If you’ve been in the Detroit area lately, perhaps you’ve noticed graffiti depicting characters from the Mike Judge cartoon Beavis and Butt-Head scrawled seemingly everywhere.
Metro Times has spotted the drawings on the sides of buildings, underpasses, and construction materials. Soon we were pointed to an Instagram page that appeared to belong to the artist, cataloging some of the drawings.
On a lark, we reached out via direct message and were surprised that he agreed to an interview, provided we keep his identity a secret. As a graffiti writer, he goes by “BVIS.”
He says he has been drawing the characters for about as long as he can remember.
“I’ve been doodling the Beavis face since I was a little kid, kind of compulsively,” he says.
“My mom wasn’t home a whole lot,” he adds. “The TV pretty much raised me.”
He says his favorite show was Beavis and Butt-Head, in which the two teenaged slackers try repeatedly — and unsuccessfully — to “score” girls.
“I mean, really, like, the whole series was just them trying to score, and that never happening,” he says. “And it’s like, I can relate to that real-life frustration.”
But it wasn’t until recently that BVIS started writing graffiti. “Just like within the last maybe two years, a buddy of mine threw me a can of paint,” he says. “I just haven’t put it down since.”
He typically draws a version of Beavis, with his pronounced underbite, though he has also drawn a few of Butt-Head “just to see if I could,” he says. Sometimes he mashes them up with characters from other cartoons, like Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Rick and Morty.
But Beavis is his main muse.
“I don’t know what it is,” he says. “It’s just like muscle memory at this point.
He claims he can draw the face in about 10 seconds, though the design has changed over time.
“He’s gone through a couple stages,” BVIS says. “I think the longer I do it, the more it looks less like Beavis and more just like a totally new character. … When I started, it was pretty much, you know, line for line. The eyes were a lot smaller. He had all his teeth, he was smiling. And then, yeah, just over time, he lost most of his teeth and is no longer smiling.”
He adds, “I don’t know if it’s, like, something internally [in me] that did that, but yeah, he’s just kind of transformed into like this haggard-looking Beavis.”
BVIS estimates he’s drawn “like, thousands” of them in and around Detroit, with some as far as the suburbs in Oakland County.
He typically paints them as a “throw-up” or “throwie,” graffiti that involves a one-color outline and one layer of fill. In his case, he usually does red linework with yellow fill, evoking another popular ’90s cartoon, The Simpsons.
“Sometimes I’ll do like 20 in a night, sometimes it’ll just be like, a couple a day,” he says.
He adds, “But there really isn’t a day I’m not doing it. Even if it’s just like, you know, drawing on the dirt on a car with my finger.”
Over the past decade, Mayor Mike Duggan has cracked down on graffiti, fining graffiti writers and even building owners and instead encouraging the creation of elaborate, sanctioned murals on walls across the city.
But when asked if he is afraid of getting caught, BVIS claims to be unfazed.
“I feel like Detroit’s got bigger fish to fry,” he says.
BVIS says he works alone, and typically operates under the cover of darkness.
“I try to make sure I got my good running shoes on,” he says. “You know, I rarely look around while I’m doing it. If I’m looking suspicious, I’m more likely to get caught. So I just act like I’m supposed to be here doing this. Nobody’s really looking.”
He says he generally will not paint on buildings that do not have any graffiti already on them, though he admits he has broken that rule a few times. At least one building owner caught him, he says, but they wound up bonding over their mutual love of the cartoon.
“One guy in particular, he hit me up and he’s like, ‘Hey, I fucking hate you because you tagged my building, but I love you because I love Beavis and Butt-Head,” he claims.
BVIS insists much of the response has actually been positive.
“It’s not just like, pure vandalism or me just trying to get my name up,” he says. “It’s a character that people recognize and brings happiness.”
When he’s not drawing Beavis, BVIS says he likes to draw at home, and also makes music.
“Anything creative, using my hands — it’s really an addiction, but it’s a good one,” he says. “If I have to be strung out on anything, it’s better to be painting on a canvas than a crack pipe.”
And what is it exactly about graffiti that is so addictive?
“I love just getting away with shit,” BVIS says. “But part of me is like, I know people like it. It feels good to make people smile. But it is mostly the adrenaline rush.”
You can follow BVIS on his Instagram page, @fatdeepdish420.
