Portland Monthly — Best of the City

Portland Monthly Jonathan Case Food Here are two more pieces from this spring's 'Best of the City' article in Portland Monthly. Every few years, Pomo runs one of these showcases on Portland's food, shopping, family activities, etc., so it was a definite treat to collaborate with them and show off the city I love.

I did six illustrations for them in that issue, and these (Food and Shopping) were two of my favorites. The pieces all started from a notion of transforming everyday Portland moments into fantastical dreamscapes, ala Little Nemo in Slumberland. It was a lot of silly fun, and I enjoyed the chance to help formulate the overall concept.

Portland Monthly Jonathan Case Shopping

This Shopping piece was particularly fun, because I got to pick all these bits and bobs that say 'Portland' to me. If anyone disagrees, well, nyeh. It's all about the squids and sock monkeys. One of my also-ran layouts for this piece had the woman dressed as a pirate lady (as people do here in our fair city, year-round, for their own reasons) but wearing regular sneakers— when LO, behind a shoe-store window, she sees the perfect pair of pirate wench boots. Yeah. Too far out... Perhaps TOO Portland for its own good. It was a fun doodle though. I'll have to see if it's still around somewhere.

Portland Monthly — Ink City Illustration

Portland Monthly Ink City Jonathan Case Just added this Portland Monthly piece to my illustrations and paintings. This was an illustration for their Ink City article, talking about Portland's thriving comics creators scene. Their article already had a superhero bent to it, but they liked my pitch for a Little Nemo in Slumberland riff well enough to roll that idea into their Best of the City article the next month. I'll post some of those pieces soon.