By this time, you’re all probably sick to death of hearing about the whole Hangover II facial tattoo debate.  If you’ve been nestled somewhere deep in the core of the earth for the past two months, wearing earplugs and blinders, then I’ll just tell you to go over here for the complete story on the issue.  Otherwise, I’ll have to preface all this by telling you that if you think you’re sick of hearing about this, I’ll see your sick of hearing about this and raise you about three billion times more sick of writing about this.  So why do I keep doing it then, you ask?  Because I just can’t bear to let down you tattoo news hungry folks out there.  Please hold your applause.  I know, I know…I’m just that awesome.

Well, you’ll all be happy to know that the issue is finally, once and for all, over with.  As of this week, Missouri based tattoo artist S. Victor Whitmill has come to a settlement with the Warner Brothers Entertainment people.  Unfortunately, after all the media hoopla on this issue and all the things that have been said, the details of the settlement have not been released to the public at present time.  I’m guessing that it will only be a matter of days before the media finds out exactly what the settlement was, but most likely if both sides are satisfied it’s a decent compromise.

‘But Judge Perry made in clear in her comments to the lawyers that she was very sympathetic to Mr. Whitmill’s argument, noting, that he had a “strong likelihood of prevailing on the merits for copyright infringement” and that most of the arguments put forward by Warner Brothers were “just silly.”

On Friday, the two sides met with a mediator in St. Louis as ordered by the judge. By Monday, the studio had issued its terse announcement of a settlement.’

But let’s not get too excited about this whole issue because despite the settlement, the issue of tattoo copyright has yet to be resolved.

‘With the settlement, however, there is still no clear legal guidance on the tricky questions raised by copyright claims to tattoos, which, after all, live on another person’s body. An earlier case, involving a Nike advertisement that used a tattoo on the shoulder of the N.B.A. star Rasheed Wallace, was also settled out of court.’

I’m sure that it’s only going to be a matter of time before an issue like this comes up once again, and again, and again until there is some sort of significant legislation put down regarding the debate over tattoos and copyright.  Until then, enjoy your settlement bread, S. Victor Whitmill.

I like to see elderly tattooed people.  I don’t mean elderly people who were tattooed many, many years ago and as a result their tattoos have aged along with them, no.  Don’t get me wrong, that’s cool too, but what I think is really cool is when elderly people go out and get tattoos while they’re elderly.

That’s what Chicago, Illinois resident Helen Lambin is doing.  Lambin, who won’t reveal her exact age and who will only say that she has three children in their 40’s and an 18-year-old granddaugther, has been getting tattooed since 2008.

‘”I was retired and I didn’t have to worry about how it might look in the workplace,” said Lambin, who used to be a program coordinator at Loyola University. “I was feeling depressed and I would not allow myself to be depressed, so I wanted to do something different. I decided I didn’t want to grow old gracefully.”‘

Not only has this new passion given Lambin a different take on life, but it’s also lead to a boost in her confidence, helping her to feel more comfortable about speaking out on the issues that matter to her.

‘”The ink, all colorful, well done — and never offensive, I hope — forms a bridge that reaches across age, gender, race and cultural borders.

“Now, I am not dim. I know that some groups of people — including young people — can be dangerous. … Any violence is terrible and tragic. But these kids — and to me they are kids — have been polite, friendly and fun. Even as I talk about meeting them, they probably go home and talk about the eccentric older lady with all the ink.”

But it’s not just the young people who open up. Lambin said her tattoos embolden her. Suited up, she can be mild-mannered and demure. But when she shows some skin, she becomes her real self: one who’s determined to speak out against sexism, racism, gender inequality and homophobia, among other topics.’

Great to see, really.  I wish there were more elderly people like Helen Lambin.  It’s refreshing to see someone her age who is so open minded and aware of what tattoos can and will do for an individual.  I wish her all the best and hope she keeps on getting tattooed!

Today, before I began looking through tattooist Stewart Robson’s portfolio, I was rather suprised and well – okay, I’ll admit it – a little skeptical when I saw that his tattoo work consisted of three different types of tattoo: western style, Japanese, and black and grey.  Western can be a mixture of a million different styles, no doubt, but Japanese alone is a tough one.  Countless artists spend their entire careers trying to master Japanese tattoo.  Black and grey is no walk in the park either.  A lot of tattooists do black and grey tattoos, but quality black and grey is really a sight to see.

Fortunately – and I’m not trying to kiss anyone’s ass here – Stewart Robson’s skill level shines in all three styles of tattoo that he does.  His western work features bold lines and beautiful colour, his Japanese work is alive with complexity and form and his black and grey downright pops off the flesh.  Not only that, but all three types of tattoos boast smooth, impressive composition.  Stewart Robson is three for three in more ways than one.

Tattooing since 2004 and professionally since 2006, Stewart can be found Friday to Tuesday at London, England’s Frith Street Tattoo.  If you live in England or the UK, I would suggest paying him a visit.  If you don’t live in London or the UK, I would suggest remembering his name if you don’t already know it and go see him when and if he comes anywhere near to where you are.

It seems quite strange that tattoos would still be banned under various circumstances at this point.  I mean, tattoo bans in the workplace have pretty much always existed and I don’t expect that we’ll be seeing the end of it anytime soon.  The US Marines have long since banned tattoos from their recruits that extend beyond the elbow or the knee.  It isn’t just the marines either – various police forces also ban tattoos.

The issue seems a little strange to me – I mean, in the case of the military, why would a tattoo hinder someone’s ability to kill people?  Or in the case of the police, why would a tattoo hinder anyone’s ability to arrest people?  Any way you slice it, there just doesn’t seem to be ample reason for banning tattoos in either the military or the police force.

That’s why I was surprised and pleased to see that the Malaysian Armed Forces have just announced that having tattoos provides no hindrance to joining their ranks.  This is surprising to me first and foremost because it is a government run unit that one wouldn’t typically think would be okay with tattoos.  The secondary reason why this is surprising to me is that Malaysia isn’t exactly a hotbed of tattoo activity.  That’s not to say that there aren’t tattoo enthusiasts and artists in Malaysia, but the numbers there are considerably lower than in many other countries.

It’s great to see Malaysia getting something like this out of the way and out into the open.  It’s a grand example for other nations to follow and a big step toward removing the bias that what’s on a person’s flesh somehow impacts the job that they can do.

I don’t like to think of tattoo as a trend, mostly because it just isn’t.  It is without a doubt an art form, though unfortunately there are many people out there who treat it as a trend and regard it as nothing more than that.   This annoys me, but perhaps what annoys me even more is when people use the exposure that tattoo can bring to suit their own pathetic desire for media attention and lie about their tattoos or the reasoning for getting the tattoos that they have.

In the past couple of years, we’ve seen two different girls lie about their tattoos, resulting in media frenzies that built until finally, each girl came out and told the truth.  Most recently was the Facebook profile photo tattoo girl, who claimed to have had the profile photos of all 152 of her Facebook friends tattooed on to her arm in a sleeve.  The following day after posting a video on YouTube detailing the tattoo and the process, the girl came out an admitted that the entire thing had all been a hoax. 

Two years ago, Belgian Kimberley Vlaminck accused her tattooist of tattooing 56 stars on her face as she slept.  She claimed that she had only asked for three and the tattooist, Rouslan Toumaniantz, had misunderstood her.  This also turned out to be untrue as Vlaminck later confessed to asking for all 56 stars, but lying about the entire incident after her father saw the tattoos.

This sort of annoying, time wasting crap really gets under my skin.  Aside from it being entirely idiotic to go online and lie about your tattoos, it also makes tattoos and tattooists appear frivolous, when in actuality it’s the people getting (or pretending to get) the tattoos who are the foolish ones.

Well, in the case of Belgian Kimberley Vlaminck, there is at least a little bit of justice.  Vlaminck is to now have her 56 star tattoo removed, a process that will cost her £9,000 ($14,571 USD).  I don’t like being happy over other people’s misfortunes, but Vlaminck brough this entirely on herself and she completely deserves it.  Not only that, but her face is no doubt going to suffer scarring from this procedure.  I guess that’s what you get when you deceive the world and almost completely ruin the career of a tattooist.  Too bad for her.

Today in the United States it’s flag day and it seems fitting that many would show their devotion to a flag of their choosing by having it tattooed on them.  Perhaps that’s a rather unique way to celebrate a particular flag compared to the traditional method of simply waving a piece of fabric around, but if you ask me, if celebrating a flag is your thing, then a tattoo is just as good a method for doing this as any other.

Some residents of Washington D.C. have even decided to band together to celebrate the flag that they’ve had tattooed on them.  Proclaiming this Tuesday, June 14th as D.C.’s first ever DC Flag Tattoo Day, the gathering is used not just as a method to celebrate the D.C. stars and bars, but also as a method to highlight a political issue unique to residents of the district.

‘Over the years, the “Three Stars and Two Bars” has come to symbolize over 600,000 Americans who can not enact their own laws nor elect voting representatives to the House and Senate.

This Flag Day 2011 we encourage a large gathering of people with DC Flag tattoo’s and those that support them as a way to get under the skin of America and bring attention to DC’s lack of rights in Congress.’ 

This tattoo has long had political connotations, having been used by many in the D.C. hardcore punk scene of the early 1980’s.  Today the tattoo might still be with the punks, but there’s others on aboard as well, apparently.  If you live in the D.C. area, have the flag tattoo or are simply interested in joining the fight for voting rights, then you can join up with others of the same mindset at DC Flag Tattoo Day, today at Dupont Circle from 6pm to 8pm.  For more information, head here.

Politicians aren’t always the quickest bunch to catch on to issues that effect the public.  Often it takes quite some time and anger on the part of the public for the average politician to notice that something’s wrong and to then take steps to correct that problem.

For quite some time now we’ve been seeing the serious issues that the purchase of DIY tattoo equipment is causing.  Anyone can order a tattoo machine off the internet and begin tattooing in a matter of weeks or even days.  It’s a scary thought, but what’s scarier is that there are plenty of people out there who are willing to allow untrained, unhygenic and unemployed scratchers to use their bodies as a practice canvas.

Hopefully, tougher regulations are on their way.  British member of parliament Madeleine Moon is campaigning for tougher controls on DIY tattoo equipment.

‘Bridgend MP Madeleine Moon said it was wrong that tattooists could work without training or qualifications.

She told the programme: “You can’t take blood in a GP’s surgery without undergoing years of training.

“Why on earth are we allowing people to not just stick one needle in somebody’s arm and extract blood, but to inflict many needles going into the skin, possibly scarring someone for life – no qualification, no minimum standards of training before you can do it? That’s crazy.”‘

How exactly Moon proposes that stricter regulations over the sale of tattoo equipment is going to be achieved is not clear in this article, but the fact that the issue is even being brought up by a member of Britain’s parliament is a positive step forward.  If the British government can oversee a successful programme to at the very least minimize the amount of equipment that is going into untrained hands, then that leaves us with hope that other countries can do the same.

Let’s hope that it happens sooner rather than later…

If you ask people what career they’d expect most former US marines to wind up with, it’s a pretty safe bet that very few people are going to put their money on tattooist.  In fact, if you want to go one step even further, if you asked people whether or not they believed that being in the marines could play a large role in encouraging and guiding a recruit toward becoming a tattooist, I’d say that the response would be a resounding “no”.

After using an enlistment with the marines as a method to escape the drudgery of life in Birmingham, Alabama, tattooist Grant Cobb just couldn’t deny the impusle to draw and create.  He began secretly painting pictures in various places around the base where he was stationed.  Eventually he was caught, but rather than having a negative impact, being caught painting actually had a very positive impact on Grant and his work as an artist.  Soon he was enlisted to paint murals in three different military bases over a five year period.

In the final two years of his time with the marines, Cobb took on an apprenticeship at a Viriginian tattoo shop, working nights and weekends.  It was here that the core of his tattoo education was cemented, instilling in him a passion for tattoo work and the lifestyle that it provided.  Fourteen and a half years later, Grant Cobb is still at it and pulling off some of the best tattoo work in the business.  His pieces range from small, detailed works that highlight his ability both as an artist and his understanding of composition, to massive back pieces that are intricate in detail and rich with colour.  Whichever way you slice it, he’s rad.

Check him out!

If you’re reading this and you happen to be a tattooist, answer me this question: would you work for the cops as an undercover tattooist?  A strange question indeed, but one that actually has some basis in reality.

A recent undercover sting operation by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was staged at a now empty shop on Venice Boulevard in Venice, California.  Villainz Ink was opened by the police and run in an attempt to arrest gang members.  The shop ended up luring in numerous gangsters and resulted in 19 arrests, all of which belonged to the Venice 13 gang.

‘Many who were suckered in by the storefront have been charged with selling cocaine, as well as illegal firearms sales and possession. One man, Michael Daniali, was charged with two counts of selling meth and one count of intent to sell the substance.’

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this operation was the fact that criminals who came into the shop actually were tattooed – who exactly they were tattooed by is something that federal officials are not willing to discuss with the public.  All they will say is that the tattooists were nonagents.

‘Were they unemployed inkers, so eager for work that they were willing to work for the feds? Or maybe they were conned as well? The spokesman for the ATF bureau’s Southern California division refuses to discuss the case, so as not to risk blowing the cover for future operations.’

Future operations?  So I guess this sort of thing will now become the norm with police on the hunt for gang members, murderers, drug dealers and other undesireable elements of society?  How kind of them to use a tattoo studio as a setting.

I can understand needing to set up sting operations in order to catch these criminals, but my feelings regarding using tattoo studios as bait is two sided.  On one side, I sympathise with those in the tattoo community who feel that just when this industry is starting to rise above crass stereotypes of tattoos and tattoo studios as havens for criminals and trashers, that the cops come along and reinforce that stereotype by building an entire sting operation around it.

Then on the other side, I wonder if in a way this sort of thing is helping tattoo a little.  By this I mean that if these fake tattoo studio operations continue, sooner rather than later the criminal element that they seem to attract will cease using them as a base for operations.  In other words, criminals could very well become more than a little wary of even the rattier, untrustworthy tattoo studios and decide to conduct their business elsewhere.  Or, the studios that open and typically specialise in being friendly with the criminal element could find themselves no longer able to stay in business as a result of the suspicion and paranoia resulting from these types of operations.

Could be, I guess.  Or maybe I’m just overly optimistic and this really is a bad thing.  Either way, it will no doubt continue, so I guess all the tattoo community can really do at this point is to keep doing what it always has – distance itself from the undesireables by continuing to work hard and maintain a solid standard of professional, quality art.

Facebook has literally changed the world that we live in.  It’s a social phenomenon that has been the subject of much debate regarding privacy, it has been the subject of lawsuits, it’s been transformed into an award winning film called The Social Network and it even played a rather vital role in the Egyptian revolution this past February which saw the removal of President Hosni Mubarak from power.  With all these varied forms in which Facebook has made an impact on society, it’s hardly surprising when yet another one bubbles to the surface and gains instant media attention.

An unnamed woman has now uploaded a video on to YouTube of her being tattooed with a full arm sleeve of 152 of her Facebook friends.  The tattoo shows the tiny profile photos of the friends, but unfortunately, the video doesn’t get in close enough to actually see what sort of detail the profile pics were tattooed with.  If I had to guess – and I’m really not just trying to be a cynical jerk here – I’d say that up close the detail is probably pretty weak.

‘A brief description accompanying the video reads: ‘Of course I gave it a lot of thought. These are not all my friends. Just the people I care most about. I got their permission and they were very proud to be on it. To me it represents who I am right now and the time we live in. And of course I love the looks [sic] of it.

‘The Tattoo is designed by Pretty Social and the tattoo artist is Tattoo Dex.’’

Obviously the question that has been asked a million times over is what if she unfriends someone or what if someone unfriends her?  I guess that’s just the risk you take when you tattoo that many people to your arm at once.  I tend to be skeptical of tattoos like this because they always come off as a desperate attempt for 15 minutes of internet fame, but that’s probably just me being a cynical, cranky bastard yet again…

Enjoy your tattoo (and your 15 minutes of internet fame), whoever you are.