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Voted Best Tattoo Shop 2004 by Current
Magazine (Ann Arbor, Michigan)!
Check out this article from the ANN ARBOR NEWS, April 15, 2006: HE'S MAKING HIS MARK Corey Cuc lives out his dream among bewildering swirls of color, loud music and the buzz of tattoo machines. As one of the artists at the Lucky Monkey Tattoo Parlour in Ann Arbor, he uses his clients' skin to make indelible art. He is at his job seven days a week, from early afternoon until nighttime. He makes a good living - the going rate is about $100 an hour - but Cuc said it's not about the money. "I would tattoo, if I didn't get paid for it,'' he said. "I find the money just a bonus. I love it. It's everything to me.'' On a recent afternoon, Cuc, 26, labors on the forearm of Christine
Carey, a University of Michigan doctoral student. He leans close and
guides the needle as he slowly creates a detailed pinup of a sexy female
pirate, in a short dress with a red bow, fish-net gloves, an eye patch
and a hat with a skull. "Corey took a picture I had and made it a million times better,'' she said about the pinup. "Everything that he's done has been really top notch.'' Cuc fills in the outline he drew with blazing red for a bow on the dress, dark yellow for the dress trim and shining green for the one "good'' eye of the pinup. A few times he calls over fellow tattoo artists to ask their opinion about a shade of paint or another detail. About two hours later, when it's all done, Cuc takes a photo of the tattoo for his portfolio and tells Carey to take care of her new purchase by covering it with lots of sunscreen during the summer. Becoming a tattoo artist was almost a destiny for Cuc. As the youngest of three brothers, growing up in Pinckney, he was surrounded by tattooed bodies from an early age and he liked drawing. "My dad is heavily tattooed, my brothers are heavily tattooed, and I did art, so it was kind of just bound to happen. I kind of just grew into it,'' he said. He got his first tattoo when he was 16. "Probably after my first tattoo I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.'' He hung out in tattoo shops, asking questions and learning from the artists. "A lot of pestering and, pretty much, begging,'' he said. "It's not a very easy trade to get into.'' He apprenticed in Brighton and in South Lyon and has been at the Lucky Monkey for the past three years. Cuc himself is a walking tribute to the art of tattooing. His body is almost completely covered with large images from the old '50s monster movies. They cascade down his arms, crawl up his neck and peak out from his shirt collar. "That's a bride of Frankenstein,'' he said, pointing to his left forearm. "I've got the Creature of Black Lagoon. I've got two different mummies. I've got the Wolf Man. I've got a few different Frankenstein tattoos.'' When Cuc makes his hands into fists, the tops of his right-hand fingers spell H-A-R-D and his left-hand fingers spell L-U-C-K. "The attraction for me is more of customizing my body, not being plain,'' he said. "You wouldn't want a standard car. Why would you want a standard body?'' Cuc has found his niche and doesn't have plans to do anything else. He said he wants to be a tattoo artist forever. "Hopefully, till my hands are broken down or I can't do it no more. That's the plan.''
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Check out the cool article that mentions our piercer Mike Aul in Noise Magazine! REAL DETROIT - June 2003 LOVE IT FOREVER ----
Wolverines in Fan's Hearts...and on Other Body Parts - Dayton Daily News
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