I met Johnny back in 1996-97. We worked at Graj + Gustavsen, a retail branding and creative development firm here in NYC. At this particular time the office was full of freelancers, myself being one of the last to arrive. This was during a hiring burst to ramp up for several impending presentations to numerous retail brands and a major cable network that was planning to build “themed” retail stores across America.

I loved it. I was a young kid, just a few months removed from graduating from the School of Visual Arts and my Scholastic illustrator contract had just ended. There I was sitting in the middle of a retail brand incubator with a slight bump in pay. I was feeling good about myself, and I was only scratching the surface of that experience – because in walks Johnny…