Punks Git Cut: The Art of Jay Howell
Like most of us in 2025, Jay Howell is having a hell of a year, despite the fact we’re all barely a third of the way through it. We’re all going through the meta shitshow, but the iconic cartoonist behind the characters from Bob’s Burgers, and co-creator of the Nickelodeon show Sanjay and Craig, also has had his own personal disasters: In the course of a handful of weeks, he’s had a good friend die, broken up with a long-term partner, and lost Street Dog, his beloved pup who had been by his side for the past thirteen and a half years—all right around his fiftieth birthday. And yet … “I did this one a few weeks ago,” Jay said, as he showed me his freshly tattooed fingers, palm side, the letters spread out, one on each finger:
L E T I T G O
“I’ve had a massive amount of loss this year, and it’s been difficult to navigate. I might look really happy all the time, but that’s not real life. Learning to let it go has been difficult, and I try to practice it. It’s going okay. Art is also my therapy; it makes me really happy.”
Howell, a self-professed Futurist, is one of today’s workhorse artists. (“Cartoonist. I’m a cartoonist; not an artist,” he emphasized.) His work is instantly recognizable, beloved with cult-like adoration by the legions who’ve watched Bob’s Burgers during the past fifteen years. He has throngs of fans who snap up his work around the globe, shown in galleries all over the place, though he tends to only do one show a year. But he has no illusions about where he stands in the art world: “Los Angeles feeds me job after job. I mean, you just have to go hang out with people for a couple of nights in a row, and you’re working. It’s my favorite place in the world, but compared to what else goes on there, I ain’t shit,” he laughed. “But when I travel to these other towns to tattoo or do murals or festivals, I’m like: ‘Wow, people know who I am!’”
What he’s largely known for, is the initial character design for the iconic Belcher family—Bob, Linda, Tina, Louise, and Eugene—who have spearheaded the popular Fox Animation series Bob’s Burgers since 2011. “Yeah, people come up to me a lot and tell me how the show saved them, or got them through COVID, that kind of thing,” he said. “And that’s great. I broke my brain trying to make the most iconic family, and I remember going to Comic-Con the year after the show came out, and there were all of these people walking around with those pink bunny ears (the headgear synonymous with character Louise Belcher), and I thought, Yes! We got a hit! And not a lot of people get a hit. I’m forever grateful for that, so I never get mad when people tell me they still love Bob’s Burgers, even though I’m not really in that anymore.”
Though there’s gratitude, Howell added: “I don’t care a lot about the past at all, in terms of my work. I just think about the future, and kind of focus on that. So, like, Bob’s Burgers: I’m grateful you like it, but I’m looking to do the next thing … always.”
The next thing in 2025 is a varied slate: “I just like to move constantly. I like traveling with purpose; I can’t vacation. I can’t sit and relax. I find a lot of inspiration in traveling. I like being in the Midwest, I like going to the South, I like Japan, I like Europe, but I like to be doing something. I’m tattooing people, or I’m doing portraits; I’ve been in Chicago a lot recently, doing all these characters that are going to be all over this new space in the old Morton Salt Warehouse (now known as The Salt Shed, a music venue and community space in Chicago’s West Town), and I’m going on tour in a couple of months with this festival, doing drawings of people all day while one hundred fifty bands play. And I love that.”
Howell is also tentatively scheduling a gallery show for later in 2025 with Space 1026 in Philadelphia. “I’ve always wanted a show there; I’ve always respected that space and I love all the artists that come out of there,” he said.
Growing up, Howell said his favorite artist was Jim Davis, of Garfield fame. “I also liked all the Hanna Barbera cartoons, anything from the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. I just love the really solid painted cell animation colors, the Pink Panther movies,” Howell said. “My favorite artist now is Tove Jansson from the Moomin books. I read a lot of Japanese manga and I like to look at old biker art and prison art. And I like to go the modern art museums and get emotional around the crazy paintings from the ‘60s and ‘70s. I’ll get emotional in front of a big Cy Twombly, and tear up no problem.”
“I JUST LIKE TO MOVE CONSTANTLY. I LIKE TRAVELING WITH PURPOSE; I CAN’T VACATION. I CAN’T SIT AND RELAX. I FIND A LOT OF INSPIRATION IN TRAVELING.”
Looking at the characters Howell draws—in a self-described “loose, weird style” he developed back when he was going to punk shows in the Bay Area in the 1980s and 1990s and got into the zine culture—the viewer feels a rough, joyous, sharp, mischievous essence pervading throughout characters, even as they sometimes express the sadness, frustration, or boredom we all experience. When asked if he’s always pursued an overarching theme of depicting the human condition, Howell joked: “It’s all about me. Seriously, though, if you don’t put yourself into the work entirely, then it’s not about you, so I try to put as much of myself into it as possible. I don’t like to do political art or anything like that. I’m mad, like you are: I just don’t want to draw about it all day long. I’m mad enough, and art is something that brings me joy, so I like to separate it.”
Drawing people and animals—particularly dogs, for which Howell clearly has always a soft spot (“I just love the love they have to give you, you know? I always have. It’s pure.”)—this helps bring Howell that joy. But he attributes his successes to that DIY punk ethos that Howell inhabits and lives to this day.
Take the original story of his involvement in Bob’s Burgers: “I was working in a coffee shop in the Mission (in San Francisco), and this friend of mine introduced me to this guy, Loren (Bouchard, the creator of Bob’s Burgers), who came in for coffee every morning, and said: ‘This is the dude who produced Dr. Katz and did Home Movies,’ and I thought, ‘Oh man, I love those shows, so I just started rapping with him, and eventually handed him my zines over the counter, and we just developed a relationship. Loren was just into this loose, weird art at the time, and that was my thing too.”
From there, Howell worked on the You Tube shorts Forest City Rockers, about a motorcycle gang with one motorcycle, which caught the attention of Audrey Diehl, then at Nickelodeon, and led to a successful pitch for the animated series Sanjay and Craig, running for three seasons. In between, Howell always kept moving, kept drawing, kept traveling.
“I GO AROUND THE COUNTRY DOING PORTRAITS AT FESTIVALS FOR FREE, AND I MAKE ZINES AND HAND THEM OUT FOR FREE (OR LIKE, FIVE BUCKS), BECAUSE I STILL HAVE THE FUGAZI BLOOD IN ME.”
These days, Howell is talking to people at Bento Box Productions about some new television ideas, but as he did in his coffee shop–zine days, he persists in pitching his work to as many people as he can, just to see what sticks, and that includes randomly calling companies himself, even if they’re out of his wheelhouse. “I just got done doing a thing for Chipotle, and I love working for companies like Vans or like anything that naturally fits my style, like skating or surfing kind of vibe. But, I mean, I’ll call up companies that you wouldn’t think would necessarily naturally fit, just because. I’ll call Hermes, or Chanel. Why not? You gotta try because you don’t know what’ll stick.”
For Howell, putting the work out there concurrently means keeping it accessible to everyone: “It’s my DIY punk ethic. And I always try to keep my work affordable, like, I could sell something for like, thirty-thousand dollars, but I’ll never do that, and I go around the country doing portraits at festivals for free, and I make zines and hand them out for free (or like, five bucks) because I still have the Fugazi blood in me.
“I don’t want to sell a thirty-thousand-dollar drawing. I’d rather make a thirty-thousand-dollar mural that serves the community. I hate stuff like Burning Man, where you spend all year making this piece of expensive art that only rich people who can afford expensive tickets to go the desert and be part of a scene can see—that’s not my style at all.” I’d rather have something solid in the community that everyone can enjoy forever.”*
Jay Howell’s next solo show will open in January at San Francisco’s 111 Minna Gallery. Look for previews from them here.
This article was originally published in Hi-Fructose Issue 74. Get a copy of the full issue in print here.
Source involved in this report: Read Original Article
