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Dispatches from the Highlands
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CannaTown News
THE ART OF TROG: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST
Trog's vintage signature style may already be a familiar sight in your world; he's created art for numerous functions, events and comics throughout the years. Now you can nd his work on the cover, and adorning our limited-edition vape battery packs as Can- napages celebrates 15 Years! We sat down to discuss his inspirations and style. Can you tell us about your journey as an artist? How did you start? It started out on a couch, smoking bongs, as a teenager just drawing on paper pads…in a time that was way more simple. It was before any career existed, there was nothing, just the dreams of what I wanted to do. Your art has a very vintage feel, harkening back to the original High Times magazine and 70’s music posters. What or who are your biggest in uences? My biggest in uences are from that time. De nitely in uenced by Rick Grin, Gilbert Shelton, Robert Williams ,Stanley Mouse,
Robert Crumb, Victor Moscos - and I love Rock Poster art. When I started there weren’t really that many rock posters for weed shows that I could see as the internet wasn't really a proper thing then. I could see a few High Times Cup posters and they were like the holy grail I suppose, like I used to think, imagine drawing a poster for High Times Cup... how cool would that be! How would you describe your style? Has it evolved over time? - Its Underground Comix with an X--and some WEED! It's de nitely evolved over time, like if I look back at older work I can see how I now do di erent parts and di erent lines on certain things, but my whole career I've tried to not evolve as I want to stay true to what I wanted to do when I started. It's a weird one. I do it for my career, not for "now." Do you feel like art should have a theme or message? Or is it simply cathartic? Are you ever surprised by the messages and themes others nd when they interpret your work? If we are talking about commercial work then yes, that generally has to carry themes and messages as the client is trying to portray what they want the customer to see. But wast- ed comic art (the proper stu ) doesn’t really have a message, it's more like it just happens, it ows out onto the paper. What has been the biggest challenge in your career? Ever had moments where you consid- ered giving up or taking up something new? I have never had a plan B, so that was never an option. It's more like the conversations I have with my own head are how can I make it work? It is actually dicult at times as your career grows and grows. It also brings in some bad parts too, you need to deal with them and they do take away from the real part that is making the art.
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