{"id":38418,"date":"2022-08-03T07:35:19","date_gmt":"2022-08-03T11:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/?p=38418"},"modified":"2022-08-03T07:35:19","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T11:35:19","slug":"chambers-of-commerce-get-a-tattoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/08\/03\/chambers-of-commerce-get-a-tattoo\/","title":{"rendered":"Chambers of Commerce – Get a Tattoo!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Back when tattoos were still novel and newspapers had readers and thus advertising revenue and thus budgets to hire freelance artists, I did this cartoon for The Philadelphia Daily News. <\/em>My illustrations accompanied an article entitled Chambers of Commerce <\/em>which promoted new, hip and happening eateries, bars and small businesses such as tattoo parlors. \u00a0It was aimed at suburban commuters in the hopes that they would stick around rather than hopping on the regional rail or a PATCO train home straight after work. Stay in town after you clock out, and SPEND<\/strong> that money!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"This was back before I had purchased my first Mac and doubted whether proper illustration could even be done digitally. I had a PC<\/a> and I did mechanical drawings on it which worked out great, but I thought the finesse of a hand drawn cartoon or illustration was out of the question for computers. Macs were pricey beige boxes used strictly for graphic design and illustration was done traditionally, and then scanned<\/em> into the computer. I did this work on hot press watercolor paper with black ink and water colors. The animation cel technique that I used on the shivering banana<\/a> was becoming a problem. It was 1997 and places that still shot photostats were getting harder to find.<\/p>\n

Now that I look at these cartoons I see a number of things that I may have done differently as far as the rendering, but I remind myself that color was a crapshoot on newsprint back then. You were lucky if the printer could maintain registration between the colors on a big newspaper press. I learned the hard way that it was best to keep it simple. Otherwise that image you slaved over could end up looking like a mud puddle once it was printed.<\/p>\n

Something I would have definitely done differently was the type treatment, but sadly, I had nothing to do with it. That wasn’t my job. I don’t know what the layout person was thinking with that disastrous font selection and the “playful” interchange between upper and lowercase. It wasn’t worth the effort, and it looks like something from a small city’s free weekly as opposed to a major metropolis’ daily.<\/p>\n

…and what’s with the magenta C?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Above is the pencil sketch of the tattooist and his squeamish customer. The funny thing is I had only a vague notion of what a tattoo needle looked like so I faked it. I think I had to turn the job around quickly, and I didn’t have the time to do proper research. I didn’t have the internet which would have turned up reference photos in seconds even on a dial-up connection. A trip to the library and a laborious search through the stacks would have been order, but there was no time. Nobody said anything so I guess it was close enough.<\/p>\n

I should have kept that tissue box in the final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back when tattoos were still novel and newspapers had readers and thus advertising revenue and thus budgets to hire freelance artists, I did this cartoon for The Philadelphia Daily News. My illustrations accompanied an article entitled Chambers of Commerce which … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31,7,700],"tags":[5413,17,8,4865,5,354,3669,5403,361,5414,3660],"class_list":["post-38418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blast-from-the-past","category-illustration","category-pixels-versus-pigment","tag-5413","tag-cartoon","tag-cartoons","tag-freelance","tag-joe-williams","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-daily-news","tag-tattoo","tag-water-color","tag-willceau"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Tattoo-guy.jpg?fit=640%2C699&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ed1x-9ZE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38512,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/08\/11\/chambers-of-commerce-eat-drink-and-be-merry\/","url_meta":{"origin":38418,"position":0},"title":"Chambers of Commerce – Eat, Drink and Be Merry!","author":"Joe","date":"August 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Long before fine dining in Philadelphia took place in makeshift shacks made of forklift palette wood and plastic tarpaulins haphazardly situated on the pavements and streets outside of the actual brick-and-mortar restaurants, people read newspapers. They were actual newsprint newspaper and printed with ink and were available everywhere for a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Booth-date-chambers.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Booth-date-chambers.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Booth-date-chambers.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":38546,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/08\/17\/the-wonder-of-white-bread\/","url_meta":{"origin":38418,"position":1},"title":"The Wonder of White Bread","author":"Joe","date":"August 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"This was another cartoon spot illustration that I did for The Philadelphia Daily News as part of \"The Secret Life of Food.\" It ran with the shivering banana that I featured here at Willceau Illo News recently. Similar to the banana, the black ink was shot as a photostat on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/The-Wonder-of-White-Bread.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/The-Wonder-of-White-Bread.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/The-Wonder-of-White-Bread.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":38523,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/08\/12\/artists-corner\/","url_meta":{"origin":38418,"position":2},"title":"Artists’ Corner","author":"Joe","date":"August 12, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"This was a little cartoon I did when I worked at Taws which was an art supply store located in Center City Philadelphia. This was for a short-lived newsletter published by the store called 100% Rag. I thought I had a copy, but I couldn't find one. It may have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Artists-corner.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Artists-corner.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Artists-corner.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":39725,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/12\/21\/charlie-gracie-1936-2022\/","url_meta":{"origin":38418,"position":3},"title":"Charlie Gracie 1936 – 2022","author":"Tina Garceau","date":"December 21, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I was sad to discover that Charlie Gracie, whose song \"Butterfly\" was a huge hit in 1957, passed away on Saturday. I met him when I was a freelance photographer for a small local paper in 2016. I was covering the \"South Philly Musicians Remix\" mural that at the time,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/CharlieGracie.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/CharlieGracie.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/CharlieGracie.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":46047,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2025\/10\/05\/rest-in-peace-vince-termini-sr\/","url_meta":{"origin":38418,"position":4},"title":"Rest In Peace Vince Termini Sr.","author":"Tina Garceau","date":"October 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Ana Marie and Vince South Philadelphia lost a legend, Vincent Termini Sr. of Termini Pastries has passed away, he was 86. The business started by Gaetano and Giuseppe Termini, opened in 1921. He began baking and learning the business in 1963. Mr. Termini also opened a small cafe across the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/VinceTermini.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/VinceTermini.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/VinceTermini.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6697,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2012\/02\/27\/scourge-weekend-warriors\/","url_meta":{"origin":38418,"position":5},"title":"The Scourge of Weekend Warriors","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"February 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"My brother Charles is about 16 1\/2 years older than I, and to me he was always the coolest guy in the world. I idolized him growing up. He was the South Philly guy complete with the accent and the swagger, was in the army, drove a vintage MG, rode\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "What I Miss About Comics"","block_context":{"text":"What I Miss About Comics","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/what-i-miss-about-comics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Spider-Man-126.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Spider-Man-126.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Spider-Man-126.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}