Bleeding Neon

Though I’m not usually one to tout my own artwork around here (as opposed to my everything else), colorist and illustrator Steve Downer did such a whiz-bang job taking my black-and-white line art for the cover of the second issue of The Utopian (coming in January) and transforming it into a Work of Awesomeness™, that I just had to share:

Yeah, I know, right? For reference, here’s the line art I sent Steve:

So for what reason would you not pre-order this comic right now? I don’t know, I just don’t know.

Also, over at Pop! Goes the Icon, we began posting never-before-seen previews from inside the first issue of Omega Comics Presents, which comes out February. More will be coming soon. Stay tuned.

So, yes, that is your faithful narrator getting whacked in the kisser by Hernan Valencia, illustrator supreme. Except that it was five years ago. And it was a play. We were ACTING. You can’t even tell, can you? That is because we are thespians. THESPIANS I tell you.

The play was called “With The Band.” I wrote it. And directed it. And inadvertently played a role in it after an actor or two dropped out. It was produced for the Men Rebelling Against Violence expo in 2004 at UNLV, where I was like a student or something at the time. The play was a little ham-handed, designed to bring awareness of sexual violence and other happy topics like that to the fore. I think 20 people showed up to watch it, 80 percent of which were family/boyfriends/girlfriends of the actors. But that’s OK. It was a fun little thing, and now I can say I wrote and directed a play. Can you say that? I didn’t think so.

But seriously, I ran across these photos while cleaning house this week and I almost forgot how involved I was during my five-year stretch at UNLV. Which is funny, considering I’ve never been much of a joiner, especially not in academic situations. I mean, I barely graduated high school. But I guess going to college when you’re in your mid-20s and doing so by desire and choice, not obligation, changes your perspective. Also, I was married at the time to someone very highly involved in activism, so it was sort-of unavoidable. But I’m glad I stepped up to the plate and at least tried to make an impact. I actually was honored with some sort of recognition from UNLV for my involvement in extracurricular activities.

I got to do some cool stuff though, throughout the course of my time there. In addition to the play above, I stage-managed two productions of The Vagina Monologues (and wrote an original monologue for one of them), designed all the marketing materials for a couple of Take Back the Night events (as well as the first Men Rebelling Against Violence expo), did lighting design and visual effects for a charity production of The Laramie Project, acted in another one-off play (I played a jock, of all things), and alternately served as a board member of and edited The Rebel Yell (UNLV’s student newspaper). And somehow I graduated Cum Laude with a dual major.

I’m not spilling all this to boast (though it is awesome, right?), but rather to remind myself that, as full as my plate is now, I managed to do all this while working full-time and writing freelance for multiple publications. And I look at how quickly I threw in the towel on my graduate work in sociology (despite acing my first two courses) and wonder: Why am I not doing more? I know, I know, I’m focused right now on not only the usual journalism-comics-marketing stuff, but also  launching a new publishing company, something that not only requires a ton of attention, time and even money, but also has new creators depending on me, but it still seems a bit … selfish and insular.

I miss the community feeling of being on a college campus. Of being forced to think critically in ways I’m not used to. Of being involved with things that are bigger than me, and yet of which I can still make an impact. Plus, I just plain like school. What can I say? The first thing I did upon graduation a few years ago was write a syllabus and curriculum outline for a new journalism course I wanted to pitch to UNLV, with the intent to teach it, of course. I never followed through with that. I mean, I still have the cover letter to the dean of that college and the drafts in my Google Docs somewhere, just sadly sitting in neglect.

One day, I will find the time and/or will to return to academia somehow. I’m not sure if it will be finishing that Master’s in sociology or fulfilling my not-so-secret ambition to study and practice architecture and urban design. Or maybe I’ll actually become actively involved with the Alumni Association or another advisory board. Or maybe I’ll set up a scholarship fund to help kids avoid the massive student loan debt I’ll be repaying the rest of my life (that’s a discussion for another time). We’ll see. I doubt the hallowed halls of academia can keep me away for too long.

In the meantime, if you’re on Facebook, you can view the rest of those “With The Band” photos there.

I’ve been using Twitter for about a year now. When I was first turned on to it, likely by Jason Feinberg, who runs a successful music marketing company (so he should know what’s useful) I didn’t really “get it.” Much like other new users, the novelty of posting and following short non sequitur bursts didn’t make much sense to me. I’m someone who has trouble editing articles to less than 500 words, let alone encapsulating thoughts in 140-character bubbles.

Of course, here we are, 14,000+ tweets and 1000+ followers later, so I guess I figured it out. The thing with Twitter is that it can be whatever you want it to be. Unlike Facebook or blogs or YouTube, Twitter is less a social media service than it is a communications tool, much like phones, fax machines and e-mail. If you want to broadcast one-way messages, you can do it. If you want to engage in conversations, you can do it. If you want to build a community, you can. If you want to link the heck out of the interwebs — well, you get the picture.

I take a multi-part approach to Twitter. I use it to stay in touch with friends, keep up with industries I follow, distract myself when needed, and most importantly, build a community with which I can share my various creative projects without feeling like I’m spamming anyone. It’s for this reason I haven’t followed a million people nor do I try to force myself on new followers.

I’ve run into a wall, recently, however. It feels like, as Twitter grows and so do all of our follower/following counts, there’s becoming too much static in the signal. For most of the people I follow, this doesn’t seem to affect the effectiveness of their communications, for one key reason that I can never duplicate: They are singularly focused Twitter personalities.

Let me explain: Chris Sims, one of the web’s most popular comic bloggers and geek comedy writers, has a very strong following on Twitter as he does everywhere else. But that’s because, even though he dips into comic writing and satirical blogging, everything he does is focused on geek culture. So most of his followers are likely part of that geek culture and therefore dig everything he tweets.

I, on the other hand, depending on which hour of the day you catch me at, play drums in a rock band, write/draw comics, report on music for multiple magazines, cover art for a website, develop web content and social media for companies and am generally regarded as a Las Vegas cultural historian and dude-about-town. And about all of these things I blog, tweet, etc. That means the people who follow me as a cartoonist don’t likely give a damn about the closing of an art gallery in downtown Las Vegas, and concurrently, the Las Vegans who follow me for links, news and commentary on issues related to Sin City may not be into the latest comic from Pop! Goes the Icon. And on it goes.

So even though 1,000+ people follow me on Twitter, I can feel the disconnect between their disparate groups. Now, I have experimented with running multiple Twitter accounts in the past. I set one up for Pop! Goes the Icon early on in my Twitter use. But I found that I was merely duplicating (though not exactly) not only the content of tweets on both accounts, but also the follower base as well. Plus, this was just after I collapsed all of my divergent blogs into one (this one!), and splitting identities on Twitter is hard, especially back then when it was so personality-driven.

So sure, I could set up an account for my band, an account for PGTI, an account for my writing (@BleedingNeon, anyone?) and a personal one for randomness, but I’ve found in best practices, people want to connect with people. They want to identify with someone. They want to connect with someone. And I really can’t imagine maintaining multiple accounts again. It’s hard enough just to manage all of the social media initiatives tied into the music and comics and journalism and external clients and OMG I KNOW RIGHT?

I’m not certain I have a solution — this was really just a mind-dump here, after having a revelation about the interest split amongst my followers. But I do feel that between the changes made to Facebook’s UI (user interface for you non-techies) and the increasing dissonance on Twitter, the whole reason for me being on either in the first place (purely out of networking necessity) is being diminished daily. As communications tools, they still work (I’ve gotten at least five or six gigs I would have otherwise missed through Twitter and Facebook the last year or so), but I wonder for how long.

Just when it seemed Choose Your Own (Bleeding Neon) Adventure Week had gained momentum, as usual, I fell off the blog wagon. I still have your topic suggestions, and am considering two options: 1. Extend CYO(BN)AW into this week, or 2. Scrap the “week” part of the title and just make CYO(BN)A a recurring feature here, much like the Moments of Zen or Two-Penny Reviews.

Thoughts?

Choose Your Own (Bleeding Neon) Adventure Week continues, as I tackle another reader-submitted topic. To be honest, I’m not sure if this came in response to my call for topics or if it was just tossed out on Twitter much as other random questions are usually thrown my way, but because it’s something I get asked about often, I figured I’d address it. So Keith O’Neil of New Hampshire asks “any certain authors influence your writing style?”

Well, Keith, here’s the thing: Writers are hacks. They get paid — most just barely, some over-extravagantly — to make themselves appear smarter, more informed or more clever than you. That’s not cool. I mean, sure, they might be all creative or investigative or enlightened and stuff, but why do they have to go and throw it in our faces? Even worse, they expect us to buy their stupid books and magazines and comics and…

Just kidding. But seriously, I can’t pinpoint any specific writers as “influences.” I think we are all sum reflections of that which came before us, that to which we’ve been exposed our entire lives. In both my journalistic and creative writing efforts, my writing is surely as much informed by the last episode of The West Wing I watched as it is by a Fantastic Four comic I read when I was 9.

I don’t tend to be a follower of a particular writer in any genre, I don’t read books, and I have limited patience for lengthy magazine articles and prefer my news read to me while driving. So … that about sums it up.

Check back soon tomorrow as we wrap up Choose Your Own (Bleeding Neon) Adventure Week, and if you have a topic you’re just dying for me to cover in this here blog, drop me a comment, tweet or e-mail. If I have enough overflow suggestions, I may just do this again. If you choose.