Greetings and thank you for finding my website. My name is Andy Howl and I am a tattoo artist, illustrator, painter, vocalist, publisher, and priest.... That's the short list.
If you would rather see a list of interviews rather than read this long rambling essay, click here.
I was born in 1976 on a B-52 air force base in Northern Michigan. I grew up a middle child near Lansing and Detroit Michigan and spent most of my time in basements playing Dungeon & Dragons computer games in DOS, watching horror movies on VHS, stealing heavy metal cassettes from the mall, and collecting comic books. I was completely focused on drawing and fine art as a kid and was encouraged by my mother to pursue art from a young age. My first piece of exhibited artwork was in a Russian gallery while I was in 1st grade (via a exhibiting pre-school art teacher). I was obsessed with drawing, and later painting, throughout grade school. As a senior I self-published a underground newspaper and comic (via long nights at Kinko's). The paper, entitled the "Hymenopteran Proctologist" was almost immediately banned by my art teacher and the principal. But it began a DIY career of making and doing shit on my own, including t-shirts and lots of bad photocopies.
After graduating high school, I left Michigan to attend Savannah College of Art & Design.... studying comic book illustration and script writing. My love of bold, high contrast black and white horror comics, logos, and op-art was quenched when my professor, Bob Pendarvis (who created the sequential art program and also nicknamed me "Satan-boy"), brought in comic book legends Bernie Wrightson and Charles Burns for private workshops. During this time, I also started to crystalize a dark, psychedelic and pop art influenced visual language that I had been working towards since high school. My influences of horror movies, comics, metal, and pop art began to coalesce.
Before graduating from SCAD in 1997, I taught myself screen printing and started a t-shirt company featuring my black and white artwork, Kobra-La. The name was based on the GI JOE movie from the 80's, which featured an army of pre-human snake people bent on reclaiming the earth. The shirts were sold in headshops and counterculture shops around the country, including Noir Leather in Detroit and Planet 3 in Savannah.
I moved back to Michigan in late '97 and eventually got a real job working for an educational software company illustrating stories, doing interface and package design, and web design.
After a few years I stumbled into a new online art job, working in the High Times realm. Running websites like Marijuana.com, 420times.com, 420girls.com and Legalbuds.com, doing magazine ads, packaging, photography, logos, and marketing. It was weird and fun, paid the bills, but gave me PTSD with the amount of responsibility I took on.
In 2002 I had my first and only child, Zane, and soon after began learning to tattoo, part-time, with the intent of getting away from working on computers. Essentially an early mid-life crisis, I wasn't drawing and painting like I wanted. I had the realization that I was now a dad, and my own life was beginning to pass me by.
EARLY FLORIDA DAYS
In 2004, we relocated to South Florida, and I was able to buy my first home. For the next 5 years I worked there and raised my son in the Florida Everglades. It was an ideal scenario to be a stay at home working dad...... except for the hurricanes and isolation. I was getting cabin fever. Any artist that can stay home fulltime and just draw, is a beast. School doesn't teach you how to handle isolation. You have to earn it. But being able to have that time with my son was priceless.
HOWL GALLERY/TATTOO
Meanwhile I never gave up on learning how to tattoo and build machines. After finally getting sick of working in front of a computer, I eventually found a group of like minded tattoo artists in Florida, and we opened a shop in downtown Fort Myers.
In 2008, I signed the lease for HOWL Gallery/Tattoo, an art gallery and tattoo shop. I hosted shows with well-known artists like Derek Hess, Death album cover artist Rene Miville, BASK, Skot Olsen, Seldon Hunt, Frank Frazetta (via Sara Frazetta) and many more. We also hosted well known tattoo artists such as Mike Fite, and Clay McCay. While in downtown Fort Myers, I also created, managed, and did artwork for the popular community events Art Walk and Music Walk, that continue to drive business to the historic district of Fort Myers. The first year in business I was also featured on German television, Tattoo Berlin on DMAX and hosted a monthly local morning news segment on CBS WINK-TV featuring local bands. Within a few years I was given a 40 under 40 business award from Florida Gulfcoast Business magazine, Best Tattoo Shop in Southwest Florida awards, Trailblazer awards, Fort Myers News-Press.
CURRENTLY UPDATING THIS AREA WITH UPDATES FROM 2025.............................
Click here for a list of my Interviews with links.
