how Enzyme turned out (they’re a band for romantics), and Pest, I gave it some extra stars because their vocalist Ry is a warm ray of sunshine encapsulated in human form.

There were meant to be more punks down at the bottom of the flyer but I was completely bored of drawing skulls before I had even finished the ones in the completed artwork. So I thought it would be fun to draw the dogs of the western suburbs punk scene. Featured from left to right: Jenny aka J-Bae smiling like the happy angel that she is. Smoke my cheeky Rotti popping out of the corner. Storte aka Sturdz aka Sturdy Burger, a staffy with a disproportionate energy to size ratio. Bobby, he’s quite tiny. Cody, the horniest beagle to ever live. Buddy, my dearly departed snuggle monster. And finally, Bomber the German Shepherd, the fluffiest gentleman there ever did exist, there isn’t a human alive that could hold a candle to how wonderfully behaved Bomber is.