Bleeding Neon

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.

It’s been a busy week. Last Friday, I attended the opening reception of “Unnatural History” at the Springs Preserve, immediately followed by a reception at the Arts Factory celebrating the 10th anniversary/vow renewal of my friends KC and Ryan. Saturday night was the Psychedelic Furs and She Wants Revenge concert at the House of Blues (after spending the day hosting a 1-year-old’s birthday party), and then Sunday night my band, As Yet Unbroken, played to a mostly-empty room at Boomers Bar.

That was not a bad thing, actually. The show on Sunday night was slated to feature four bands, two local and two from California. We showed up an hour early (9 p.m.) as instructed, met the lovely and helpful bartender/booker Tammy, and waited for the sound guy/doorman to show up. He never did. Instead, the bands (only three of us, the fourth slated act was mis-scheduled or double-booked or something) loaded out and set-up the P.A., and yours truly ended up playing sound guy all night. By the time we played (around 11:45 p.m.), it was just Tammy and about 5 or 6 of our friends/wives/etc. in the bar watching us — which was fine. It was like hanging out in a friend’s pimped-out basement jamming. A good warm-up show for the main attraction …

This Friday, at the Aruba Hotel, As Yet Unbroken will return to the Las Vegas N.O.I.S.E. Project to rock the big room. It’s free and open to all you motherlovers over 21, and we’ll be bringing our A game (or at least our B game). In addition, there are other bands, a communal drum circle, live sculpting and much more artsy nonsense. So you have no excuses. Unless you have to work. Or are in the hospital. Or on bed rest. But otherwise, get a babysitter and get your ass downtown, where we will proceed to rock it silly.

Oh, you should also get to the AYU website and vote on our next cover song. By June 30. Yep.

Oh, HI. I know it’s been quiet up here in Awesome City. It’s only because I’ve been slaving away at various projects to foist upon your delicate senses in varying ways. A brief rundown, because lists are fun:

• My band, As Yet Unbroken, has been breaking in our new guitarist, Peter Stauber, and we’ll be making our revived debut at Boomers Bar this Sunday night at about 10 p.m. We’re playing with a bunch of random bands, none of which play in the same style, so it’ll be like a mini-Lollapalooza. If that doesn’t sell it for you, I don’t know what will. Call in sick on Monday and come rock with us. It’s only $5, and allegedly, we get some of that money.
• I’m editing and publishing a one-off comic book anthology for the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival called “Tales from the Boneyard.” It features all Vegas-spawned creators and will be awesome. But it also has meant spending the last month assembling the talent, setting deadlines, creating sponsorship proposals (this is a nonprofit fundraiser for the Library District), attending meetings and working on my own contribution to the compilation, an eight-page tale about a girl and a robot. If, by chance, you’d like to sponsor this endeavor, drop me an e-mail and I’ll drop you a sponsorship packet.
• I finished painting my terrible entry into the LVSK8 IV skate deck art show. It’s called “Powered by Love,” and all I will say for now is that with its existence, I have created a new genre of art called “sci-fi folk art.” If you’re so inclined to see it, along with dozens of other decorated skate decks much nicer than mine, you should come to Place Gallery (1054 S. Maint St.) next Friday, July 2. I’ll be there from 6 p.m. until probably 8 p.m.-ish.
• Speaking of art, because of demand from one or two people, I’ve created an online store where you can buy prints and postcards and stuff. Why not?
• Been trying to get way ahead on the usual workload, blazing through updates of The Utopian webcomic and deadlines for various publications. A new HRH cover story came out this past week, but I’ll slather you in the details once its digital edition goes online.

That wasn’t so hard, was it? See, all you have to do is get me started and I just type like a madman. More soon on new comics, shows and convention appearances. If you’re interested.

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

EVERY DAY. BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU.

Is anyone else bored by this yet? I’m guessing not entirely, because a lot of people I know who follow my exploits (boring as they may be) still haven’t glommed on to Detox Week yet or are actually ASKING for updates. Crazy, right? But we all know this is really just an excuse to get me to update this blog, which wasn’t happening in any way, shape or form before.

I didn’t feel too great yesterday morning. Just some, er, post-digestive stuff. I wonder if that rice I made was either undercooked or just didn’t agree with me. Either way, I felt a lot better over the weekend eating mostly-raw, so, well, we’re not going to try to do that rice again.

One of the things I realized last night (though it should have been obvious before) is that I’ve been spending about 300 percent more time in the kitchen than normal throughout this process. Making every meal by hand takes time! A lot of time! Time that, honestly, I don’t have. Seriously, we’re talking multiple hours a day, between the chopping, cooking, cleaning, storing, etc. No wonder we drove our mothers insane!

Of course, my time already is strained. The band is starting to get active again (met with potential new bassist last night again, had a pretty decent jam), more freelance work is looming, and full-on roll-out of Omega Comics Presents is beginning. Something has to suffer, and looking at how terribly my time has been consumed and how much I’m beginning to feel strangled by my own obligations (not to mention the lack of time I’ve been able to spend with Sara, which I’m sure has not thrilled her), I’m dropping down The Utopian updates to once weekly, on Wednesdays. It’s just too much for me to write, pencil, ink, color and letter two full comic pages every week even as I’m editing an anthology, writing, drawing and lettering eight pages for each issue of that and trying to actually hit my other work deadlines.

I’ve been so stressed about trying to “get ahead” in order to just get out of town for two or three days. And I don’t like that feeling. But I also can’t just, as Sara suggested last night, go on holiday with the webcomic. If I do, honestly, I’ll never pick it back up. The weekly obligation is what keeps me driven to the end goal. I don’t work well without deadlines. Like most work-for-hire creators, you can give me a deadline a month ahead and I’ll start and finish the article/illustration/story the night before the deadline. That’s just the way it is.

So yeah. I guess it’s that time of the day where I review what foods I consumed yesterday, huh? You know, when Detox Week is over, I might start keeping a food journal anyway, to really force myself to pay attention to everything I eat. Until then, here’s yesterday’s line-up:

• Breakfast: 1 banana, 1 cup “Dynamo” juice blend
• Morning snack: 1 apple pie Larabar
• Lunch: 1 bowl homemade vegetable stew (I think I’m definitely going to be making this once a week from now on)
• Afternoon snack: Approx. a handful of raw almonds & walnuts, plus 1 serving of dried, unsweetened pineapple rings
• Dinner: 1 can Amy’s Organic Lentil Vegetable Soup (also becoming a new staple)
• Evening snack: 1 piece raw “fudge” from Go Raw Cafe, plus two stalks celery with organic peanut butter