Rocom

Being an artist sounds terrible: you hardly make any money, you experiment with dangerous mind-altering hallucinogens, and, worst of all, you can no longer be known as Prince. For work from an artist who seems nonetheless quite normal, check out Rocom.From the OC, Rocom's a former UCI dude who develops toys as a day job while making wall-friendly pop art at night, and whose official bio mentions his favorite pizza place (Gina's) and the fact that he "enjoys burritos, has a pair of headphones, a guitar, and a Wolverine costume complete with adamantium claws" -- an admission that may have made his last GF, his Weapon Ex. A majority of the art is actually pop-culture referencing, w/ Star Wars being a constant theme, like a set of three tiny canvas Jawas, and two of Vader: one a playing card-looking print with Darth stabbing himself in the head with a lightsaber, and another with him wearing bling shaped like the Death Star, aka, Michael C. Hall. He also does more plain cool-looking stuff like painted-all-over canvases that look like super-bright boomboxes, a Fantastic Four-referencing series of squares w/ the number "4" on them painted like the comic characters' costumes, and a Pokemon'd-up series called "Pocket Monsters", also the title of Philip Rivers' Op-Ed about dudes trying to sack him.If stuff's sold-out online, some of it's still available at Munky King on Melrose, and -- in addition to the visual stuff --Rocom's apparently also a rapper, which must be tough considering he's been forced to give up rocking those Diamonds and Pearls.