Earlier this month, I was contacted by Steven Charny at Rolling Stone to do an illustration for the magazine's review of Eminem's new album, "Recovery." Interestingly it also turns out to be the same issue as the late-breaking McChrystal interview thats out this week.

Aside from heading away from drug references, the brief was nicely open, so the sketch ideas below were inspired mainly by the longevity of Eminem's career and his role as a veteran of fame. The scaffolding idea, which we went with, was based on the his role a cultural icon with a lot of baggage facing an uncommon amount of scrutiny at the release of his seventh album. (Also after roughing out the sketches I discovered the video from the first single off the album used a lot of the same elements of risk and vertigo, which seemed like a good sign.)

Overall it was a lot of fun to have such a flexible brief and the opportunity to work with Steven at Rolling Stone on such an interesting subject.