During a First Friday art crawl late last year, I happened upon a guerilla-style pop-up of irreverent T-shirts designed and printed by an artist who goes simply by the moniker Mr. Skunk.
“While I appear publicly to sell my stuff, I prefer to [remain anonymous] so the focus is on the idea and not ‘me’ per se,” he later explained in a text that also referenced the eyeball helmet-wearing avant-garde art-rock collective The Residents and their so-called “Theory of Obscurity.”
It’s safe to say that the $20 purchase I made that night — a simple white T-shirt depicting Miles “Tails” Prower from the Sonic the Hedgehog series getting high under the handwritten slogan “Smoke Drugs, Do Crimes” — has earned its weight in gold. The shirt turned the heads of hardened people, sparked unsolicited conversations and — most importantly — elicited more wicked laughter than any garment I have ever owned.
When I returned a few months later to buy the same design in black, I proposed a Zoom Q&A with Mr. Skunk, whose other shirts depict Donald Trump branded as “Poison,” Joe Biden donning a clown nose and Ted Cruz characterized as a “Booger Eater” — which is thoughtfully also available as a “snot rag.”
How’d you come up with the name Mr. Skunk?
When I turned 15, I [got] a mohawk and frosted it white. Whenever it wasn’t spiked up, it kind of looked like this white skunk stripe on my head. There’d be dudes who’d say, “You look like a skunk.” I was a ratty punk rock guy, so it fit. … I started calling myself Mr. Skunk since I’m a little older [now].
Have you always been interested in art?
I’ve been drawing since I was a kid. I’ve always been fascinated by cartoons and how they’re done. … I got a guitar when I was 12, and by the time I was 14 I was singing in a punk band. We were called AWOL — Adolescents Without Lives. … My nose would spontaneously bleed [during shows] and I would just keep singing. So, it was kind of a funny, unintentional gimmick where I’d start bleeding everywhere. The White Rabbit used to make me bring my own mic. … But I’ve always basically been an odd persistent guy [and] just kind of elbowed my way into the art and music scene. … [And] I’ve always been somebody who just tries to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
Are you originally from San Antonio?
[I was] born and raised here, and my family’s lived here since 1905. My great, great grandfather came here when he was like 8 or 9. … I’ve lived in San Antonio all my life … around Jefferson High School, near Woodlawn Lake. My parents and my grandparents all grew up in that same area.
Tell me a bit about your designs. What do you consider some your greatest hits in terms of your T-shirts?
If you don’t mind, I could start [with] the way this began. When I was 15, I mashed together a picture of Che Guevara and the KFC guy, [Colonel Sanders]. It was just a goofy little [design] — not a serious art piece. [When ideas] pop up in my head, I want to put them on paper. That’s [the case with] a lot of my designs. Anyway, I put it on DeviantArt. And maybe three or four years later, I found out that it [had been stolen and reproduced] on shirts. Actually, more than one website put it on shirts, phone cases and even a shower curtain that I found on Reddit. It was kind of like, this is cool, but what do I think of this? And, even then, I kind of internally argued with myself [and asked], “Is this even art because I just threw two things together?” But still, it’s something I came up with and it got stolen. So, the shirt company got shut down for stealing art from DeviantArt. … I found out about it in 2009 or 2010, [but] here and there I’ll still see weird boutiques try to use it. … One day about a year ago, my wife gave me a silkscreen kit for Christmas. I was telling her it’d be cool to make that shirt for myself — just to say I have one, since so many people have [them and] they’re floating around. So, I made the silkscreen for it and made a couple [of shirts]. And then I sold one to a friend for 20 bucks. Maybe a day or two later, [someone] was like, “Dude, that’s so cool. Where’d you get it?” And I was like, “I have one in my trunk.” So, he bought it for another 20 bucks. So, I used that to buy another silkscreen or two and a couple more shirts. I had a couple of [designs] that [I thought] would work — one of Kim Jong-un and one of Trump that says “Poison.” And I awkwardly sat at First Friday with just those three designs in a couple sizes each. I sold four or five of them, got like 80 bucks, bought more shirts and did it again with more colors. I repeated [that process], got a Square, set up Cash App and just multiplied it. So, I really grew it out of $20 and a Christmas present.
And you’re mainly selling at First Friday?
Yes. I also made a “Sex Pistols: Live at Randy’s Ballroom” shirt just as a commemorative thing for myself but [then decided to] try to sell them. They sold … so I made more. And then this guy at Flagship Records [bought one] and he told his buddy Jeff [Smith] of the Hickoids. … I [ended up selling 35-40 shirts at his Sex Pistols tribute] event “The Filth & the Flautas.” … I’m [hoping] to have all my designs at Pink Zeppelin, which is a little record store off Culebra. That place is pretty cool, and I’ve gotten traffic there.
It seems like quite a bit of your stuff skews toward political commentary.
It’s kind of all over the place. To me, it’s more just thought-provoking or shocking or whatever. Some of it’s political, of course. Even the Tails [design that says “Smoke Drugs, Do Crimes”] is kind of political in a weird way. … There’s this one weird PSA that shows Tails smoking a cigarette and Sonic [the Hedgehog] telling him that’s bad. You could find a similar-ish image … but not with what I put on it. [It’s] kind of like the Vivienne Westwood “Seditionaries” shirt of Mickey Mouse shooting dope.
Your gay cowboys shirt also has Vivienne Westwood vibes.
That is a Vivienne Westwood reproduction. The only reason I felt okay with it — considering the fact that this was born out of my stuff being stolen — is that that one has been so mercilessly [reproduced]. Honestly, ever since I was 12 or 13, when I found Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s designs for the “Seditionaries” shirts, I was like, those are cool. Even nowadays, they’re too edgy. People would be like, “No, you can’t do that.” I’ve always thought, man, we need something like that today. But everyone’s too scared to do it. And like … what better way to display artwork than to put it on a shirt? I could very easily try to do paintings of pop culture stuff … and some hipster’s gonna throw it in their bathroom. Why not make it [functional]? People need clothes, right? And on top of that, they’re wearing my art … and making other people upset or making them chuckle or whatever. If I made you laugh or upset, I know I did something right.
What kind of reaction have you gotten to your Ted Cruz “Booger Eater” design?
Mostly positive. There have been people that might support him and scoff or something. But most people have been like, “Yes, that’s awesome.” It actually sells more than I [expect it to]. People like it, people buy it, and when I don’t have certain sizes, people are disappointed. … But if you’re asking if any of them have gotten visceral or maybe irate reactions, the one that usually does is the Kyle Rittenhouse “Small Dick Energy” shirt I have [with] a picture of him crying. … And then I had one person look at my Trump shirt and say, “Fuck Joe Biden.” And I was like, “Yeah, fuck him. You look like a smart guy. Here, I have a ‘Brandon the Clown’ shirt.” And he kind of looked at me like, “Oh,” and just walked off. It’s disarming if you do it right.
Keep up with Mr. Skunk by following him on Instagram @uxoboutique.
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This article appears in Feb 22 – Mar 7, 2023.