Sam Brown (artist)

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Sam Brown is an American illustrator, father and author most famous for his website, explodingdog. The gimmick of the site is that he draws pictures based on titles that visitors to the site send him via email. He has also written two books of art and short stories, Wish For Something Better and Amazing Rain, based on the art of his website.

Most of Sam Brown's art is created in Adobe Photoshop on a Wacom tablet, although recently he has begun doing some drawings on paper. The fact that the art is produced on a computer is not readily apparent from viewing; other than occasional digital filters and transparency effects, the majority of the work is solid color-filled line drawings. Many visitors find the crudeness of the drawings adds to their humor.

A number of themes are recurrent in Sam Brown's art, likely the types of things he most enjoys drawing; these include fish, birds, robots, alien visitors, evil (portrayed as a green liquid), clouds, dictators and rockets, although he will never draw monkeys. His people have a distinctive appearance, their faces a plain circle with a line drawn across the middle for the mouth and two scribbled circles for eyes. The people engage in a number of abnormal activities such as stabbing or dismembering each other, hooking themselves up to strange machines, and flying.

At a first glance, the pictures are childlike and funny, until the reader sees the message that inspired the drawing, and suddenly there’s a more mature, serious attitude, sometimes ironic, dealing with significant emotional issues.

Currently, Sam Brown is a member of the Dumbrella comic collective. Late in the summer of 2005, his wife gave birth to a daughter whom they named 'Anna Mae'.