fun facts about me

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los angeles, ca, United States
My name is Dave Davenport, but I am sometimes known as "Dogspunk", and sign my artwork "DDOG". I've been tattooing since 1996 and making comic books since 2004. In a past life I animated video games. To view galleries of my work, visit my website dogspunk.com and click on the teeth menu on the left...

Monday, April 21, 2008

hot list




Another old piece, this one was a 2 page spread for OUT magazine. I like the piece, but conceptually a nightmare. The art director wanted a "summer fun" scene in hell, and specifically wanted a devil evocative of my character the Grey Otter. The piece originally had this devil driving the dune buggy, and the surfer on the wave of flame was a devil as well. The magazine editor saw the original sketch and freaked out; the magazine in no way wanted to appear to promote Satan. So, demonic reference was erased, and there we have the piece as it is now, which makes little sense.
I still like it though. I rarely do a piece only in illustrator these days.
BTW, the devil sign (being made by the passenger in the buggy) slipped past the editor :)

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service

File under "comics I am reading". The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is a Japanese series, released in the US by Dark Horse Manga. I picked it up out of curiosity when the first book came out, and was interested enough to pick up the second. This is good, because the book really starts to hit it's stride in the second book. It has quickly become one of my favorites, probably my favorite current Japanese title. The story line involves a group of Buddhist students with unusual powers or skills that band together in a business venture to carry out the wishes of the recently deceased so that they may rest in peace. The central character Karatsu is a medium of sorts, who has the ability to speak with the recently dead. He also seems to be haunted by a powerful ghost whose intentions are a mystery... thus far it seems to be a benefactor, but clues are pointing to possible nefarious origins to this spirit.

Anyhow, the group finds early on that working for dead people is a failing business model, and are constantly trying to find ways to make it work. Stories have involved an Iraqi civilian whose body was accidentally shipped to Japan, a "bodyworlds" type scheme, a mummification scheme, an alien scheme, stolen kidneys speaking to Karatsu, a guest appearance from the lead character from Housui Yamazaki's book Mail, and unusual competing services. The writing is topical and savvy, and avoids temptations of cliche, such as the hacker/computer whiz character. She is very absent most of the time, which is good. Over-use of the wild-card is bad. The art style has grown on me. At first I was jarred by the juxtaposition of cutsey manga and horror imagery, but it works, and has improved over the run.

I hear there is a U.S. film being made based on these books. Hopefully if this is so it will be worthy of the comic.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

big dicks on the net?


Heaven forfend!
Another spot for [2] magazine. I am digging the wacom tablet.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

piece from the past

This is one of the pieces I did for instigator magazine. I did some work I am really proud of for that magazine, but to say work with them was a nightmare would be an understatement. I'll get into it more in another post.


This piece accompanied an article about an Afghani warlord on trial. Many witnesses testifying against him made mention of the "human attack dog" the warlord kept in a hole in the ground. True story, supposedly.