The X-Files is like comfort food to me. My parents first let me start watching it when I was 12 years old, and it's been a constant in my life ever since. Like most die-hard fans, I've ridden the waves of excitement and anxiety whenever Chris Carter or one of the stars hinted at a possible reunion. So, needless to say, I'm pretty darn excited about the (finally official! hallelujah!) X-Files revival. Six brand spanking new episodes, and if that wasn't enough to keep me floating on cloud 9 for the next few months, David Duchovny just announced that William B. Davis will be returning as CSM, the Cigarette Smoking Man. Be still my heart! He's my favorite tv villain (if you could call him that, I think his good/evil-ness is very ambiguous) of all time.
Anyway, all that to say, I'm super thrilled and all of my overwhelming feelings quickly translated into this new drawing. I've wanted to do a CSM illustration for a while, and the idea of a quote illustrated with smoke had been floating around in my head for months. This is one of those rare instances where the finished product ended up being even better than I imagined when I first dreamed up the idea. I'm so happy with it! And isn't this quote just so film-noir? It's a quote from Skinner, and I think it sums up William B. Davis' character pretty nicely. Even if his motives are often ambiguous, there's no denying the fact that the man is pretty adept at twisting & hiding the truth. I think it's also a really good rebuttal to the adage "The Truth is Out There."
The illustration is available on prints here and (I'm a little embarrassed to admit I got one of these for myself) on t-shirts here!
