Not Your Typical Knuckles Tattoo

Last month I was trying to figure out why so many interesting people were walking around the Penn Station area when a trio of tattooed guys enlightened me: it was the Friday commencement of the New York Comic Con.

Now, I realize, I could go to one of these events and have a field day with some amazing tattoos on some very committed fans, but then I'd also be writing up posts for another month or two, as well, so I was content to chat with Rob and his two friends (who will appear in subsequent posts - stay tuned-).

Rob offered us one of his three tattoos, this animated creature on his inner right forearm:

This is, I'm sure many of you may know, a character from Sonic the Hedgehog, an iconic video game series that appeared in the early 1990's and has since sold, according to Wikipedia, 70 million units worldwide.

Rob explained that he grew up playing Sonic games and his favorite character was Knuckles the Echidna, who first appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. "He was the only one I wanted to be," Rob told me. An echidna, by the way, is another name for a spiny anteater.

Rob credited this tattoo to "Debbie Doo" at Skin Deep Tattoo in Levittown, New York.

Thanks to Rob for sharing his Knuckles Tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Representing Levittown

This isn't the first Long Island tattoo here on this blog (see Ian Jones' post here), but it is the first specifically marking one place on Long Island.

This tattoo belongs to Dave, who told me that he and about 8 or 9 friends share the exact same piece, "geographically correct".

There's not much to this piece other than that it is an homage to his home in Levittown, a hamlet in the Town of Hempstead located on Long Island in Nassau County, New York. If one is not familiar with the place, it's worth a perusal of their wikipedia page here. The historical significance of Levittown as one of the first planned suburbs is generally undisputed.

Dave's friends had their hometown tribute inked at Skin Deep Tattoo in Levittown itself. Dave's piece was done at East Coast Tattoo & Body Piercing in Bethpage which, he informed me, has relocated to Reno, Nevada.

I have a deep respect for geographic tattoos, as they say much about a person, and their permanent presence on the body means that the place journeys with the individual, even after that person has moved on to other locales.

Thanks to Dave for sharing his Levittown tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!