Archive for September, 2009

In response to a friend’s posting on Facebook about her fantasy football team, I offhandedly commented “Fantasy football is the jock equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons.” Satisfied with my cleverness so much that I just had to share, I blew it out to Twitter, slightly modified:

“Fantasy football is the sports equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons.”

Seriously, you guys, that’s it. I spent my entire load right there. I’ve got nothing left.

So remember it, because this sh*t is going on my tombstone:

Man, has it been three years since this picture was taken? Can that even be possible? I guess so. This time around we have me in possession of a mallet during “Gong Karaoke” at Mist Lounge inside the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. On the right is Brian Henry, one of Las Vegas’ favorite visual artists, and one of the co-conspirators in the dead-but-never-forgotten techno-noise-hip-hop act Side Project 7. I believe I wrote about the entire experience here, and there may be some related video over here.

It’s that time again, kids, where I squeeze into my hipster jeans and lug my Ludwig drum kit out of the house to entertain your lovely faces. This time, As Yet Unbroken is kicking off the semiannual Neon Reverb music festival, which takes over just about every club and bar in downtown Las Vegas from Sept. 17 to 20. We’ll be playing at the Thunderbird Lounge inside the Aruba Hotel this Thursday, Sept. 17 at 10 p.m. with The Black Jetts and Collinz Room.

I’ve never heard of Collinz Room, but The Black Jetts is probably one of the most well-regarded, rawest, rockingest bands in Southern Nevada. The guys were recently picked “Best Local Band” by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, for what it’s worth, so even if you think my band sucks, you should come out Thursday night to see how it’s really done. Admission is only $5 and, sorry children, you have to be 21 or older to come shake your ass with the big boys.

It’s that time again, kids, where I squeeze into my hipster jeans and lug my Ludwig drum kit out of the house to entertain your lovely faces. This time, As Yet Unbroken is kicking off the semiannual Neon Reverb music festival, which takes over just about every club and bar in downtown Las Vegas from Sept. 17 to 20. We’ll be playing at the Thunderbird Lounge inside the Aruba Hotel this Thursday, Sept. 17 at 10 p.m. with The Black Jetts and Collinz Room.

I’ve never heard of Collinz Room, but The Black Jetts is probably one of the most well-regarded, rawest, rockingest bands in Southern Nevada. The guys were recently picked “Best Local Band” by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, for what it’s worth, so even if you think my band sucks, you should come out Thursday night to see how it’s really done. Admission is only $5 and, sorry children, you have to be 21 or older to come shake your ass with the big boys.

This puppy was taken at the Use Hearing Protection event at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills this spring, where legendary Factory Records graphic designer Peter Saville made a rare United States appearance. That’s me, shockingly fist-less, on the left (duh) and Jason Feinberg with the crazy mutton chops on the right. I apologize, dude in the middle, who is a friend of Jason’s I just met that night and I have forgotten his name already. But he is from the U.K. and is cool.

I meant to write a review of the event post-mortem, but I never got around to it. Actually, I started writing a post about the whole Los Angeles experience, which is still sitting in my drafts folder entitled “L.A. Story.” One day I will finish it and post it. But the Q&A session was amazing, Saville is quite brilliant, and if you missed it, um, well, you missed it.

It’s been a bit of a challenge recently to balance my journalistic and creative endeavors. Between trying to break into Hollywood (remind me to tell you about that later), fielding increasing assignment requests from publication editors (not complaining, keep ‘em coming!), putting out a twice-weekly webcomic, launching a nascent publishing company (again) and playing drums in a kick-ass rock ‘n’ roll band (as well as running the PR and management), I sometimes get a little overwhelmed. Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I could use more than 24 hours in each day.

My latest story for 944 magazine dropped last week in its Las Vegas edition, a profile of Vegas-based artist Enrique Nevarez. I didn’t include the cover in this post as I usually do, because for some reason the cover artwork of the copy I picked up is different than the one 944.com has posted. Anyway, you can read the story online as well, of course, and wonder to yourself, as Enrique did to me, why his photo was given the Glamour airbrush treatment. I just took on another, lengthier assignment for the magazine’s next issue, so stay tuned for more on that soon.

I really owe anyone subscribing to this blog an apology. The days go by pretty quickly around here lately, and every time I start a new entry, I get about half way through, wander off onto tangents, and then leave it to sit in my “drafts” folder indefinitely.  It’s a far cry from the days when I maintained a LiveJournal, posting updates daily, if not two or three times a day. But I guess that’s what I’m doing on Twitter all day, and sometimes even Facebook, so if the tools have changed, the message is the same: Pj does stuff, and sometimes it’s cool.

Most of my spare time has been sucked up by producing two pages a week of The Utopian, a webcomic that, on the outset, appears to be about a bored high school kid trying to shake things up a little, but as regular readers will learn, nothing about the strip remains constant. I’m about to majorly shake up things again, so I’d recommend getting caught up if you’re at all interested, because the roller coaster is making its big climb starting this week.

It may not be obvious to anyone outside the comic industry just why writing, illustrating, coloring and lettering two comic pages takes up so much time, but it helps to know these tasks are typically broken up amongst at least five people, all specialists in their respective roles. For more insight on that, check out the blog post I wrote on the process back toward the start of The Utopian.

In much more exciting news, pre-order sales have opened on the first print issue of The Utopian, for both consumers and retailers. This means the covers for the standard (black & white) and deluxe (full color) versions of the debut issue have been released finally! The standard edition features a cover by Mark T. Zeilman, who, aside from being an acclaimed local artist and former gallerist, is also the bass player in As Yet Unbroken. The deluxe edition’s cover is by Hernan Valencia, a stellar graphic designer, former co-worker in my pre-awesome days, and coincidentally, also a bassist himself. Check out their work:

Two very distinctive, very diverse styles, right? Which both put to shame my mediocre scribblings inside. But that selling point thrown out there (ha!), why else would someone want to buy a copy of The Utopian when they can get the story for free online? Glad you asked. I give about a half-dozen real good reasons on the pre-order page, including a whole bunch of exclusive material in the print version not found elsewhere. Plus, I don’t know about you, but I like to have a real comic in my hand when I’m eating lunch, riding the bus or visiting the men’s room. That’s right, kids: The Utopian is great bathroom reading. Buy extra copies for every toilet in your house!

In the event you like to get your comics the old-fashioned way, from a comic book store (though I guess “old fashioned” would be more likely a grocery store spinner rack), you are strongly encouraged to ask you favorite shop keep to pre-order The Utopian from Haven Distributors ASAP. The item code is UTOPPOP001 and the more comic store pre-orders we get, the more likely Haven is to continue carrying Pop! Goes the Icon comics.

Speaking of which, you may be ready to accuse me of launching Pop! Goes the Icon simply as a means to foist more Pj-spawned media upon the world. Well, to you I say: OK, you’re half-right. But the half-wrong part of you may want to pay attention. PGTI is launching a new comic book anthology series as soon as humanly possible, and that means I am now accepting pitches from creators or creative teams to be featured in the proposed quarterly series. If you are one of, or happen to know, those creative-types out there, please let them know about this endeavor. I’m really trying to push new talent out there, and help out using the distribution and publishing channels I’ve already established. Plus: 100% creator owned and royalties are paid on all sales.

OK, I think that’s all the comic-related news you can handle. Stay tuned this week for more on my journalistic endeavors (yes, I still do that!), upcoming As Yet Unbroken performances (yes, that too!) as well as … OK, more comic book stuff. And thanks. For reals.

I really owe anyone subscribing to this blog an apology. The days go by pretty quickly around here lately, and every time I start a new entry, I get about half way through, wander off onto tangents, and then leave it to sit in my “drafts” folder indefinitely.  It’s a far cry from the days when I maintained a LiveJournal, posting updates daily, if not two or three times a day. But I guess that’s what I’m doing on Twitter all day, and sometimes even Facebook, so if the tools have changed, the message is the same: Pj does stuff, and sometimes it’s cool.

Most of my spare time has been sucked up by producing two pages a week of The Utopian, a webcomic that, on the outset, appears to be about a bored high school kid trying to shake things up a little, but as regular readers will learn, nothing about the strip remains constant. I’m about to majorly shake up things again, so I’d recommend getting caught up if you’re at all interested, because the roller coaster is making its big climb starting this week.

It may not be obvious to anyone outside the comic industry just why writing, illustrating, coloring and lettering two comic pages takes up so much time, but it helps to know these tasks are typically broken up amongst at least five people, all specialists in their respective roles. For more insight on that, check out the blog post I wrote on the process back toward the start of The Utopian.

In much more exciting news, pre-order sales have opened on the first print issue of The Utopian, for both consumers and retailers. This means the covers for the standard (black & white) and deluxe (full color) versions of the debut issue have been released finally! The standard edition features a cover by Mark T. Zeilman, who, aside from being an acclaimed local artist and former gallerist, is also the bass player in As Yet Unbroken. The deluxe edition’s cover is by Hernan Valencia, a stellar graphic designer, former co-worker in my pre-awesome days, and coincidentally, also a bassist himself. Check out their work:

Two very distinctive, very diverse styles, right? Which both put to shame my mediocre scribblings inside. But that selling point thrown out there (ha!), why else would someone want to buy a copy of The Utopian when they can get the story for free online? Glad you asked. I give about a half-dozen real good reasons on the pre-order page, including a whole bunch of exclusive material in the print version not found elsewhere. Plus, I don’t know about you, but I like to have a real comic in my hand when I’m eating lunch, riding the bus or visiting the men’s room. That’s right, kids: The Utopian is great bathroom reading. Buy extra copies for every toilet in your house!

In the event you like to get your comics the old-fashioned way, from a comic book store (though I guess “old fashioned” would be more likely a grocery store spinner rack), you are strongly encouraged to ask you favorite shop keep to pre-order The Utopian from Haven Distributors ASAP. The item code is UTOPPOP001 and the more comic store pre-orders we get, the more likely Haven is to continue carrying Pop! Goes the Icon comics.

Speaking of which, you may be ready to accuse me of launching Pop! Goes the Icon simply as a means to foist more Pj-spawned media upon the world. Well, to you I say: OK, you’re half-right. But the half-wrong part of you may want to pay attention. PGTI is launching a new comic book anthology series as soon as humanly possible, and that means I am now accepting pitches from creators or creative teams to be featured in the proposed quarterly series. If you are one of, or happen to know, those creative-types out there, please let them know about this endeavor. I’m really trying to push new talent out there, and help out using the distribution and publishing channels I’ve already established. Plus: 100% creator owned and royalties are paid on all sales.

OK, I think that’s all the comic-related news you can handle. Stay tuned this week for more on my journalistic endeavors (yes, I still do that!), upcoming As Yet Unbroken performances (yes, that too!) as well as … OK, more comic book stuff. And thanks. For reals.

… and I don’t have much else to say. Sorry for the lack of updates; it’s been busy over here in Awesome City, but I can’t talk about a lot of what’s kept me away. So in the meantime, Bad Religion reports on current events: