Memento Mori

Coop finished high school, skipped art school, and arrived in Los Angeles in the late 80’s where he immediately got to work subverting the mainstream. Chances are good you’ve seen some manifestation of his merchandising juggernaut: smoking devils, devil-girls, hotrods, space aliens or monsters on posters, t-shirts, hats, stickers, stationery sets, skate boards, toys, shot glasses, Zippo lighters, and so much more. He’s done roughly 100 posters, including rock posters for Nirvana, Soundgarden, The Sex Pistols and many others, and album cover art for everyone from the Monomen to the Ramones. The first edition of The Devil’s Advocate, his full-color book was released to an immediate sellout in November 2001, and went immediately into continuous reprint. Coop’s second book, THE BIG FAT ONE, a 1008-page sketchbook, was released in October 2002. According to Juxtapoz Magazine, Coop’s name is “now more recognizable to modern youth than that of Rembrandt.“ He cites Robert Williams, R. Crumb and Eric Stanton as some of his favorites and great influences, in addition to Big Daddy Roth, Irving Klaw, Wally Wood, Gil Elvgren, and a host of other degenerates. Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame houses two of Coop’s posters in its permanent collection. He was also commissioned I started Pressure Printing as a way to collaborate with and promote the artwork of the amazingly talented artists that I admire most. It is first and foremost a labor of love and secondly a vehicle to generate enough money to perpetuate itself and to hopefully make money for the artists and myself. I have been professionally involved in the graphic art world for over twenty years and have been block printing since I was a small child. My design business, Keech Studio, has worked with clients large and small since 1986. My passion for fine and unusual art combined with a need to print compelled me to start Pressure Printing with the goal of creating unique and sought-after handpressed print editions of the finest quality possible. Using antique handpresses, I individually print all of the images in these collections myself. The traditional process is a painstaking one that produces one impression at a time, resulting in a beautiful print with depth and dimension not achievable by any electronic method. The paper I use for the prints is carefully selected and is usually hand made especially for the projects. I design the packaging and advertising for the projects I work on as