Featured Artist: Lou Brooks

The art and humorous writing of long-time Guild member Lou Brooks have appeared in practically every major publication in America, including eight covers for Time Magazine and Newsweek. His comics were featured for over a decade in Playboy, and his work has been animated for MTV, Nickelodeon and HBO. His man-in-the-top-hat logo design for the game of Monopoly is recognized throughout the world.

After almost twenty years of “living on the Manhattan concrete”, as he puts it, he and his wife, Clare, now reside in the wine country of Northern California. “Not to be confused with the whine country,” adds Lou. “That’s down around LA.”

His latest project takes you on a 144-page full-color roller coaster ride through the Golden Age of the American roller skating rink. “Skate Crazy: Amazing Graphics from the Golden Age of Roller Skating” is written and designed by Lou, and features over 450 rink decals, ads, programs, postcards and other memorabilia from Lou’s own collection of rink images, as well as dozens of photographs from the National Roller Skating Museum. The book’s story of roller skating’s grandest era (1937-1959) is also the story of a
changing American society, from the wartime years of the 1940s through the tail fin decade of the 1950s. “Our last great era of manners and style, in spite of the Hokey Pokey,” says Lou.