SpongeBob Illustration Art for The Village Voice Magazine’s "Best of NYC" Issue

A few years ago, the Village Voice decided to use a SpongeBob theme for their year-end "Best of New York" issue. I got the opportunity to create the cover and eight full-page illustrations for the inside.

The editors at the Village Voice gave me almost zero input, so I really had an incredible amount of creative freedom on this job!

Each one of the SpongeBob illustrations is for a specific topic...The Hawaiian-themed page at the top was for an article on the best live music in New York City.

This illustration with Gary the snail and his girlfriend Snelly was definitely the hardest concept to come up with -- believe it or not, the topic of this section was the best sex in New York City (The Village Voice used the term "bodily pleasures" to sound better).

I'm pretty amazed that Nickelodeon gave the Village Voice permission to use SpongeBob throughout the body of that Village Voice issue, but having the SpongeBob characters associated with hot topics like sex was really surprising!

SpongeBob flipping Krabby Patties for the "Best Food" article

Click on any image to open up a HUGE SpongeBob Illustration

SpongeBob as bartender (!) for the "Best Drinks" article

This junkyard scene with Mr. Krabs was for the article on the best places to shop and to find bargains in New York City.

In the next post, I'm going to put up the rest of the series! I hope you'll stop by and check it out!

All images: Drawing and Inking by Sherm Cohen

Coloring and Painting by Peter Bennett

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Here's a quick look at the next batch of images

from the SpongeBob issue of The Village Voice:

SpongeBob © 2009 Viacom International Inc. All rights reserved. NICKELODEON, SpongeBob SquarePants, and all related titles, logos, and characters are trademarks of Viacom International Inc. SpongeBob Created by Stephen Hillenburg.