Tucked into the pages of this month’s Vice is an excellent interview from our own Nick Gazin (AKA Toilet Cobra) conducted with visual artist Raymond Pettibon. If that name doesn’t immediately ring any bells, I’d like to take this moment to point out that more than one of you probably has some of Mr. Pettibon’s work tattooed on your body right now. Or you at least at some point in your life owned a t-shirt with his work on it somewhere.

After all, he is the man behind the un-fuck-with-able Black Flag logo. But, as Nick will gladly tell you, Raymond’s work goes beyond designing what’s most likely the most enduring image of punk rock. Way beyond.

The interview, and accompanying images, are both really great for multiple reasons. Pettibon is a fascinating dude who’s clearly been through a lot but is also articulate with his sometimes really out there thoughts. Gazin also makes for a great interviewer. He starts off the article by establishing that Pettibon is his biggest influence, and you can tell he has oodles of respect for the dude. He wisely abandons the questions he had arrived with and instead just gets into a conversation, riffing off of the stacks and stacks of drawings that apparently cover Pettibon’s home.

It ends up becoming an intimate visual tour through the dude’s whole life. Check it out, if only for this “can this really be true?” anecdote about Pettibon asking his Pelican Bay cellmate to tattoo his girlfriend on his back, only to ended up marked with a giant swastika. Toilet Cobra: the next Walter Cronkite?

Read Toilet Cobra’s Interview w/ Raymond Pettibon

- Whole Milk