Life has been full these last few years. And I’ve written a bit about it in my personal blog so I won’t bore you here by repeating it.

But art-wise, I’ve been trying to keep up a steady flow of work in my studio. As you might imagine, sometimes what’s happening “outside” creeps “inside” and I have to get it out… on paper… in ink… etc.

Here’s one that you might relate to. Along with a few pictures of how it developed.

I’m following up on a symbol I used in a previous piece, though in this new iteration it stands on its own. It’s a symbol called the Interrobang (‽) and it was developed by an advertising guy named Martin Speckter in 1962. It was even introduced in a 1962 article titled “Making a New Point, or, How About That” in the magazine TYPEtalks. Think of the Interrobang as the 1960s equivalent of WTF.

Speckter really thought it should be available for more mainstream use and even talked a few manufacturers into adding a typewriter key with the symbol. Some fonts being used during that time also included the symbol. But seeing as it was kind of expensive to remake machines, republish type specimen sheets, etc. it apparently just didn’t catch on. However, IMHO, I think that once the various heavy outrages (or “excited disbelief”) of the 1960s were over, and we got past the Watergate scandal and the gas shortage of the early 1970s (yes, my age is showing), people were not banging down the door for a way of expressing their outrage in a single symbol when ???!!! could do just fine!

Cue today’s world where up is down, and down is up. Every. Single. Effin’. Day.

So heading to the studio, I figure… it’s time. I really need this Interrobang to be the container for all my “excited disbelief” in what is going on in the world.

Only issue… I wanted it REALLY BIG! Don’t have any type that big. Especially a ? and a ! Enter the jig saw and masonite. And voila! We have the makings of a very large ‽ (albeit it somewhat temporary since, well, I didn’t seal the masonite… lesson learned for next time.)

Here’s the finished product:

And next up – how it’s made.

The print was later included with a bunch of my other work (and many other very talented people’s work) in an exhibition titled Rust & Resonance at UM-Flint’s Riverbank Arts Gallery, April-May 2025.

Hope you like it! But if not, ‽