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Class clown building a conceptual art school in a local triangle 🏰
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This is the current state of my website whether I like it or not. It is always in a state of flux. If you are not reading this sentence, I have already changed it. Below is a sampling of some of the different projects I’ve been working on over the past 30 years.
Content Creator
Tortured Scrolls A series of hand-drawn animated GIFs inspired by the internet phrase “doom scroll.” Reflects the tension between making disposable art and the relentless pressure to generate content. Medium: iPad, Apple Pencil, Looom App. Created: December 2024 – January 2025 [Link]
Moving Words A collection of 22 hand-drawn animated GIFs. Each short message plays with shifts in meaning—clever, uplifting, and occasionally bleak. Some were created with Emily the Strange in mind. Medium: iPad, Apple Pencil, Looom App. Created: January 2025 [Link]
Existential Night Flyers tells the story of Goth Cat, a brooding cat who is on his own but looking for connection. He sends his messages out to the world. Published 2025 [Link]
Strange Cat Art School
by Brian Brooks
Stranger Returns: This Is How I Draw Emily Strange Now, 2019-2025 Experiments in trying to relearn how to draw the character again, after 20 years. Return to a character and reckoning with how we fit into each other’s life. Strange Cat Art School
Emily Strange T-Shirt Designer
I met Emily The Strange creator Rob Reger while studying at the San Francisco Art Institute. Several years later he finally talked me into coming to work at his T-shirt company Cosmic Debris Etc., Inc., and help him further develop the Emily Character. I was the principal illustrator and designer from 1999-2002, and once the company grew, I became the art director which I served from 2003-2006. After a thirteen year break I returned to work with the character again creating new designs and reels and content during the years 2019-2025.
Gets A Jobs Series
by Brian Brooks
“…Gets a Job” is a series of booklets capturing my love of office, and culture, fan art, and memoirs. My first job was as a file clerk, and I’ve always seen office supplies as the ultimate art supplies.
Morrissey Gets a Job finds Morrissey joining the workforce. Office clip art meets Smiths and Morrissey song-title puns. First featured on Morrissey-Solo.com in 1999, then gained viral cult status after being reposted on various sites (Dangerous Minds, Post-Punk, Reddit) in the 2000s. 24 pages. Published 1999 [Morrissey Gets A Job]
Brian Gets a Job follows artist Brian Brooks as he moves across the country to begin work at Cosmic Debris, the company behind the Emily the Strange character and clothing brand. Chronicles the years 1999–2006, covering his role as illustrator, designer, and eventual art director. Published: 2024 [ Brian Gets A Job]
Emily Gets a Job follows Emily the Strange® as she brings her signature darkness into the workplace. A sequel in spirit to Morrissey Gets a Job, and the Brian Gets a Job series, draws from my love of office culture—my first job was as a file clerk, and I’ve always seen office supplies as the ultimate art supplies. Published 2025 [Emily Gets A Job]
This Is How I Draw Cats Now
by Brian Brooks
Strange Cat Art School: Book 01 Professor Space Cat teaches art classes at Strange Cat Art School, where student-made Emily Strange posters are taken aboard his spacecraft and sold at an alien planet swap meet. Published 2024 [Link]
This Is How I Draw Cats Now: Book 02
Medium: Stylus and tablet; Adobe Illustrator on iMac
Date: June–December 2022 Format: 2.75 × 4.25 in., 32 pages [This Is How I Draw Cats Now 02]
This Is How I Draw Cats Now: Book 01
Medium: Ballpoint pen on index card; Adobe Illustrator on iMac
Date: April–June 2022
Format: 2.75 × 4.25 in., 32 pages [This Is How I Draw Cats Now 1]
The Oopsy Show
by Brian Brooks
I created Oopsy Daisy while working at Cosmic on Emily. After a long break, I revisited the character and her world took more shape. Oopsy barely survives endless disasters in a looping slapstick world—until the cameras stop rolling and she’s left wandering a collapsing reality where her only escape is watching the curated lives of her favorite influencers.
A Cartoon Of Myself
by Brian Brooks
I began documenting my artwork and growth as a cartoonist, and artist from the days I began through dating my drawings and taking notes and keeping diaries about my projects. I began this journey in junior high and continuing it to this day. The book will trace my influences throughout life.
I’ve had a lot of influences over the years. From other human interactions in real time in the past as well as those appearing in books, television, radio, pre-recorded music formats, etcetera.
Rock n Roll Coloring Books
by Brian Brooks
In the early 1990s I began making self-published books as a way to share my “artwork” in real life and connect with like-minded people—this was pre-internet. Creating weird fan art, interested me as a way of creating something of value, to certain people, ie; an existing fan base.
The series began as part of what I called the Paul McCartney Art Club: a purposeful indulgence in making self-indulgent fan art that were proudly out of step with the fine art education I was receiving at the time. [Link]
A few books from this series later gained traction on fan sites, leading to a SF Weekly write up that accurately captured a productive 27-year-old Brian.
| Project Name: Rock n Roll Coloring BooksArtist: Brian Brooks Est. 1995 San Francisco, CA |
Description: A series of satirical black-and-white mini coloring books from the late ’90s that reimagine rock legends in absurd, mundane, and historically offbeat scenarios—using drawn faces combined with clipart bodies in a deadpan collage format. |
| Press: SF Weekly |
Media: iComics, zines, photocopier |
Neighborhood Projects
by Brian Brooks
A long-running documentation of the neighborhood [Temescal, North Oakland]—where I’ve lived over 25 years. Part hobby, part preservation, part obsession, part turning my surroundings into a fantasy theme park by celebrating the ordinary and the extraordinary.
Combines multiple mediums including: plein air paintings, field sketching, surveying, mapping, and demolition and construction-site observation. Read more about My Neighborhood Projects.
Neighborhood Guide
by Brian Brooks
View the 2023 edition of Temescal Now guidebook to my neighborhood’s businesses and buildings. Follow along as I document the comings and goings of our local surroundings on Instagram @temescalnow.
What If? Books
by Brian Brooks
What If? The What If? series is 3 volumes of my “what if?” jokes. Creatively silly and thought provoking entertainment for all ages. The first volume compiled the original 10 volumes of my What If? Illustrated. .The first three volumes of What If? are available for purchase on Amazon.
Cool Coloring Books
by Brian Brooks
Cool Coloring Books Cool Coloring Books (5 book series) each with a different theme: One Cool Coloring Book, Too Cool To Color: Snake Lady And Tall Dog’s Coloring Books , Three’s A Crowded Coloring Book, Four-Dimensional Coloring Books, Give Me Five Coloring Book Coloring is entirely optional Published in 2015 by Smokey’s Tangle. Cool Coloring Books are available for purchase on Amazon
Brian & Emily
by Brian Brooks & Emily Wick
I first met Emily Wick in 2002. She was my high school buddy Andrew’s coworker. I courted her by leaving Emily™ stickers on her desk at work. We began collaborating on projects in 2005, and later opened a store-front studio space and art gallery on Telegraph Avenue.
Smokey’s Tangle
by Brian Brooks & Emily Wick
Smokey’s Tangle 5 Yearbook (2014)
Smokey’s Tangle 5-Yearbook chronicles the first 5 years of Smokey’s Tangle, compiled and edited by Emily Wick. (30mb pdf Link)
Hooper’s Chocolates
by Brian Brooks
There is vacant chocolate factory down the street from our house, I have been using the back lot as my own personal sound stage since 2019. It is next door to a McDonald’s. I post my recent films to: TikTok, and Instagram.
Music
by Brian Brooks
My music related endeavors can be found on Bandcamp.
There are currently two bandcamp pages for Breakfast With Idiots. One showcases our songs, and the other collects a few of our albums.
Breakfast With Idiots were formed in Phoenix Arizona in 1990. We relocated to Oakland in the 2000s.
I also, as it turns out, have another bandcamp account for my solo albums, under the name “Sgt. Rick Sings”.
