Sunday, June 20, 2010

Dag Nasty / The Art of Virgil Finlay

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Dag Nasty - Can I Say

If you're reading Double Cross I'm sure you're already well aware of the masterpiece known as "Can I Say" put together on Dischord Records by the almighty Dag Nasty, but were you aware of where the legendary "flaming head" logo/cover art came from? All we know is that the original artwork was done by an American artist named Virgil Finlay (1914-1971), who was known for his pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrations. As for the story behind how this artwork was tweaked, cropped and turned into the well known Dag Nasty "Can I Say" logo/cover art, we have yet to hear that, but I can assure you we are already looking into it and will be featuring it here on DCXX as soon as we get to the bottom of it. Until then, do yourself a favor and go look up the art of Virgil Finlay, his great artwork surely didn't start or stop with this one piece. Oh yeah, go listen to some Dag Nasty while you're searching. Thanks to both Ed McKirdy and Larry Ransom for bringing this to us. -Tim DCXX

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The Art of Virgil Finlay

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Great band, great photo, great logo, great shirt... all hail the power of Dag.

By Livewire Records at June 20, 2010

8 comments:

  1. MarkoJune 20, 2010 at 10:13 PM

    Just like the Jeff Grosso graphic on Santa Cruz Skateboards.

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  2. Jim PittsJune 21, 2010 at 1:01 AM

    Being a long time collector, and dealer, in pulps and comic books I think its cool that Finlay gets his due on a hardcore website!
    Pretty F'n cool!

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  3. DaveJune 21, 2010 at 11:13 AM

    Golden Age Comic Book Stories has a very nice collection of Finlay's work:

    Virgil Finlay

    Enjoy!

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  4. n.realJune 21, 2010 at 11:48 AM

    thanks for the link dave...his work is incredible

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  5. ScottJune 21, 2010 at 5:21 PM

    I scored an original print of the this on Ebay for about $20 a few months back. Score!

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  6. Mike FairleyJune 22, 2010 at 5:42 AM

    i was listening to this LP earlier this month, and was actually hoping one day id get to read about the art of this lp...curious about its origins. even figured id read it on dcxx. good going.

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  7. DaveJune 23, 2010 at 5:30 PM

    Thanks for the link above - I always loved Santa Cruz art work.

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  8. AnonymousJune 25, 2010 at 1:43 PM

    Colin Sears, Dag Nasty's 1st drummer, had a book collecting art produced for science fiction and fantasy magazines, and it featured the Finlay piece eventually used for the DN logo. Colin used a xerox machine to enlarge the image to the point where it began to break apart. I was excited when I found the book because I'd been a fan of Finlay's work since I was a little kid. Once I discovered that the burning head was female, I wrote the song 'Dag Nasty' and the line 'her head's on fire.'

    --- Peter Cortner

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