Midtown Manhattan

Just some various photos from New York City last night. I've been to many places in the world, but there's no place like here. Truly makes a Villain feel at home.

The Boss

The Evil Genius Club

Villain Inc is proud to announce The Evil Genius Club. This is a whole new section to VillainInc.com.

What is it?

The Evil Genius Club is our attempt at assembling and showing off some of the amazingly talented people that cross our paths online or in the real world. These people aren't 'friends that we're promoting' but are actually incredible artists and entrepreneurs that we have encountered and feel are worth holding up to our many loyal and like-minded Villain Inc fans. We don't make money off of them and are not affiliated with them one bit. We merely appreciate their work and would like to let all of you know about it.

What is our goal?

Art. Pure and simple. We want Villain Inc to be synonymous with creativity. And creativity extends beyond our own work. Our goal is to organize the many incredible artists and entrepreneurs that exist throughout the real and virtual world, and present them with a community and platform to promote their work and perhaps meet other artists along the way. In a very small way, Villain Inc wants to help the creative process move along.

Who do we choose?

You've got to be good. That's really it. Sure, we have our own style preferences here and there, but generally truly great art speaks for itself and exists without boundary. We want the artists to stand as a reflection of our own standards, so that even though the styles may vary, the level of quality is the same.

Want to join?

Email or tweet us a link to your work and we'll take a look at it. No, we're not professional art critics in any way, but we will look over your work and decide if it fits our site. And please keep in mind our one rule - your submission does allow us enough creative control over your work to use your images only for the promotion of your work within the framework of this site. We are not allowed to make any money with your work or use it to promote anything pertinent to our business (outside of the Evil Genius Club section.) We have no rights to your work whatsoever and this section is only used as advertising for your work.

Villain Inc 2011 Year in Review

 2011 was the launch year for Villain Inc. It will always be an important year to us for that reason. This was the year that designs and ideas became reality. It was an exciting time when our fun doodles, time killers, and fine art work when into full-scale production for the market. Now at the end of 2011 (and still only halfway through our first official launch year) Villain Inc is growing fast with a big following, multiple designs, and a wonderful reception.


Villains: To Be Or Not To Be?

At the start of this endeavor, Villain Inc was not originally going to be 'Villain Inc'. Weird huh? The work began long before 2011 through our design company, Future Boy Productions. We had been planning to launch our clothing brand for many years, often tinkering with different ideas that included robots, aliens, and all kinds of insane characters.

Evolution of a Villain.

And yet, as the design process was moving along, I found myself always going back to my sketchbook to dream up some new 'Vaudevillain' characters, as I called them. Then one day it hit me: why oversaturate the market with more robotic, crazy, hipster cartoon characters? Other brands already played with this idea and did a fine job with it. Instead of looking forwards, why not look back to the cool styles of the past? Immediately, we scrapped our original designs and put all our energy behind the Villain style.

The Original Four

After much hard work and fine-tuning, our original four designs were printed this past summer. "The Villain", "The Boss", "The Drifter" and "The Tuxedo" hit the market in a big way, receiving great responses from friends and supporters. In these original looks, we tried our best to capture what the brand is about.

The Original Four.

Admittedly, our time frame was broad in essentially covering the black and white film world of a half a century. This encapsulated the vaudeville characters of the early 1900s through the Gleasons and Bogarts of the 40s and 50s. But despite this multi-decade world, we always found a certain magic in all the characters of black and white film. It's that mysterious style that we tried to capture in our launch designs, further backed by our slogan, "The Original Cool".

Getting the Word Out

Of course the design process was only half the battle for our brand this year. The other half was marketing, advertising our name, and trying to develop a following. We knew there were many people who thought like us, and that there was a market and appreciation for this style. It was simply a matter of how to reach them?

We very quickly began showing up at fairs and festivals in the New York area, selling shirts and meeting people face to face. The positive feedback and sales we received there were very encouraging! We also took to the internet to really push our brand through our online store, blog and Twitter page.

We've now had the pleasure of meeting a huge amount of friends and fans that appreciate our style and share our love for the characters of the 'black and white world'. With absolute sincerity, I would personally like to say thank you to everyone that has shown interest in our brand.

2012 and Beyond

We're just getting started. Cliche, sure, but very true. In the coming days of this year we will be launching original, new designs to our shop and continuing to build our Villain Life Collection. We are also working hard to bring Villain Inc Apparel to retail stores anywhere and everywhere! In short, the Villain Inc you see as of this writing will be enormously bigger at this time next year. We're talking selection, activities, artwork, etc. More, more, more!

Villain Inc 2012.

We also hope to grow from our friends and fans as well. If you guys want to get involved, please keep sending us you Around The World pics, comments & suggestions, and your own #VillainLife images! We also are looking forward to photography challenges and more appearances at parties and festivals. If you want to get involved, let us know.

A New Year For All of Us

This is only the beginning for Villain Inc. Thank you all so much for all your support and kind words. We can't stress enough how appreciative we are and overwhelmed by the positive feedback we have received already. We hope you'll continue to support us and keep us in check.

Most of all, we hope Villain Inc inspires you all to be creative as well. Remember, this brand was built from my own personal passion and a very small amount of money to invest in it. That's it. There's no great secret to it. Follow your heart, do what you love, and don't be afraid to work very hard at it.

So let's all use this new year as the start of bigger and better things. Get rid of the negativity, surround yourself with good people, and get to work on whatever it is you're passionate about. And don't be shy to share your work with us. We are happy to support it and advertise it!

Happy New Year, Villains. Stay tuned.

The Boss