(Nicholas Dye/Staff Writer)

This year’s LACC has come and gone and once again Nowhere California was there to cover it. We will be bringing you posts over the next few days covering artists and cosplayers as well as coverage of the celebrity appearances throughout the weekend.

Kicking off our artist highlight is, by his own account, a freelance artist, husband, father of three as well as an Imaginary Sheriff. His name is Anthony Wheeler and he was gracious enough to spend some time chatting with me about his pop culture love and his need to get every detail into his pieces.

Now I am a die hard Goonies fan and the piece below caught my eye immediately. It’s an adorable representation of Chunk and Sloth at first glance, but it was Wheeler’s painstaking attention to detail and his pop culture knowledge that truly sold me on this piece (which I bought by the way!!). “I love having moments like this where I just get have a conversation with people” Wheeler said regarding the Friday night first day lull and converse we did. He drew my attention first to Chunk’s raincoat and said “It’s not a very common raincoat like the typical yellow ones…”. What he was most proud of was actually Chunk’s shoes. Not something one really remembers in The Goonies and for good reason…it ONLY appears in one frame of the film! “I took it frame by frame until I found a single frame in the Fratelli’s basement where Chunk was jumping to see the ice cream. I found out it was a Nike sneaker and had to research that specific shoe from 1985 to really see how it worked”. We spent a solid chunk (no pun intended!) of time discussing his art and shared love of pop culture in which…*ahem*…he ASSURED me he was now motivated and excited to do an print of the ENTIRE Goonies lineup which of course I immediately agreed to buy the first!

Anthony has artwork from DC and Marvel comics as well as the Harry Potter franchise and some of the coolest takes on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (seriously go checkout his Usagi Ujimbo!!). You can find his artwork on his official website https://www.anthonywheelerart.com/ where there is also a link to his Instagram feed. Always open for ideas and conversation, I HIGHLY recommend dropping Mr. Wheeler a line.