Sam’s on the Blob

When he’s not skating, or making videos for boys who skate, Sam Taylor draws unshaven, boggled-eyed slackers, tastefully detailed with stains, veins, wrinkles, creases, stubble and double chins. They usually have a cigarette hanging out the corner of their mouths and an Efes (the Turkish beer they sell at the Dalston snooker club with the same name) in their hands.

We like Sam's drawings, so we asked him to do a bunch of illustrations for us. He always sends us two versions: one containing what we asked him to draw, and one featuring some sort of green, slimy creature. We didn’t give it much thought, until some weeks ago, at a launch night for the Children of the Dragon Issue at The Old Blue Last.

Sam was flipping through the mag, while telling us about that time a car pulled up next to him as he was skating home, and the driver whipped his dick out and started pissing in his path. Then Sam spotted his illustration, stopped mid-sentence and looked up with an intense (yet somehow vulnerable) look in his eyes, stuttering, “you chose… you finally cho-chose THE BLOB!”

Curious about this emotional outburst, I figured I’d ask him what his thing with the blob is. VICE: Are you a fan of that 1950s flick, The Blob?
Sam Taylor: No! My blob has nothing to do with that crappy B-movie. So who is this blob you keep sending us?
It’s a toxic, beer-loving slime monster from the abyss, aka Camberwell [where Sam lives in London].

What is it made of?
It’s primarily made out of slime and bits of congealed beer, and goo. Just basic blob DNA, really. Right. What does it want?
It wants to hang out with people and have a beer but everyone thinks he’s disgusting.

Why do you keep drawing a blob twin of each illustration you make?
I love the blob and want everyone else to see him in different scenarios. It’s funny to me.
Tell me about the birth of the blob.
I was just drawing these little destruction scenes at art school, and it progressed from Godzilla-type creatures to blobs. The rest is history.
  
What are your hopes for the blob?
That he’ll take over the world. How, exactly, would he do that?
Well, he consumes everything in his path, so either in that way, or, after this interview, he’ll go viral and I’ll get a McDonalds commission and he’ll be on Big Mac boxes and made into a series of Happy Meal toys. Imagine how cool that would be. Or maybe Zuckerberg will see him and want me to do some blob stuff for Facebook, I could do with some of that Facebook money. VICE, hook it up. Sam likes followers on Twitter, if you want to befriend him, follow him on @sptsam