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.

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!

Photo by Erik Kabik/RETNA.com/erikkabik.com

Seriously, I was going to write a semi-review of last night’s opening night performance of Dita Von Teese’s limited run with the Crazy Horse Paris at MGM Grand, and I got about four paragraphs into it, and then I realized IT SUCKED BALLS, like everything else I’ve done today, so … I scrapped it.

Instead, I think you’d be much better off reading the article I wrote about Von Teese in this week’s Vegas Seven. It does not suck balls. I did the interview with the lovely burlesque icon via phone last Friday, but that’s not how it was supposed to be. My original plan was to do an in-person interview with her at the Crazy Horse this week, and to actually observe and report on the interaction between Von Teese and the insanely beautiful Crazy Horse dancers. It was all lined up for Monday, but as things go in the world of entertainment journalism, dates and times were shifted and crossed, and in order to meet the deadline for the paper, I had to switch to a phoner and realign the focus of the story.

The conversation with Von Teese was relatively brief but chock full of goodies. Unfortunately, a lot of the topics we discussed didn’t make it into the article, lest it run way over word count and lose all focus. But it’s a shame to see it go to waste, so I’m going to share with you an excerpt from the “outtakes” here. I asked Von Teese what differences she perceived between European and American approaches to sexuality. Here’s part of what she had to say:

I have to say in America in the 1940s, everyone knew who Gypsy Rose Lee was. She was a huge household name, and she did exactly what I do now. It’s hard to imagine why things have shifted so much. Josephine Baker received honors in France for what she did, and she was butt naked, there are streets named after these people. [In France] everyone knows what I do, children know what I do. People aren’t embarrassed of it or afraid of it. Showgirls are a part of Parisian culture. I don’t know why it’s so taboo in America. My life’s work is to change people’s mind about what a stripper is, and how strip tease can be artful, and how it can be an important part of America’s entertainment history.

There was more, but I’ll probably save that for the collection of unabridged interviews I’m assembling for future publication. A few people have indicated they’d be interested in reading such a thing. Would you? A book featuring full interviews with celebrities, politicians and other interesting people? Let a brother know.

One of the cool things about writing for Vegas Seven (aside from the buffet of hookers and blow they offer freelancers) is getting to write about art for a weekly paper again. One of the primary reasons I started writing for Examiner.com was because while I was off running a magazine into the ground, other writers locked down the art beats for the other papers in Las Vegas. It allowed me to fulfill my love for preaching the arts and sort-of get paid still.

Of course, since Seven started up, I’ve self-removed myself from the local music beat for the Weekly and had to put Examiner stuff to the side (going from less than an article a month to none at all, sadly). But the result is talking to awesome artists such as Laurenn McCubbin and Gilbert Hernandez, and this week, spending a whole page discussing the differences between San Francisco and Vegas art scenes with Dray while exposing some outsider art at the Fallout Gallery.

I’ll probably be missing somewhat from Seven’s pages for the next few weeks as I prep for, and attend, Emerald City ComiCon in Seattle (more on this soon), but keep your eyes peeled for new articles in the near future.

Oh, and if you haven’t donated to sponsor my team in this year’s AIDS Walk Las Vegas, you have more than a month. So hop to it!

If you haven’t picked up an issue of Vegas Seven yet, you’re missing out on the latest and greatest hybrid newspaper-magazine Las Vegas has ever experienced, featuring dozens of pages of insightful reporting and commentary on urban affairs, arts and entertainment, society and …

ME.

Oh, yeah, so, my latest contribution is a nifty article about Love and Rockets co-creator Gilbert Hernandez, his USA Fellows award, what he’s working on right now, and other probing issues of our day. Did you know the beloved underground comics writer/artist has been a Las Vegas resident for 8 years? No? READ THE ARTICLE AND YOU SHALL. Or if you enjoy more visual displays, click on this link (requires registration).

In the meantime, I’m finishing up another art story for the March 4 edition of Seven. So please keep it down while I try to beat my deadline. Thanks.