Ranger Rita and the Computerized Killer Robot

Detail, showing the Killer Robot's dentist-tray hair

Micael Priest lives in Austin, Texas. He has done album covers for many Texas musicians, including Bugs Henderson, Asleep at the Wheel, Joe Gracey, Bobby Earl Smith, Steve Fromholz, Kimmie Rhodes, Freda and the Firedogs, and Alvin Crow.

Micael began work on this design for a T-shirt silkscreen in Dec 1990. The T-shirts were given away as pledge drive premiums for the Monday Super Roper Redneck Revue on the nonprofit radio station, KNON-FM, in Dallas.

Micael's first draft pictured a handsome humanoid robot. I asked him to dehumanize the Killer Robot, because during the day, the robot roamed the streets of Dallas, fighting crime and looking for records. So Micael gave him beady eyes, spiky elbows, blades for fingers, and that wonderful dentist's tray for hair.