Hot Wing Designs: A Growing Buffalo Staple
Hot Wing Designs: A Growing Buffalo Staple
Facing Adversity, Springville Man Turns Doodling Into Design Business
Like most people during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, Springville resident Greg Culver found himself at home with lots of time on his hands. Unlike most people; however, the 53-year-old husband and father had been diagnosed with kidney cancer in the months leading up to the great lockdown. To top it all off, Culver was let go from his job around the same time. It was as if fate was trying to pile on enough overwhelming adversity to break the man, but what happened instead makes for an inspiring story of perseverance and hope.
“So here I am fighting stage four kidney cancer and I lost my job in the middle of a pandemic,” Culver said, summing up his situation in a single sentence. He found himself awake late at night because of the steroids he had to take after the first round of radiation, and admitted, “So what am I doing? I’m doing like everyone else is doing and I’m binging Netflix stuff.”
With a background in creative arts, graphic design and marketing, Culver’s late night TV habit started to include doodling electronically on his iPad. “My iPad had a drawing program on it and I sometimes used a pencil with it to take notes at meetings,” he explained. “But this was the first time I started to use it creatively.”
Inspired by a real-life character on one of the shows he was binging, Culver sketched the first of what would become a small army of original cartoon characters (Joe Exotic from the true crime documentary, The Tiger King) and the seeds were planted for his fledgling graphic arts and design company, Hot Wing Designs.
Culver remembered fondly the creative session where he discovered another use for his old iPad, saying, “By the time I was finished drawing the Tiger King, I thought, boy this drawing with the iPad is pretty cool because you don’t burn up sheets of paper and there’s no eraser shavings all over.”
Noting how clean and portable the new technology was, he says he started taking the iPad to his appointments at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and creating while he waited. About the same time, Culver took inspiration from the classic movie, “A League of Their Own,” and imagined a “league” for proud Buffalonians and the people of Western New York to belong to - The Buffalo League.
“I feel like people in Buffalo are in a league of their own,” Culver explained. “We have crappy weather, the sports teams don’t win - it’s definitely a challenge just living here!” he joked. “Seriously, there’s so much more than just sports here. I hear people say a lot that they’re Buffalo fans - not necessarily football fans - but they love Buffalo and love being from here.”
Culver explained that the Buffalo League emblem was made to look like a major league sports logo with the way it was colored; but instead of a sports figure at the center of the design, it has a white Buffalo.
BUFFALO LEAGUE IS BORN
After a televised zoom interview with Channel 2 News’ Kate Welshofer aired in February of 2021, Culver’s story and artwork caught the eye of Bill Herman from Identity Ink, a large screenprinting/embroidery operation in North Buffalo and the two collaborated on the idea for a design that was Buffalo-themed and could be marketed and sold - and so it was that Culver’s league for Buffalonians came to life.
“I thought it was really cool that a guy I never met before had seen my story and said, ‘Hey I’m going to give this guy a go’,” Culver admitted. And with Herman’s guidance, they opened an online store for a trial period of 30 days and offered a limited selection of Buffalo League logo’d apparel for sale, including hats, sweatshirts and stickers. Their startup enterprise took in a modest number of orders but after that first month, it was on to the next endeavor for both men.
“Working in the retail business for as long as I have, I realized that 30 days was just not a long enough amount of time to get a new brand to stick,” Culver said. “So I thought I’d stay with it for a little while longer and I went and got some Buffalo League stickers made and that was the start of the whole sticker business,” he reflected.
EXPANDING INTO THE MUSIC SCENE
Culver admits that his love for classic rock music is set deep in his DNA, thanks to the music his parents listened to while he was growing up in Hamburg, NY. “My parents’ collection was filled with everything from Santana to the Moody Blues,” he reflected. “They listened to all the good stuff.”
Considering the way his favorite music had been a treasured part of his childhood and adolescence, it made perfect sense that the next cartoon-style character to come to life under the tip of Culver’s drawing wand would be legendary Grateful Dead frontman, Jerry Garcia. “I’ve always been a Grateful Dead fan,” Culver confided. “I’ve seen way too many of their shows in my day and it was just natural for Jerry to be the next one I’d draw.”
And with a bright smile that seemed to involve his whole face, he added, “And then I went to Sticker Mule and had 20 of those stickers made and then there were three stickers in my collection!”
Without ever really lamenting the medical challenges he faces on a daily basis, Culver went on to explain how his young business began expanding and branching out with every new personality he added to his colorful tribe of soulful characters. With the enthusiasm of a 10-year-old painted all over his face, Culver explained the next logical evolution in his work, saying, “After I drew Jerry, I started going off on this jag of drawing guitar players - and then it branched off onto all kinds of musicians, not just guitar players.”
Culver’s guitar gunslingers collection includes names like Dave Grohl, Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Duane Allman and many, many more. His collection of “not just guitar players” includes notables such as Mick Jagger, Gord Downie (Tragically Hip) and Michael Jackson.
Culver explained how during the pandemic, he fell in love with the southern rock band, Blackberry Smoke, and especially loved watching the on-stage performance of their lead guitarist, Charlie Starr. “I was watching a Youtube video of the band and I paused it with (Starr) jumping around on stage and I grabbed my iPad and drew him with his cherry-red Gibson guitar and that’s how there came to be a Charlie Starr sticker.”
After posting his newest cartoon creation to the band’s fan page, Culver says his Starr drawing brought down the house with the dedicated followers of Blackberry Smoke. “People went bonkers!” he explained. “They were all asking where can I buy this? Their fans are just as emphatic as Deadheads - they love everything they can get with these guys on it!”
By this time, Culver’s stable of musician-themed drawings numbered around a dozen and with them, he created a hand-signed, limited-edition printing of all his existing characters. He then bundled the collector’s edition print together with a sticker and a t-shirt for one low price.
He admits this marketing strategy was working well - until the day the band’s manager gave him a call. Culver says the two shared a pleasant conversation about the limits of his marketing endeavors involving the performers in Blackberry Smoke, after which, he ended up drawing the entire band by request!
His artist’s catalog currently includes more than 100 characters and designs on sticky paper, with about 50 more designs that are nearing completion. He attributes a breakthrough in the success of his sticker business to the online store he set up on the e-commerce platform, Etsy.
“Once I set up the shop on Etsy, not only was I shipping stickers all over the country - I was sending them out to countries all over the world - to places like the Netherlands and Japan!”
Culver’s designs are also available at various locations throughout the region, including the Mountain Shop at Holiday Valley and The City Garage ski shop in downtown Ellicottville (the first bricks and mortar location to offer Buffalo League hats and stickers).
“We have customers come into this shop from all over the world,” explained Patra Lowes, who owns and operates The City Garage with her brother, Sean. “Don’t be surprised if you’re traveling internationally and you come across one of Greg Culver’s hats - they’re very popular!”
BUFFALO BILLS FAN BASE
Aside from his series of music-themed characters and designs, Culver also created a wildly successful collection of football-playing cartoon stickers based on the professional team in Buffalo. In fact, his Bills-themed stickers are fan favorites in all the places in the world where the Bills have fans.
He drew the Josh Allen figure first and says it has been very popular - so popular in fact, that the Josh Allen sticker turned up stuck to the side of a collapsable beer funnel in a random TikTok video that Culver just happened to see!
Hot Wing’s designs have also made it onto enameled pins created in limited amounts for the highly-sought-after collectibles market. Culver recently pre-sold 48 pins out of a production run of 50 of the collectibles on the first day they were available to the public, despite the fact that the pins hadn’t even been produced yet.
HOT WING DESIGNS IS GOING PLACES
Over the past year, the production capabilities at Hot Wing Designs have increased exponentially, as Culver added pieces of equipment to his basement workshop that eliminate costly steps, bypass a few ‘middlemen’ and give him the flexibility to output as little as one hat or one sticker at a time. He admits he learned a great deal about how to outfit his workshop with the machines necessary to expand his business from long-time business acquaintance, Jim Sessanna, of Quality Imprints in Colden, NY.
“Jim’s been in the screenprinting and embroidery business for decades,” Culver explained. He added his sincere appreciation for Sessanna, saying, “We’ve been doing business together for a long time now and he was sympathetic to my situation, so he opened his back door and showed me all the equipment I would need to get on my feet and produce hats myself.”
Now equipped with his own heat press for hats, Culver is able to order embroidered patches in bulk and create his own finished product on-site.
The lion’s share of the Hot Wing Designs marketing campaign comes by word of mouth, as well as through personal contact with band members, band management and fans. In fact, Culver is not shy about walking right up to the stage and putting his cartoon creations directly into the hands of the musicians themselves. He says the performers have always accepted his artwork with child-like enthusiasm and heartfelt appreciation.
The Hot Wing Designs pop-up tent has been a staple at various outdoor events where Culver mostly sells hats and stickers, but also offers custom t-shirts created on the spot with his mobile production facility. Last year, he teamed with 42 North Brewery for their entire “Tap Trekker” Series of events, which featured live music, craft beer and lifestyle vendors and was held at various locations throughout Western New York.
As winter’s weak grip loosens altogether and temps climb even higher this spring, Culver’s artwork will be front and center at a number of warm-weather venues and fun events.
“I’m really looking forward to setting up at the East Aurora holiday market the day before Easter,” Culver said. “I’m already registered for a bunch of other events this summer, but the biggest one for me will probably be the Cobblestone Live music festival at the Buffalo Iron Works in July.”
The former owner of Slider’s snowboard and bike shop just down the road from the Kissing Bridge ski area in Colden, snow sports have been a part of Culver’s life since he rode the ski school bus to KB with his high school sweetheart (and now wife, Jen). Few people know this, but back in the late ’90’s, Culver was actually one of the very first people in all of Western New York who understood the process for learning how to ride a snowboard, and as manager of KB’s first staff of snowboard instructors, he actually helped “write the book” on how to teach the newest way to slide down a hill.
Because of his long-standing affiliation with the ski industry, Culver also took advantage of opportunities for the Hot Wing Designs tent to “pop-up” at various locations this past winter, such as at Swain ski area’s recent winter carnival, held last weekend.
Without setting limits for himself, Culver’s upcoming projects include creating a star-studded coloring book that features all his favorite big-name characters - think the Rolling Stones, Prince and Michael Jackson! At the moment, he’s also working on illustrations for a children’s book, which was authored by a friend in the mountain biking community.
“I’m really trying to stay creative and keep working for other people as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator,” he said. “I’m also focused on trying to grow the sticker business into something that’s sustainable down the road.”
Toward the end of our long conversation, my friend of 25 years sat back in his chair, sighed and explained his situation in this way:
“I wouldn’t have picked this direction. I was the marketing director of the largest private ski area in North America and I was home there - so I didn’t see myself changing directions - but it’s been a good thing in a way… People think I’m crazy when I say that stage 4 cancer has had some positive effects, but it has. I’ve slowed down quite a bit. I’m not in such a hurry to do things and I definitely put a value on spending more time with friends and family.”
Grateful to have been able to hear his story, I still couldn’t resist asking one last question. If you have the talent to recreate the likeness of almost anything you see, how did you decide on a smiling, hot chicken wing as the face of your new enterprise?
Reflective of his deeply-felt connection to his roots, Culver explained, “I wanted the image of my services to reflect where I was from.”