Bleeding Neon

There’s a longer story behind my article in this week’s Vegas Seven, “Conventional Approach,” which explores the challenges of becoming a professional comic book writer from a somewhat personal perspective. First, you should go read it (in HTML or Flash), and linger over the nifty sequential illustration my man Hernan Valencia (he of Utopian cover fame) did to accompany it.

This piece started back in March as a vague assignment from the A&E editor (and good friend) at Seven, Cindi Reed, when I went to Seattle for Emerald City Comic-Con. She basically told me, “If you have something interesting to write about, send it to me.” But I don’t think I did. Or, at least, I didn’t at the time. I sent a sort-of rushed, half-assed 500 words to her, nothing worth reproducing here, and the response was something to the effect of “maybe something more than a blog post?”

I decided it wasn’t really worth revising. But then something struck me as spring wore on: What about a feature about the struggles of becoming a comic writer tied into San Diego Comic-Con, littered with suggestions and stories from those who’ve endured such struggles? I pitched it, Cindi liked it, gave me twice the space, and off I went. I talked to a number of writers and editors of all levels, put together a nice piece, turned it in way early, and … now I had gone too far from the “blog post,” completely cutting out the personal.

So the piece you now have the pleasure of reading is the hybrid of my own experiences and those of others, compressed into about 1100 words. Sadly, due to the revisions, some folks I interviewed had all their quotes cut. Those folks interviewed, by the way, include writers Steve Horton, Paul Tobin and Brandon Jerwa and editor Jill Beaton, all of whom are awesome people who deserve your money or cupcakes. I’m thinking about revisiting the more objective approach and beefing it up with the massive amount of unused interview material for a longer piece to pitch to a more writing-specific outlet.

You know, when I’m not spending time making comics.

p.s. You should check out the cover story by pal and Seven music columnist Jarret Keene about artist John Bell, because John Bell is awesome and I think you should buy me one of his paintings for Christmas.

A few months ago, a new magazine rose out of the Las Vegas desert like … um … I’m not sure I actually have a simile here. Anyway, DAVID Magazine launched in May (or April? One of those.), bringing to Southern Nevada a new, monthly, glossy city magazine. The thing that makes this one distinctive? It’s kinda sorta slanted toward the Jewish community. But it does it in a sneaky way that wouldn’t have you even blink. The features and ads are diverse. The quality is top-notch. And the magazine hires sexy-ass writers like me.

I was asked to write a story about a local Jewish musician. Off the top of my head, one came to mind immediately: Hal Savar, who leads the cover band Acoustic Soul. I wrote about Savar before, for the Las Vegas Weekly, but this would be a much longer feature, and I actually had a lot of material unused from my first interview with Savar. He and I met up again at a Starbucks to talk more specifically about his Jewish upbringing, which I didn’t expect played into his music so much, but it does! Kinda interesting. You should read the story.

DAVID is available for free at a bunch of places in Vegas, including Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc. There’s no online version of the stories, but I did do a really poor scan of my story if you’re interested. Click below!

I’m back at the drawing board, trying to get all of the pencil artwork for my eight-page contribution to the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival anthology finished before I leave town for 10 days. And get the website for said anthology launched, at which point I’ll post all about it here and beg you for money. What else is new? At least the money is for the Library District and not for my hedonistic exploits.

I wrapped up a feature for Vegas Seven I’ve been working on for a while on breaking into comic book writing, something about which I know a little. Actually, I turned in the story yesterday, got asked to do some rewrites today, and finished those rewrites tonight, so hopefully that will be the end of that. I’m still busting my butt as much as possible to get The Utopian wrapped up ahead of schedule and then turn my attention back to other things, like finalizing and releasing the fall publishing schedule for Pop! Goes the Icon and turning my band’s rehearsal space into a recording studio for the next few months.

Speaking of As Yet Unbroken, it seems like momentum is picking up again quite quickly. We had those bookend gigs last week, and hadn’t planned another show until the first week of September. But the band that opened for us at N.O.I.S.E. on Friday, Thrown Clear, has asked us to join them (or at least one of them) at another venue in a few weeks. So we’ll probably do that, and I’ll have more info on that soon. And for you lovely Southern Californians, we’re working on a gig in the Orange County area circa Oct. 1. Nothing is confirmed yet, so if you know any bookers in the L.A.-O.C.-S.D. area, feel free to highly recommend us for a slot at one of their venues on that date. Otherwise, keep posted here, or even better, join the AYU mailing list.

The summer issue of HRH, the Hard Rock Hotel’s boutique magazine, actually came out a few weeks ago, but I was waiting to post about it until after the digital edition was live. And so it is. And so here we are.

I don’t have too much to say about my cover story on Them Crooked Vultures. Like my Muse story for the spring issue, I didn’t have a chance to interview the band (Them Crooked Vultures isn’t really doing much press), so I had to make 1200 words about a year-old rock supergroup appear out of nowhere. Thankfully, I did get a chance to see the band when it performed at the Joint in the spring, so I at least had that. To fill in the gaps, I had to use a handy-dandy series of “behind the scenes” videos Them Crooked Vultures posted on its YouTube channel. Really, it wasn’t much different than doing a basic interview with the band or being provided B-roll from a publicist, so it kinda worked out fine … I think.

As usual, my words are enhanced and accompanied by live photos shot by my pal Erik Kabik, who always does amazing work. But even more than that: I share a contributors page with one of my heroes, Cameron Crowe. Crowe, who is a good friend of rock photographer Neal Preston, turned out for the HRH issue release party/Preston photo exhibit at the Hard Rock’s new SkyBar — an event I also attended. Sadly, though, I had to run off to catch Henry Rollins at Wasted Space and left the party before Crowe arrived. I don’t know what I would have had to say to him, but he’s one of the few people (Rollins being one of the other) whose work and career has really shaped my life and I’d be interested in meeting. Well, I’d actually be more interested in learning from him, but one must crawl before he can walk, right? Right.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook (and if you’re reading this, you probably are), you likely know I took a quick trip down to Los Angeles a few weeks ago. Aside from enjoying, um, endless traffic jams and the company of old and new friends, I was primarily there to chat with Stan Lee for this week’s Vegas Seven summer movie cover package. The resulting article, “Iron Stan,” is now available on the mean streets of Vegas, as well as online in both HTML and Flash versions.

A lot of people — including my editor — suggested that the meeting should have been exciting, especially for a guy such as me, who grew up reading comics Lee either wrote or created. But at this point, I’ve developed such a professional detachment from my assignments, that I merely did what needed to be done and got on my way. The situation itself was underwhelming anyway. As described in the article, Lee’s offices are smallish, his staff nearly nonexistent, and the interview was sort of rushed and subdued. But Lee was accommodating, gracious and funny, which is really the best you can ever hope for in these situations.

But you know I couldn’t leave without documenting the occasion, right?

Excelsior!