​Graham Smith Illustration
Beer for Data
Illustrations about wartime Afghanistan for Pacific Standard done in a storyboard style, with pen and ink and digital color.
Pacific Standard Magazine. Art Director Craig Edwards I imagined how Jalalabad looked during the war based on the descriptions in the article, and through lots of research on Google images.
Inside the tiki bar in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, an operative simply put up a sign that read, Beer for Data. He collected over 4 terrabytes of data for the CIA. I imagined this scene based on the written descrition. The author called me after to say this looked exactly like "The Taj" during the war.
"He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Burner medallion."
"We were in an old Toyota Camry, without body armor, travelling into the mountains of Afghanistan."
This burning event set off a big chain oof events that were not good.
This was a detail in the story that I had to research on the Google.
"He said goodbye to his friends that died in the war."