http://www.clevescene.com/2007-03-14/culture/capsule-reviews-of-current-area-art-exhibitions/full

Transplant

If you like your cartoons with a hard edge, this exhibit by four local graphic designers who are not originally from Cleveland -- Jorge Lacera, Dave Savage, Saxton Moore, and Carlos Villagra -- will go down as easily as spiked punch. But in addition to a whole lotta dark, slightly twisted fun and crackling creativity, the show offers the pleasure of real variety. Only Lacera addresses the theme head-on: A native of Colombia, raised in Miami, and recently hired in Cleveland, he truly is a foreigner. Doubtless he sees himself in his characters, drawn in marker on wood: gangly, rubber-limbed robots striding confidently over cities -- like Godzilla, only more detached and superior. They clearly aren't dangerous, not with doe eyes and walrus-like faces. Savage, native of Missouri, takes prizes for humor and boldness. His digitally conceived creatures light up the room with crisp, bright colors and raunchy one-liners. Spiritual descendants of Garbage Pail Kids, they're bitter, sarcastic, and self-aware little devils. One clean example: a gigantic-nosed girl asks us to somehow note her spontaneous side. Villagra's work is bleaker and more sadistic, full of impaled or disemboweled figures. His mistrustful view is summarized in four Classical-style portraits, each with its corresponding inner monster. Villagra's own noble features apparently mask an evil Nazi vampire. For monsters of a different kind, visit Asterisk's lower gallery. There you'll find emerging artist Ervin Williams III's glitzy portraits of the pop stars we worship. -- Lewis