Every year, the organizing committee for Fantasy Fest hold a competition to find the poster art for their particular brand of insanity. Each year, the week-long event comes up with a new theme. Previously having been a body-painter at Fantasy Fest, David began submitting designs to this competition. Here are some examples.
The 2010 event theme was "Habitat for Insanity." David's design featured a Key West Conch house as the habitat for an insane house party which incorporates elements from traditional Fantasy Fest events as well as Key West history and legend.
As the characters enter the Habitat for Insanity, they represent many of the popular events and theme parties of Fantasy Fest in the order that they occur: Headdress Ball, Plaid party, Monster’s Ball, Toga party, etc. By now, many of the nights these parties occur on have been set in stone. So you can actually look at this art and see a kind of schedule of events going up the stairs.
The two Hemingway cats in the lower right are reenacting a legendary Ernest Hemingway story where he carried home a urinal from Sloppy Joe's Bar one night to use as a cat fountain in his garden. Even though he washed it before he filled it with water, the cats wouldn't drink out of it. Still won't, to this day.
The house in the poster is loosely based on the Artists House in Key West. The turret of that house is famous for housing the ghost of a doll. David painted the doll in the top room, Chuckie of horror movie fame in the middle room and the ghosts of Ernest Hemingway and Captain Tony in the lower room.
David actually stayed in the doll-haunted room at the top of the turret once. The only unusual thing that happened was that all his rechargeable batteries were stone cold dead every morning, even after charging overnight.
David actually stayed in the doll-haunted room at the top of the turret once. The only unusual thing that happened was that all his rechargeable batteries were stone cold dead every morning, even after charging overnight.
David included a self portrait body painting on the top floor of the house. Some friends were also shown in some of the actual paint jobs he gave them for a previous Fantasy Fest.
The Habitat for Insanity theme title is being nibbled on by a hermit crab who has his own insane habitat ... a discarded Key West Beer can.
The border motif of the 2010 poster design submission featured a parade of marching conchs.
The theme for 2011 is "Aquatic Afrolic." Once again, David incorporates various aspects of Fantast Fest and Key West into the concept using a central octopus character.
The conch is back, and ready to party.
Florida Spiny lobsters hold up their informational end even though they are clearly blatzed on Key West Beer.
Anyone who has spent any time in the Keys has memories of parrot fish. The colorful fish look like they are dressed for an underwater party all year long.
The festive atmosphere is completed with a music and light show rave of crabs floating by on glowing jellyfish.
The 2014 Animated Dreams & Adventures theme obviously sought to inspire costumes from the wildly popular anime genre among attendees, but David had visions of paying homage to the earliest days of animation with a parody of Disney's earliest Micky Mouse cartoon, Steam Boat Willie. It made perfect sense for Key West, where they call themselves Conchs and shrimping and fishing are still a bedrock of the economy.
The homage to early animation continued with Key West rooster dancing a hornpipe jig a la Popeye.
The animal that lives inside a conch shell is basically one big muscle with a claw-like foot, eyes and an alimentary canal. As weird as it is, you can't have a Key West cartoon without a conch character.
As much as David loved going the historical route, this concept wouldn't have been complete without all of the anime-style sea creatures in the lower half of the art.
