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Jack Rudy met Goodtime Charlie Cartwright in 1973 at the New Pike amusement park in Long Beach. Charlie started in downtown LA but was working then on the Pike.

Jack was in the Marine Corp at the time. He and Charlie became friends and Charlie learned that Jack could draw and was doing joint style tattoos with homemade machines. Charlie agreed to teach Jack the trade when he got out of the Marines.

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It was the summer of 1975 and Goodtime Charlie had just opened his first shop in East LA when Jack started to work for him. As Jack tells it, he didn’t have a typical apprenticeship. He says, “Charlie needed somebody to work so I was the gopher, floor sweeper and tattooer”.

Influenced by joint style black & grey work from his east LA upbringing, Jack worked and perfected a style that influenced the entire tattoo culture. Jack was part of a core of mostly California artists that elevated the single needle, powder shaded genre and promoted and populariz