This season we were fortunate to hook up with the legendary Frank Kozik, who did a graphic for us here at Mishka. For those of you who don’t know, Kozik is the man behind countless posters, album covers, T-shirt graphics and even some videos for any band that mattered in the late 80′s through the 90′s.

Originally born in Spain, Frank and his family relocated to Austin, Texas, when he was 14 years old. Frank eventually got heavily involved in the underground punk and indie rock scenes, making flyers and posters for bands. This not only helped his reputation as an artist grow, but many consider his contributions to have revived the concert poster art form!

Frank has since retired from making poster art to focus more on vinyl toy projects for Kid Robot, Toy2R, Adfunture, and his own UltraViolence imprint.

We were very fortunate to have Frank delve back to his rock poster style to create this very vintage-looking Kozik graphic for us, featuring Mishka at the top of the bill along with our very own Mishka screamo/noise-core alums Jerome’s Dream & Devola in support!

Frank was gracious enough to be the first in what will be an ongoing Bloglin segment of some short but sweet interviews with people we admire called 5 questions! So without further ado…

5 Questions With Frank Kozik

1) So prior to getting your art career started, you were in the armed forces, correct? Did that have any influence on your work or even work ethic?

The experience definitely taught me how to organize projects and get results. It also installed a pretty anti-authoritarian impulse in me. I haven’t been much of a “joiner” or “team player” ever since. Those 4 years were enough for me. As far as creative influence, it’s hard to say.I do like military equipment and their color schemes, which I tend to use in my own work, but that might actually be more to do with me building models as a kid.

2) We heard that you were, at one point, sharing a space with a chapter of the Hells Angels. Is this true, and if so what was that like?

I still do, we share a building. It seems totally normal to me. I definitely don’t have to worry about anyone breaking in.

3) Recently, a lot of your work has been centered around urban vinyl more than illustration. The Goldilocks graphic you did for us is actually one of the few instances that we’ve seen you return to the illustrative style you popularized in the 90′s. Is there any reason why you’re leaning less and less away from that style in your work and working with Bands?

Back around 2000, I just sort of got tired of the 2-D thing, and really really got obsessed with the toys and objects, so I pretty much quit everything I had been doing before in order to try and work in the new genre. The first couple of years were frustrating, everyone thought I was nuts! Then the stuff really hit in the way I always felt it could. So fast forward to today and now I have a pretty good profile in the genre that I am very happy about.

4) I’ve always seen a connection in your illustrations with those of Henry Darger. Aesthetic similarities in the illustrative style, collaging of elements, and the whole subversion of innocence aspect (unintentional or intentional in your case) all come to mind. I’ve always been curious if he ever had any influence on you? I know his work never really saw the light of day until the 80′s, and didn’t get major attention until the 90′s, but I was wondering if it at all played any influence on you or if it’s all merely coincidence.

I knew about Darger, but he didn’t really have any deep influence on me. I’m just not that big into Folk Art.  All of that weird kid stuff  you see in my work is more of a result of me collecting Little Golden Books, I guess. The illustrations in them are just so amazing! I am especially a big fan of Richard Scarry’s work and books as well. Plus, no one else was doing that sort of stuff when I started.

5) Like ourselves, you seem to be very interested and involved in the new Kaiju toy scene. What caught your attention and opened the floodgates for you? You’re customizing so many different things that are such a departure from what you’re doing with Kid Robot that I bet some of your fans would be shocked to see the stuff!

I have been collecting Japanese type toys since maybe 1980 or so, never in a big way, but I was always into it. A few years ago, a whole new indie Kaiju scene opened up out there and I started collecting those,  which then turned into me making them. I do a few every year, just to keep the mix interesting. They are actually difficult to pull off… there’s this certain awkward aesthetic, which is way harder to do than it may seem.

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Kozik’s Pipes & Porridge Tee is now available in Black, White, & Kelly Green in our online store, as is the Pipes & Porridge Print, which is signed and numbered in an edition of 100.

- My Pal the Crook