Who is on instagram??

by Alexander Hinkley for Examiner (image) [Brewin in Giverny] This week's SuicideGirl gamer of the week is Brewin. She is a beautiful brunette that likes racers, puzzle games, and talking trash online. Is there a story behind your SG name? I came up with Brewin as a play on the Boston Bruins. I... more

by Alexander Hinkley for Examiner


[Brewin in Giverny]


This week's SuicideGirl gamer of the week is Brewin. She is a beautiful brunette that likes racers, puzzle games, and talking trash online.

Is there a story behind your SG name?

I came up with Brewin as a play on the Boston Bruins. I love hockey. It's one of the only sports I enjoy watching. I've also lived in Boston for the last few years of my life so I feel as if it fits perfectly.


Tell me about your tattoos. How many do you have and where are they?

I currently have 10 tattoos, but some are on the large side. My left arm is dedicated to Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. Under my left boob it says, "East Coast" which I got right after I shot my first set as a hopeful for SuicideGirls. On my right side I have a clipper ship, which was my first tattoo. On my hips I have cat prints and in between them there's a rose. On my right hand ring finger I have "S&M" with a diamond. My best friend has the same one on her finger. My left thigh currently has a purple wolf head getting stabbed by a butter knife bleeding butter with the saying "Feel the Wrath of My Butter Knife" going around it. It's been an ongoing joke with my bother who has the same quote on his arm. Lastly I have a pig and chicken on my feet. I grew up on a boat so drowning has always been my biggest fear.


How did you first become a SuicideGirl?

Becoming a SuicideGirl was somewhat of a process for me. I knew from when I was 12 and I found SG that I wanted to be one of the girls. It took me a while to have enough courage to officially apply. I would try to win their Facebook contests hoping to get flown out to LA to shoot, etc. Rambo Suicide found me through that and encouraged me to try actually shooting a set. One of my really great friends who I hadn't talked to in years was a photographer and I hit him up. We shot my first set in a warehouse that I used to hang out in years earlier ironically. That set wasn't bought, but because of that Sean found me and told me to come out to LA and shoot with him. So I did! And it has been the best journey ever since.

So you're also a gamer. What is your favorite genre of video game?

I use to really be into first person shooters but I realized I get too stressed out and I'm really bad at them. I think I was only into trash talking grown men on Xbox LIVE. However, any racing game and I'm in it to win it. I also love puzzle games or anything that can be tied into problem solving.

Which series is better, Forza or Need for Speed?

Out of those two I'd go with Need for Speed. The racing game I can still play forever is Burnout. I like crashing cars more than actually racing them, even though I will kick ass in both!

You never seem to hear as much about puzzle games as some of the other genres. What are some of the best ones out there?

My favorite puzzle game is the Professor Layton series. They're challenging yet simple. Their storylines are cute and the actual puzzles make you think. I spend 90% of the time playing the actual game and the other 10% looking up the answers I can't figure out online.

What is your console of choice?

I love my Xbox 360, but at the moment mine is across the country so I've only been playing my DSi. Oh the sweet moment I reunite with my Xbox will be the best of days.

If you could pick one game as your all-time favorite, just one, what would it be and why?

Crash Bandicoot, hands down! It was the first game I ever had and I still love it. I'm 22 now and I still haven't been able to get past the second island. I've even bought multiple copies of the game so that when one would freeze on certain levels, I could switch the disks out. It's honestly just so much fun and still is the hardest game I own – to me, at least.

Do you believe in the separation of "hardcore" and "casual" gamers?

I believe that! I would classify myself as a "casual" gamer. I play for fun every now and then. I appreciate all the new games that have come out, but I always stick to my favorites. I totally respect the "hardcore" gamers though; the people who stand in line for midnight releases and go home to play a game until they beat it. Hot damn.

Would you ever date someone who played video games professionally?

Of course! That sounds like an awesome job!

Tell me something about yourself related to video games that nobody else knows.

I have NEVER beat a single game. I just can't. I have a bunch of games and each one I don't know how the story ends. I usually stop playing one game once I get another.



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Remember this fucking asshole? (video) He was acquitted of assault charges today It's shit like this.........and cops wonder why people hate them. Listen...I know cops personally. I work right alongside cops. I am not a cop-hater. However, THIS is why people hate cops.... more

Remember this fucking asshole?


He was acquitted of assault charges today

You know what's even more disgusting? His cop buddies in the audience fucking cheered when the verdict was read.

You know what's even worse than THAT?! His excuse for his actions......and how that piss poor excuse led to the acquittal:

It's shit like this.........and cops wonder why people hate them. Listen...I know cops personally. I work right alongside cops. I am not a cop-hater. However, THIS is why people hate cops....

by SG's Team Agony feat. Rin Let us answer life's questions - because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls. (image) [Rin in Voyeur] Q: Recently I’ve been dating this girl who I thought was the girl of my dreams. She drinks, plays games, is great with kids and her family,... more

by SG's Team Agony feat. Rin

Let us answer life's questions - because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.


[Rin in Voyeur]

Q: Recently I’ve been dating this girl who I thought was the girl of my dreams. She drinks, plays games, is great with kids and her family, and loves me, or I thought she did.

A couple of weeks ago we spent one of the best days together that we ever had, but since that day all those weeks ago she started ignoring me, dodging messages, and when she went on a trip out of the country she wouldn’t answer any of my text or calls.

When she returned she didn’t even tell me she was back. I asked her about what happened to us over the internet and she responded back in a tone that had no sympathy for me at all and sounded like I was dating Spock from Star Trek. I guess what I’m wondering is what should I do when I approach her about it online. We got into a fight and she told me that I wasn’t really long-term type but only short term. To tell the truth I’ve done everything to be there for her and now i have no clue what to do.

A: Well, to be perfectly frank, if she was really the girl of your dreams, she wouldn't have ditched out on you like that. My best guess is that things got too intense for her and she ran. Intensity can be so overwhelming!! Because she started avoiding you after one of your 'best days together' it seems likely to me that she got scared.

Saying you're "short term and not long term" seems like kind of a cop out on her part, but this girl doesn't sound like she has any interest in discussing her emotions or giving you any reasons. There's probably nothing you can do about that. It sucks, it's unfair to the emotional commitment that you put in, and it's not the way a caring person deserves to be treated. But sometimes that is just the way shit falls apart and there's nothing to be done.

My advice is to approach an online discussion not expecting anything.
She's shown you that she doesn't want to talk about what happened, and you can't force her to justify dropping you/giving you the cold shoulder. It's so shitty, but showing her that you care and you want to be there for her is unlikely to change her mind. This girl has already decided she doesn't want what you have to offer. She probably has issues with intimacy, long-term dating, or something similar, and she will only deal with that stuff on her own time.

The best thing you can do is pick up your heart, work on healing from this ordeal, and do things that make you happy. Work on being the best you that you can be, so that you when run into a dream girl who is the real deal, you will be ready to be an awesome partner to her.

Rin

***

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

Twilight fans hang on Kristen Stewart's every word, so she has to be careful what she says. On her first press rounds for Twilight, some of Stewart's thoughts got taken out of context and the fans got upset. That still happens, but now she chooses her words carefully and you can tell she's... more

Twilight fans hang on Kristen Stewart's every word, so she has to be careful what she says. On her first press rounds for Twilight, some of Stewart's thoughts got taken out of context and the fans got upset. That still happens, but now she chooses her words carefully and you can tell she's much more poised and polished about what she says.

If you haven't read Eclipse, here's a quick recap. Bella (Stewart) is thinking about Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson)'s marriage proposal. Her condition is that she wants to become a vampire to live with him forever. He doesn't want her to loser her humanity, so you see the dilemma. Meanwhile, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) is still trying to convince Bella he's the right one for her. Also, her old enemy Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) is building a vampire army to come and get her, so the boys have to join forces to protect Bella.

The Twilight phenomenon may be overwhelming but that's not all there is to Kristen Stewart. She manages to have two releases a year in between Twilight movies. This year was The Runaways, in which she played rocker Joan Jett, and The Yellow Handkerchief, a post-Katrina road movie. If you missed them, they'll be on DVD soon.

At a time when the media can be invasive, and the promotional demands of a movie keep her on the road, a press conference was the closest a reporter could get to Stewart. Even with dozens of tape recorders and microphones in her face, Stewart has a certain natural intimacy that comes across when she's formulating her thoughts. Let's face it, Kristen Stewart is F'ing cool. She's in an awesome position and takes it seriously. It may take her a few tries to express it exactly the way she wants, but she'll stay honest, no matter how many Twihards nitpick her.

Q: You're in the middle of this journey with Bella Swan. Do you worry that it's taking over your whole career, that it becomes your persona?

KS: This is a unique situation. I get to play her for a really long time and that also is a serious indulgence and something that's really lucky because I feel really sad when I lose a character at the end of a short shoot, which is typically six weeks on a small movie which is what I'm used to. It definitely is obviously the one role that has put me in this sort of epic position. But, it's just another movie and I think it doesn't matter if you're doing a studio movie or you're doing an independent movie. When you get to set and you're doing a scene it's always going to be the same job. I really don't think about my career in terms of planning it out and what this does for me. This was a part that I just really wanted to play and luckily I got to do it for a really long time.

Q: In this film, Bella has to make her decision for Edward or Jacob. Do you feel like that's a big challenge in the movies so far?

KS: Yeah. She's pushed to the point where the decision needs to made in this one but she does that in each movie. What's cool is that things change and as certain as she is sometimes and as absolutely gung-ho and young and courageous and brave as she is, she's also willing to take a step back and go, “Okay, I'm going to reconsider my options and reconsider how I'm treating everybody.” She acknowledges that she's being a little bit selfish. She makes the choice but I feel like the choice has been made. As soon she sees him in the first one, it's done but it's hard for her to get to point where everyone is going to accept that and this is the one that it sort of happens in.

Q: We see Bella really mature in this film, especially choosing to be a vampire, not just for Edward but for other reasons. How do you see Bella maturing as a woman?

KS: She's definitely making decisions for herself and she's not just going along with what Edward is saying to do, which is something that people instantly just latch onto, that she's this weak and codependent girl that's just in need all the time of this guy. It's so not the case. I think if it were to be told from his perspective that he would be just as vulnerable and needy as her. It's told from her mind though so obviously those things are going to be more apparent. I think she's definitely, like I say over and over, owning up to things that have gone down. They've been both good and bad. She can reap the benefits from the ways that she's dealt with in a good way and also make the relationships in her life stronger based on the mistakes that she's made. As soon as you sort of screw someone over and go back and say, “I admit that. Can we still be cool? I've been really selfish.” Everyone now in the family is looking at her differently, like, “Oh, maybe she really does know what she wants. Maybe she's not acting so immature and crazy.” I'm glad that you felt that. That's awesome.

Q: Was the action in Eclipse more difficult for you than the previous films?

KS: The action is actually absolutely everybody else's responsibility. I just stand behind people that are stronger than me literally the entire time. I didn't get to run around as much as I did in the second movie. So the action wasn't difficult.

Q: Some people suggest that the success of these movies has to do with forbidden love, loving a vampire and its mix with traditional family values. What do you think?

KS: Right. I think if you took all the mythical aspects away from the story that it would still stand as a really strong, interesting thing to be a part of. I think the whole vampire and the whole werewolf thing are really good sort of plot devices. All of the aspects of the vampire and all the aspects of a werewolf are fully encompassed by the humans, by Jacob and Edward. If all of that was gone they would still be the same people. I don't think it's a big phenomenon because of the vampire mythical aspect. It definitely takes a good story and it raises the stakes and it makes it a little bit more interesting but I think it's just about who the characters are and how easy it is to have faith in them and be sort of addicted to them. They let you down a lot and then pick themselves back up. I don't think it has anything to do with the vampire thing. I think it just makes that a little cooler.

Q: How did you work with the new director, David Slade? He shot a lot of close-ups so was there anything you had to adjust in your style of acting to compliment his filmmaking?

KS: No. We've worked with the same DP [director of photography] now, for New Moon and Eclipse and I always ask Javier, “Hey, how close are you?” That's something that David intentionally does, not tell you stuff like that which I completely understand because most actors are crazy and neurotic and don't want to know the camera is up their nose but it's good to know. No, I didn't do anything differently though. You have to change a little bit every time that you work with a new director but it's cool working with someone different on each one of those. As long as someone has the same passion for it, as long as they're into it, you have to do all this re-work. You have to reconsider all the ideas that had you been working with the same person you might just say, “Oh, we've covered that. We don't need to go over that.” But in this case I have to introduce my character to David. He meets Bella through me. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm playing her. We've done something already and it's cool to let a new person into the fold. It's fun.

Q: Now that you've done three of these films, are there things that you wish had made into the movie from the book that didn't?

KS: Yeah, totally. There are a million things. I mean every single time we watch one of the movies, especially when the cast watches it together it's always an incredibly frustrating experience. That's why I'm glad that Breaking Dawn is going to be two movies which I can finally say. So there's going to be less of that, less of having to lose stuff. I know you want specific things but I'm trying to think of one now but I can't.

Q: Is there a scene in Breaking Dawn that you hope makes the movie?

KS: There are a million and we haven't even shot it yet. I can't wait to see Renesmee and I can't wait to have a kid and get married. It's all of that. It's going to be crazy.

Q: How long have you known that Breaking Dawn was going to be two films and how long will it take to film them?

KS: The shoot is going to be something like six months I think. We start in October. I think we're not going to be finished until maybe March or something, maybe February. I clearly don't really look at a whole lot of schedules. I had to hold onto this forever. They've been talking about it for a really long time and we all sort of knew it was definitely going to be two movies forever now. It's been really hard not to say that. We're all really stoked on that.

Q: Do you see an opportunity in Breaking Dawn since it's two films to create two interpretations of Bella, pre-vampire and post-vampire?

KS: Yeah, actually. I really can't wait to get into that because I've been on the outskirts of what it would feel like to play one of them. I've had to think about it a lot considering that Bella is dating one of them very seriously. If your significant other has been dealing with these issues, I've thought about it a lot and I can't wait to actually be it. It's going to be a trip. It's going to be weird and I think she does change a lot.

Q: Do you think they might go for a full on R rating, considering some of the things that will happen in Breaking Dawn?

KS: I guess everybody interprets those things differently. My guess is that it'll be PG-13. I have no idea. I mean, I guess we'll all see when it comes out.

Q: In Eclipse, Bella has an awkward conversation about the birds and bees with her father. Was that something that you had to deal with in real life?

KS: No. I knew everything from word go. I was really, really mature that way. [Laughs] No, I don't know. Sure, I guess I probably have that moment. I guess that everybody does. I never had the talk. I could never have the talk. I don't know, I didn't need it.

Q: I think some of the nicest scenes in all these films are the scenes between Bella and her father. What's that like, working with Billy Burke?

KS: I really, really love working with Billy. Just try to think of a good thing to say about someone you really enjoy working with. He's very no B.S. and obviously as an actor that's what you need. He's really good at knowing if the scene works or doesn't work, if something's real. I think he really understands the dynamic, the Charlie/Bella thing. It's not a normal father/daughter relationship. They haven't known each other very long. She just moved to Forks literally and has memories of him when she was a little kid, but I love the gradual trust thing that happens. He's really good at that because he doesn't force it and it's never creepy and a lot of times it gets weird when some guy is playing your dad and it doesn't feel real to you. It feels like they're forcing sentiment. It's disgusting and I never feel that with him. I think he's great and I love him.

Q: What other films are you looking forward to making besides Breaking Dawn?

KS: I'm playing Marylou in On The Road. It was my first favorite book and that character is iconic and Walter Salles is directing it. I'm a huge fan of his so I'm going to start that right as soon as this press tour is over. In July we start a four week beatnik boot camp thing. We're going to read everything. It's a small movie, too and so four weeks of rehearsal is crazy cool.

Q: Are you at the point now with Rob Pattinson where when you're doing a very passionate or dramatic scene that all of a sudden you just start laughing?

KS: That totally happens all the time, definitely. More so with me and Taylor because we have so much fun with stuff and because our intimate moments are so few and far between and weird, the way they happen in the book. We have a little bit more of that. Me and Rob are always so serious because the scenes mean a lot and we're always like, “Oh God, did we do it right?”

Eclipse opens June 30.

Hey guys! I don't know if you've heard of Elite Magazine, but theyre online and today have featured a set of images of my friend Amy! Check them out below Sorry they are censored for Facebook haha but Im sure you know how to use google if you care to see! Also, feel free to follow me on Twitter... more

Hey guys!

I don't know if you've heard of Elite Magazine, but theyre online and today have featured a set of images of my friend Amy! Check them out below Sorry they are censored for Facebook haha but Im sure you know how to use google if you care to see!

Also, feel free to follow me on Twitter and Instagram where I babble on non-stop about everything ever. @gemmaedwardsuk




Gemma xxx

I know im new and nobody gives a damn but how about some self shots or in the mirror pics.I have seen a few here and there in models and members personal folders so that's why i was wondering....oh and yes i did a search and nothing came up...

So I was just wondering what does some of your "names" mean to you? Is it the first thing you thought of? Or is it what tells others about who or what you are?

Breaking news

Cameron Stewart is a familiar name to comics fans. He has been working in the industry for years, but it was 2004's Seaguy, a Vertigo miniseries from writer Grant Morrison, that put him on the map. Since then there have been several more of high profile projects including a sequel to Seaguy entitled... more

Cameron Stewart is a familiar name to comics fans. He has been working in the industry for years, but it was 2004's Seaguy, a Vertigo miniseries from writer Grant Morrison, that put him on the map. Since then there have been several more of high profile projects including a sequel to Seaguy entitled Seven Soldiers: Guardian, a story arc on Batman and Robin (also written by Grant Morrison), and the Vietnam War miniseries, The Other Side (with Weapon X writer Jason Aaron).

More recently Stewart's projects have included a webcomic called Sin Titulo, which won him the Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic last year. He also co-wrote and co-illustrated Assassin's Creed: The Fall, a story set in Czarist Russia that ties into the video game.

His next big project is for SG. He's designing the characters, drawing the covers and inking the SuicideGirls miniseries that's coming out via IDW starting this month.

Stewart took time out from his hectic schedule to chat with us.

ALEX DUEBEN: So how did you end up involved with the SuicideGirls comic?

CAMERON STEWART: Well, I had been interested in doing something with SuicideGirls for a while. I knew a couple of the girls, who were just personal friends of mine, and was encouraged to contact Missy and see if I could do some merchandise - prints or a deck of cards or a calendar or something. I contacted her and she said, "oh my god, this is perfect timing because we’re in the planning stages of doing a comic book." This was right before the San Diego Comic Con, so I went to San Diego and met with IDW, who are the publishers. Initially I was only able to commit to doing covers and character designs because I was busy with a lot of other projects, but over time, I’ve been slowly convinced into doing more. I was asked to do these two-page backup features in each issue. Then most recently I was given the opportunity to ink the whole book as well so I took that. It’s been fun. I’m committing to more and more because I’m enjoying working on it.

AD: You haven’t done many jobs where you’re inking over other people.

CS: I actually started my career as an inker. The first few years of my career I was inking. I did a book for Vertigo called Deadenders, I inked Swamp Thing and Hellblazer. I was inking Catwoman]/I] for a while and then I graduated into being the sole artist on the book. Since then I’ve been doing my own art and not inking other people. I did a graphic novel called The Apocalipstix for Oni Press, where I wasn’t really paid all that much up front, and In order to finance that I did some inking on a book for Vertigo called Vinyl Underground. Generally speaking, I like to pencil and ink my own work, but inking’s fun. It’s a different approach because I’m embellishing what another artist has done and bringing my own thing into it rather than coming up with it all on my own, so it can lead to some interesting collaboration.

AD: What kind of instructions were you given as to the tone and mood of the story in doing the designs?

CS: I was given a document, which I believe was written by Missy, that had brief descriptions of all the characters. I wanted them to be very convincing, to be believable as real SuicideGirl models and so I spent a lot of time just breaking down the different archetypes that exist among the girls on the site. They are definitely different “types.” I wanted to kind of reflect each of those archetypes accurately and make them convincing. I picked out a bunch of girls who I thought best exemplified those types, and I just stole from them basically, I took various elements that I thought fit together. Hopefully the final result is that these girls, even though fictional, feel like they could fit in very well with the regular group of girls.

AD: Before this have you ever designed characters to hand off to someone else to draw?

CS: No, this is the first thing I’ve done where I've done design work for another artist. I had an interest in doing that, rather than only doing the covers. I could have just signed on to do covers and drawn from another artist's designs, but I was interested in doing the character designs. I thought it was an interesting challenge and volunteered to do it.

AD: Tell me about the backup stories in each issue.

CS: The concept was that they’re these historical segments that depict SuicideGirls throughout history. Each one would be a different time period featuring strong women. The first one is set during the Salem witch trials. I believe there’s going to be one with the suffragettes getting the right to vote. They're written by Steve Niles, who’s a great writer and someone I wanted to work with. It’s two pages in each issue so it seemed like a small enough commitment of time and I thought they would be fun to do.

AD: Is it a real challenge in telling a story in that short a space?

CS: I think the challenge is less in the drawing and more in the writing of it. Two pages is very, very short. Trying to try to come up with a satisfying chunk of story that has character, motivation, drama, conflict and resolution, that’s very tough. The hardest part of drawing it is then trying to cram all that visual information into only two pages and have the readers understand where it is and making sure there’s not too much action that crowds the page. Steve wrote a good little vignette that works really well in two pages.

AD: Do you enjoy historical stories?

CS: Yeah. I just finished doing the Assassin’s Creed miniseries, which is largely set in Nineteenth and early Twentieth century Russia. It’s fun but it’s certainly more of a challenge than doing modern day stuff where you’re just drawing generic buildings. It’s a challenge to make sure it’s all historically accurate because I’m a stickler for that kind of thing. I feel that if you’re going to do something that’s a period setting, it really counts for a lot to get the details right, because otherwise it just feels fake.

AD: Assassin’s Creed, which just finished is a miniseries based on the video game that you co-wrote and co-illustrated with Karl Kerschl. Would you like to write and draw more in future?

CS: Oh absolutely. I really like collaborating with writers, and I’m really fortunate to have worked with a lot of fantastic writers in my career - Steve Niles, Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, Ray Fawkes, Ed Brubaker and Jason Aaron. I definitely enjoy it. But there's something very different about writing your own material. I started [writing comics] with my webcomic Sin Titulo and was really enjoying it, and found out that I felt comfortable doing it. I don’t think I’ll ever shut out the possibility of collaborating with people, but I definitely would love to write and draw more. Fortunately I’ve been offered some other projects. Since Sin Titulo won the Eisner Award it’s opened a lot of doors for me as a writer.

AD: I wanted to talk about Assassin’s Creed just because the book seems to have flown under the radar. How did this come together?

CS: Ubisoft came to us. They wanted to open up the Assassin’s Creed universe and explore other media, and one of the things that they wanted to do was comics based on the games. They’d done a graphic novel in France a couple years ago, but they wanted something for the English-language market. Fortunately for Karl and I, our studio is only a couple blocks away from Ubisoft. They heard that we were nearby, came over and looked at our work and thought that we were the right people to do the comic for them, particularly because we were already big fans of the video games. Karl and I are both gamers and were fans of Assassin’s Creed long before we’d ever been approached to do the comic.

AD: The comic set in Russia which is a change from the games. What was it like working with Ubisoft and were they looking for in the comic?

CS: They wanted to open up the universe. Initially they had asked for another story featuring Ezio, the character from the second and third games. We considered that and did a short three page test comic featuring Ezio. It was fun, but we quickly realized it was more creatively interesting for us to do an entirely new setting with a new character and not repeat the character from the game. One of things that I think is the pitfall of a lot of video game comics is they’re just the "further adventures of Lara Croft" or whatever, they tend to feel inconsequential. To a lot of gamers they feel like side stories that don’t have any bearing on the main storyline of the games. We had an opportunity, by creating a new storyline with a new character, and solidly tie it into the game storyline, to create something that would enrich the mythology of [the game]. To develop something that didn’t just feel like a cheap spin-off and actually be something that was almost a necessary expansion of the storyline. We wanted to make something that felt important to the games, and also was satisfying as a stand alone story. We wanted to make it a comic that could be read and enjoyed by someone who’s never played Assassin’s Creed. Obviously it’s going to be deeper and more meaningful if you’re aware of the game already and you know the backstory, but we wanted to tell a story that could be read and enjoyed by someone who’d never played the gams before, and then possibly inspire them to pick up the game.

That was our initial approach. We were given a list of possible time periods, but it wasn’t in any way a finite list. We could come up with anything we wanted. That was the great thing about working with [Ubisoft]. They gave us carte blanche, basically, and said "do whatever you want," and were really open to our ideas. They didn’t restrict us at all. When we were looking through this list of possible time periods, the one that really leapt out at us was Tsarist Russia, leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917. I can’t even really say why it intrigued us so much, but it just sparked something in both of us. It was appropriate because the games are set typically during these periods of great social and political upheaval. The first game is set during the Crusades. The second game is during the Renaissance. The Russian Revolution is a similarly important time of social change, so that was something we just felt intrigued to explore. Then when we started reading about it we started finding all of these events such as the Borki train disaster, which figures into the first issue, and other real events that just seemed to form a storyline for us without us even having to try. That was one of the things Patrice [Desilets, director of the Assassin's Creed games] was telling us. He said, “just look to history and the answers are all there.” And he’s right. It was really fun to just read through actual documented history and piece this stuff together. Of course it’s our job to sew it together and write stuff that happens behind and around the established events, but it worked out really well. It was a nice setting. The interesting thing is a lot of games or comics or whatever that are set in Russia usually deal with Soviet Russia, and not a lot to do with anything that’s pre-revolution, so it was fun to do something that was at once familiar but also unexplored.

AD: What kind of research did you do for the book? Did you go to Russia?

CS: We did. One of the great benefits of working for a video game company is that they will send you on research trips. (laughs) We got to go to St. Petersburg for four and a half days. We went all over the city and looked at all the places that were of relevance to our story. We took tons of photographs and video and did sketching and drawing. The great benefit of taking a trip like that is just being in that place and getting a feel for it. I did the same thing when I drew The Other Side for Vertigo, which is my Vietnam War comic. I went over to Vietnam for three weeks. Just being there in the actual place where this happened gives you a connection to it that no amount of photographs or movies will give you, and it's invaluable. I think it really does make the final product seem a lot more authentic.

AD: Having done that for different projects, when you draw something like Seaguy that you did with Grant Morrison, where it’s fantastic and not based on a place, does this require an extra step for you when you’re planning and designing the book knowing that you need to fill that in yourself?

CS: Absolutely. Seaguy is a different challenge because you’re creating something from the ground up. That was its own set of challenges. A lot of it is just drawn from my own imagination. A lot of it is just trying to come up with familiar elements that exist in our world and bringing them into the fantasy world to ground it and make it feel somewhat real. Grant will mention in the script real world things. Like the town of New Venice where Seaguy lives - there’s a little manufactured community, called Seaport Village I think, that exists next to the San Diego Convention Center, which obviously we see every year when we go to Comic Con. It’s this weird little fake tourist seaside village and that was the feel that he wanted for New Venice. He said that he wanted it to feel like it was this kind of gaudy tourist attraction and so the last time I went to San Diego before drawing the comic, I took a bunch of photographs of Seaport Village. It’s drawing familiar elements from the real world and re-casting them in a fantasy setting.

AD: Since we’re talking about Seaguy, have you and Grant talked about a third volume?

CS: We’ve talked about it. It was always intended to be a trilogy. When the first series came out, a lot of people were baffled by the ending because they thought it didn’t make any sense. We were always trying to stress that’s only because they’ve read the first of three parts. Unfortunately the series did not sell tremendously well, and so it took quite a while to get the second volume greenlit. Really it’s a passion project for Grant. It doesn’t do that well sales-wise.

It’s just something that he wants to do, and I really like it. I think it’s something that’s really unique and not like anything else that’s out there. At the moment the third part really comes down to availability for the both of us. Since the first series, I’ve started doing a lot more and Grant’s started doing a lot more. He’s doing eighteen different things, Batman things and music videos and screenplays. It’s one of those projects where when the time is right and both of us have it in our schedules to do it, I’m sure it will get done. Unfortunately, I have no concrete answer as to when that will be.

AD: Like you said, it’s not the biggest seller and I’m sure that DC, given the option, would rather have you two collaborate on Batman for three issues than do three issues of Seaguy.

CS: Absolutely. But it would be a shame to leave it unfinished having done that much of it. It’s one of those things that we hope, maybe it doesn’t sell very well now, but once it’s complete maybe people will go back to it. They can sell it as the complete story, and they can say “from the team that did Batman and Robin.” There’s always a future life for things. And you never know, it could be one of these things that isn’t a hit right away, but maybe twenty years from now, someone will really like it and make a movie out of it.

AD: You and Grant are also working on another project together. Thunderworld.

CS: (laughs) I love Grant. I do. But sometimes he speaks out of turn. (laughs) I had people coming up to me at San Diego congratulating me and saying they were really looking forward to Thunderworld and I had never even heard of it before. (laughs) I'm slightly fibbing - he *had* mentioned to me like three years ago, or even longer. He asked, "would you be interested in doing a Captain Marvel story?" His description of it was an All-Star Superman-like approach to Captain Marvel, which sounded great. All-Star Superman is one of my favorite comics and I thought if anyone could do that for Captain Marvel, he could. So I said, "yes, that sounds great." Then I never heard anything again, until this past San Diego when he announces this project. It’s something that when it’s written, and when I have time, I’m certainly down for, but it’s not anything that exists beyond a title at the moment.

AD: Your webcomic Sin Titulo. It won the Eisner Award last year for best digital comic. It’s also been on hiatus since last year.

CS: Yeah, unfortunately. I don’t earn any money from it. There have been a small handful of readers who have very generously donated, but I look at it basically as making tips if I were playing guitar on the sidewalk. I don’t really earn any money to do it. It was something that I was doing purely for myself, in the interest of doing my own work and developing my skills as a writer. Unfortunately when you have the decision to make between doing something for free, or being able to pay your rent… (laughs) At first I was able to balance it and do the contract work through the week and on the weekend do Sin Titullo, but it just became overwhelming. I was working seven days a week and having a bit of a breakdown. This is my passion project. The last thing that I wanted was for it to become something I *have* to do, instead of *wanting* to do. If I’m forcing myself to do it, and not enjoying it, then it’s no good. I decided that I would take a break from it for a while and focus on getting the contract work finished and once that was all done then I would return to it.

After the Eisner Award a lot of publishers were interested. I’m not going to say who it is just yet, but there’s a publisher who I’m very interested in working with and they’re going to publish the book. My goal would be to update it far more frequently. I used to update it once a week, if that, and what I would like to be able to do is update it Monday through Friday until it’s finished . If it was daily it would only last for a couple more months. I estimate the story will finish around 175 or 200 pages. Not that much longer. It will be complete online and then it will be released in 2012, I believe, as a hardcover book.

AD: Is there anything else going on that you can talk about?

CS: That’s probably it. There’s the possibility of doing more Assassin’s Creed. I know that Ubisoft was very happy with what we did and there is potential for further storylines in the comics that we’ve discussed.

AD: Would the idea be to do more in different period or more with Nikolai?

CS: There are long term plans to do other timelines, but the current plan would be to expand on Nikolai Orelov. Their thinking, and they’re absolutely right, is that if they’re going to introduce a new character they want to focus on that new character and develop him thoroughly, rather than just introduce a dozen new characters and not spend any time on any of them. They want to make it a, quote, "real" character in this universe. So if it turns out that we do another series it will probably be another story about Orelov.

That’s really all I can say. There’s the potential of more Batman stuff with Grant. There’s a couple other things that are probably premature to talk about but pretty exciting and some stuff that if it all goes through I’ll be writing and drawing for a big publisher so that’s cool.

AD: What is it that you like about working with Grant Morrison?

CS: He’s one of my favorite writers. He’s probably always been my favorite comics writer. The story that I often tell is that when I was thirteen I lined up to get his autograph and now I’m working with him. (laughs) Now I have creator owned comics with him. I think he’s boundlessly creative, he constantly tries to push the envelope. When he’s doing mainstream comics with superhero characters, he has a real innate understanding of what makes these characters work and what makes them appealing, and then he takes that understanding and is able to do things with that seem so obvious, but no one’s ever done before. I’m always amazed at that ability. And when he’s doing his creator owned stuff, he does things quite unlike anyone else is doing in comics.

His scripts can be a total nightmare sometimes. I’ve read his scripts where I sit back and say, “sure, it’s easy for you to write this, but I’ve got to draw it.” (laughs) “You can write a sentence about the four dimensional structure of space-time, but I’m the guy who’s got to draw it.” At times it can be very daunting, but it’s more interesting to figure out how to crack that problem than it would be to just sit and draw safe easy stuff all the time. What it comes down to is that he makes the kind of comics I like to read.

AD: In closing, to get back to the SuicideGirls comic, what can people look forward to in the book?

CS: I think that it’s going to really appeal to the SG community, because we've really tried to capture the spirit of SuicideGirls. It’s a book about a bunch of attractive young women kicking ass and taking names. It’s an A-Team/Charlie’s Angels kind of thing with a bunch of girls with tattoos. It’s really fun to draw!

Jules Stewart is the mother of a certain Twilight star, but to even mention that almost does a disservice to her latest project, which is an edgy and challenging example of independent filmmaking at its finest. Having spent three decades working in Hollywood as a script supervisor, with a résumé that... more

Jules Stewart is the mother of a certain Twilight star, but to even mention that almost does a disservice to her latest project, which is an edgy and challenging example of independent filmmaking at its finest. Having spent three decades working in Hollywood as a script supervisor, with a résumé that spans 30 films and over 50 TV shows, Stewart knows a thing or two about what makes a good story and how to avoid the grind of tired and traditional screenwriting formulas. Consequently, K-11, which she co-wrote with Jared Kurt, is a compelling and very unique take on the prison drama. The highly accomplished film, which features an extraordinary ensemble cast, also marks Stewart’s directorial debut.

Nicole Powers: The penal system in America is of great interest to me. Why did you choose to write a film based in a jail?

Jules Stewart: Well, it’s not just based in any jail. First of all, K-11 is a real place and it only exists in LA. It’s a part of the jail system here in Los Angeles that not too many people know even exists. So right there it’s fascinating to me. How could this have been here since the ‘50s and nobody know? I think that it’s a whole different take on the jail movie.

NP: How did you first become aware that K-11 existed?

JS: I was on a television pilot, and one of the guys that was working on the pilot as well came to me and said, “I have this idea, I want to make a script about K-11 and I thought maybe you would write it with me.” So I did some research and found out what it was and I thought, this is so unique, it’s so original, nobody’s ever done it before.

NP: So what exactly is K-11?

JS: K-11 is a specific dorm in Los Angeles Men’s County Jail that houses the gay and transgender inmates. It’s the only place in the jail system where race is not an issue, because everybody in there, the common thread is that they’re gay or transgender.

NP: Did you visit the jail when you were doing research for the script?

JS: Of course.

NP: Are some of the characters based on people you met there?

JS: Not at all. What we did was we took the actual schedule of the dorm, the actual routine, and we invented characters and we put them in the system.

NP: In your story the main character, Raymond, is very straight. Why did you choose to put the cat among the pigeons?

JS: Because it’s more interesting that way isn’t it. He’s a fish out of water. He clearly doesn’t belong there. But he got railroaded in there because he’s got money and he’s obviously into drugs. Money and drugs, that’s what runs the system.

NP: The story is set against a background of massive corruption, where those in charge are either actively involved or complicit because they’re actively looking the other way…

JS: Let me stop you right there. We made it all up. If you look at the history of jail films, jail TV shows, it’s the conflict that makes the story interesting, so it’s always about the corruption. It’s always about corruption, it’s always about conflict, it’s always about me versus you, otherwise there’s no story. So clearly we made up the corruption, we made up the whole conflict within our own little story with our own little made up characters. But the dorm itself does exist, it is a real place, and that was our foundation.

NP: So how much is reality? For example, in the movie the ladies and gentleman of K-11 have quite a lot of latitude with their uniform.

JS: That’s true. That part of it is true. The inmates are allowed to customize their jail wear, but they’re not allowed to wear it in the hallways or any what they call public places. They’re only allowed to wear it in their dorm. And they can only do it if they have another set of blues to put on when they do go outside…Otherwise they’re allowed to do whatever they want within their own confines in terms of their wardrobe.

NP: So the choice to portray the corruption came purely from the desire to tell a compelling story rather than any political point of view?

JS: It’s purely story. I like to consider myself, and I’m sure [co-writer] Jared [Kurt] does too, we’re storytellers. I’m not a political activist. I never went out and made any kind of political statements or anything. It’s all about telling a story.

NP: You have an incredibly impressive résumé as a script supervisor; you’ve studied the art of the story in a way that most people haven’t in Hollywood.

JS: I love a great story, and a great story has a couple of different elements. It has conflict and it has maybe sometimes some romance, it’s got to have that human element that people can relate to.

NP: What motivated you to make the leap now from script supervisor to telling your own stories?

JS: It’s a natural thing isn’t it? At some point you want to tell your own stories. And I was in a position where I had a script and people were willing to give me money to make it, so I thought why not?

NP: Well, you did a great job. Not only is the story great, but so are the choices you made as a director, and the acting is incredible. I have one question though: Why did you choose to have women play the transgender roles?

JS: That’s a good question. Because it’s my opinion that when you’re talking to someone who considers themselves transgender, you’re actually talking to a man who is a woman. Out of respect you have to think of them also as a woman – because that’s how they think of themselves.

Mousey clearly when she’s in the dorm, she doesn’t think of herself as a man. She clearly thinks of herself as a woman. And I thought it would be more interesting to cast a woman playing a man turning into a woman. It really gives you food for thought, doesn’t it?

NP: And it helped with that whole Alice In Wonderland aspect that you bring to it, where our protagonist lands down a rabbit hole and has to figure out where he is.

JS: Exactly, exactly. And what you see is not necessarily what you get…It’s traveling down the rabbit hole into an unknown world.

NP: Where was it shot?

JS: It was shot in Civil Brand, which is a Los Angeles Country Women’s Jail that is now closed down, but the floor plan and the structure and the colors and everything mirror Men’s County Jail so it was a genius location for us.

NP: Also, the saturated colors you use give it a hyper-reality.

JS: A little bit. In the dorm there’s no windows, there’s no clocks, and you have that very stark overhead lighting which causes demonic shadows and things like that on people, so it was absolutely by choice that we designed it to look that way. It’s also quite green, which is not necessarily very flattering for most people.

NP: With the American legal system increasingly becoming a minefield it’s estimated that the average person breaks the law inadvertently multiple times a day. So this idea that one day you could wake up and find yourself in a jail is actually kind of a reality for all of us, so this movie is very much a universal nightmare.

JS: I think so. Also getting lost in the system. I mean, quite frankly, he has no idea where he is. Because when he first gets put into K-11 and he’s walking around he’s not sure who he’s looking at. There are some men in there, but there are clearly some women in there was well, and I wanted to lead people to think that he believed that maybe he was in a mental institution. He even says, “I’m in some kind of institution, you have to get me out of here” when he’s desperately trying to make those phone calls. And that trying to make the phone call and you can’t get through, the line’s busy and no one answers or someone hangs up on you, that’s that frustration that just keeps building and building. That was real important for Raymond’s character.

NP: Watching him, it’s like watching a rat in a maze. Even getting a simple thing like a shower, getting to the top of the queue but still not being able to take one, he has to figure out whose hand to grease, which proverbial lever to pull to get the reward.

JS: Well, human beings are run by their little routines. Every location, every place where you go – especially if it’s an institution or if it’s city or county run – there’s a routine, and until you know what the routine is it’s very difficult to get anything done. That’s mostly part of his problem, that he has no idea what the routine is. He has no idea where he is, he has no idea what the rules are, he has no idea what’s going on. All he sees is the telephone on the wall. That’s the way out for him, the telephone, and he can’t ever get through so it’s pretty frustrating.

NP: The beauty of this movie is that you’re in Raymond’s head and you’re figuring things out with him, and he’s such a compelling character. What’s the process for you when you’re creating a character?

JS: I think the first step is that you have to figure out who’s telling the story. Who’s point of view is this story being told from? Is it a third person? Or is it first person? Or is it second person? Who is it? In our case we felt it would be more interesting to tell the story from Raymond’s point of view. That being said, the film takes sort of a left turn. Because you try to learn things as he learns things…and that keeps it going. I think if the audience knows more than the main character then the story has a tendency to become a bit boring. So it was a fine line; how much do we reveal without Raymond finding out first.

NP: Considering you’ve spent most of your career as a script supervisor in Hollywood, which is a very formulaic town, this is a surprisingly non-formulaic story.

JS: I’ve been very lucky in my career, I’ve had a chance to work with some people that I feel are genius storytellers – David Lynch being one. If you look at things as a moment in time, and things reveal themselves as the character finds out about what’s going on, it makes things more interesting. Not everything in life is very linear. Some things are a little out of order. Like when you remember things, sometimes you remember the most recent things first and you work your way backwards…We just told the story the way we thought we should tell it.

NP: And you were being very honest to the characters.

JS: And we were being honest, yes. I mean, I will give you that; we stole characteristics from people, but people in our lives not people in the jail. You build characters based on what you know. My son’s character for instance, Sledgehammer, I always thought it would be Cameron who would play that. I was hoping he would agree to do it since he’s never done it before. I took things out of his own personality and out of his own behavioral patterns and put them into the character, which made it really easy for him because things came naturally.

NP: It was Cameron’s acting debut?

JS: Yes.

NP: Wow, he did a great job. The whole cast did an amazing job.

JS: Casting…It’s 99 and 9/10s of the movie. For years as a script girl I would watch the stand-ins rehearse scenes and then watch the actors come in and do them, and it was the same scene but completely different. I really had a chance to see first hand the difference that each character brings to the set and to the film. It’s amazing, if you change one character you change the movie…And the people that we actually ended up hiring, one of the biggest criteria was they couldn’t be afraid of the material. They had to embrace the material and get into it and more. And they all did. I would love to see them get some recognition in the community for their talents because it’s amazing to me the job that these people did…

One of the most definitive things about K-11 and I think it shows on the film is that we had fun making the movie. Every one who was in the movie enjoyed their role and brought more than I could ever have hoped to the table. It was a fun set to be on. I kind of liken it to dancing with Fred Astaire. If the person you’re dancing with is good you try to step up your own game and be even better, and that’s what happened. It was a very enjoyable collaborative piece. Because everyone participates, this is definitely not something you can do alone. It’s a massively collaborative process and it’s all about choosing the right people to collaborate with. And I think my partner [producer] Tom [Wright Jr.] and I, we chose very well. I couldn’t have been happier with my cast. I was just amazed at how great they are. By the end of the film I think the audience will embrace every single one of those characters.

NP: The one scene that was incredibly hard to watch, because of its realness, was the rape scene. How did you get that performance out of the actors? I can imagine that was traumatic even to act.

JS: It was. It was very difficult. It was a closed set and one of the things that made it a little easier was that [actor Tommy] 'Tiny' Lister is such a wonderful guy, so that in between takes there was laughter. We never pretended it was real, we never did any of those things. I think knowing that they were just pretending allowed them to take it to a deeper level. I mean, they’re friends [Tommy and actress Portia Doubleday], so it wasn’t like there was any strange vibe between them or anything. And because there was a closeness there it allowed them to do things that maybe they wouldn’t normally have done. It’s hard to explain, but it was magic. It was really magic. I think Portia is an amazing actress and she kept stepping it up. She drove the bus on that with him, because the more she would step it up, the more he would step it up…and we caught it on film.

NP: With this being the first project where you had a chance to run your own show, what was the one thing that you really wanted to bring to the working environment on your own set?

JS: I didn’t want there to be any secrets. I wanted everybody to know everything. Sort of like, this is what we’re doing, bring your best game. And if you have an idea and you can make it better, I will steal a good idea from anyone. So nobody was afraid to say, “What about this?” or “Let’s try this.” And if we had the time to do it, we were game. Because everybody wanted to make the best movie possible, tell the story in the most intense way we possibly could. Quite frankly, even though Butterfly had those horrible moments with Detroit where she was raped and brutalized, she got her comeuppance in the end. We wanted people to cheer when Detroit had his comeuppance, and I think people do. Even he was like, “I want people to cheer.” So he was really into it. It’s all about communication and it’s all about everyone making the same project, and being vested and wanting to do the best that they can do.

NP: Do you know which rabbit hole you’ll be jumping down next with regards to filmmaking?

JS: I do. I’m jumping into a supernatural thriller. It starts in ancient China and it’s about a temple that is unearthed in the desert of China and deconstructed and reconstructed in the United States along with its permanent residents that have been with it since 2010 BC…It’s like a Chinese legend come to life. It’s pretty interesting.

NP: So you’re covering the supernatural but managing to stay away from vampires?

JS: No vampires, no werewolves, none of that. I like to tell stories that people haven’t told before. So, along that vein, I think it’s easier to capture an audience with something that they’ve never seen.

NP: You have an incredibly talented family. You must be very proud. As a mother, how did you foster creativity within your children?

JS: Well I tried to raise my kids…I didn’t raise then to be children, I raised them to be adults. That a concept that might be lost on a lot of people. I also tried to make them understand that it’s OK to make mistakes, so don’t be afraid to have a go at doing something different. And in that vein of ‘I’m interested in this, let’s try it, let’s see what happens’ my kids have always been the first ones on the line ready to have a go at something different. And it’s OK to fail, because that’s how you learn, when you fail.


K-11 can be seen in theaters on March 15. For more info visit k11themovie.com/.

Ever feel like you have written a book on something you really don't care about? Did it make you feel like you were wasting your talent? Your life? I have written a procedure manual for our customer service department at my company, and now I am in the process of writing (and re-writing) procedures... more

Ever feel like you have written a book on something you really don't care about? Did it make you feel like you were wasting your talent? Your life? I have written a procedure manual for our customer service department at my company, and now I am in the process of writing (and re-writing) procedures for our new ordering system. People will read them, follow them, even find them helpful. Is it horrible that it makes me sad that nobody will really enjoy reading them? Much less care about all the work that went into writing them. If I were to write a novel, a children's book, a song, a television series, etc...people would enjoy that.

I have ideas swirling around in my head. A jumbled mess, really. Sit-com's, kids books, stories...you name it. I also figured out a short time ago that I probably should have pursued music production in college instead of jumping around back and forth between majors. They say do what you know and love...I just feel like if I had done that, then I'd be in a better place to do the other things. I dunno...deep thoughts, right? Lol

Surprised we haven't had a sexy shoe photo thread yet. (image)

http://www.cultofmac.com/217557/apples-deleting-icloud-emails-that-contain-the-phrase-barely-legal-teens/ Well this is one of my main issues with Apple, the big brother feeling censoring and restrictions. This is why I'd rather go Android and be master of my own faith and media. Whats your take? more

http://www.cultofmac.com/217557/apples-deleting-icloud-emails-that-contain-the-phrase-barely-legal-teens/

Well this is one of my main issues with Apple, the big brother feeling censoring and restrictions. This is why I'd rather go Android and be master of my own faith and media.

Whats your take? I would be pissed off if my email provider just deleted emails due to phrases in them.

If Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s TV show is Awesome, Great Job!, you know their movie has to be even bigger. So their movie is bigger than awesome, it’s Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie. However, the movie is not a collection of sketches like their TV show. Billion Dollar Movie is actually... more

If Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s TV show is Awesome, Great Job!, you know their movie has to be even bigger. So their movie is bigger than awesome, it’s Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie. However, the movie is not a collection of sketches like their TV show. Billion Dollar Movie is actually about Tim and Eric blowing a billion dollars filming an unreleasable movie. So to pay back the investors, they have to revamp a mall full of crazy stores to make it a billion dollar business. The film still breaks the fourth wall and takes breaks for weird sketches, but there’s sort of a plot in there.

Heidecker and Wareheim premiered Billion Dollar Movie at Sundance, promising the audience it had been de-Rangoed, which I didn’t get. They actually had two films at the festival. Heidecker stars in the experimental film The Comedy, which is named ironically. Set in a community of hipsters in Williamsburg, New York, the film is a statement about hipsterism. Wareheim has a smaller part in The Comedy too.

Wareheim and Heidecker were understandably exhausted when they did interviews on Main Street. Not only had they had midnight screenings the night before, but they stayed for the Q&A (where the audience gets a chance to ask them questions) and their own after party. I at least skipped the Q&A to get some sleep and prepare questions. Both films were notorious, with many audience members walking out. The Shrim scene in Billion Dollar Movie was probably the breaking point for many. I don’t even want to describe what it is, just look it up.

SuicideGirls: So what was the Rango reference with regards to Billion Dollar Movie?

Tim Heidecker: Well, the joke’s over.

Eric Wareheim: We can reveal.

TH: As a joke we suggested that Sundance was going to be intercutting outtakes from the Rango movie into our film as a promotional vehicle for the DVD and we tok it pretty seriously and played it pretty straight, on Twitter and Facebook made a big deal about asking Sundance to take the Rango out. It’s amazing that all week, since we’ve been here, you get people coming up to us that know we’re joking, but going, “Sorry about getting Rangoed, man.”

EW: Rango’s become a term now.

TH: So now it’s a term when you get Rangoed and just today, a fan made a trailer of our movie and intercut Rango in and it’s really well done.

EW: They synced the mouth of the lizard to our dialogue.

TH: So it’s a thing where we made this movie and the movie is what it is and we’re really happy with it, but it’s the center of a circle of all this other shit that we’re doing around the movie as well. This Rango thing, all the press we’re doing for it, all the promos and all these little things we’re doing that we feel like it’s part of the package. It’s part of the whole film.

EW: It was interesting, a lot of people got the Rango thing. There was applause when we were de-Rangoed.

TH: Yeah, our audience knows that the joke doesn’t necessarily stop when the movie ends. If you follow us on Twitter, if you follow us online, there’s a multi-player role playing game or something.

SG: How can we solve the economic crisis and save small business?

EW: Just stay positive, be creative, look outside the box.

TH: Everybody pay for this movie. Don’t steal it and then I’ll pay it forward. We all win that way.

SG: Are you guys eternally happy?

TH: Oh yeah. ‘Til the end of time. We’ve been happy since the beginning of time and we’ll remain happy until time ends.

SG: What gets you so angry that you have to yell and scream?

TH: Customer service.

SG: True. Can’t you tell they’re just reading a script and not even listening to you?

TH: I can tell. They’re not. And Italians.

EW: Ohhh.

TH: He’s got a big thing for Italians.

EW: I’m Italian.

TH: Hates their music.

EW: Yeah, I do. All tenors.

SG: Are you in the business of deconstructing comedy?

TH: No.

SG: Have you heard that before?

TH: We’ve heard that. We’re in the business to make each other laugh and hopefully make other people laugh. Our sensibility and our sense of humor is I guess sometimes we make fun of comedy. The punchline is what can be bad about comedy but we just do what we do, try not to intellectualize it too much.

SG: I of course like to intellectualize it.

TH: Yes, well that’s what your job is.

SG: Do you think you fit into the meta movement?

TH: I wasn’t aware there was a movement.

SG: I’m happy to see so much meta comedy. Certainly when you pause the movie to explain what’s happening in the movie, that’s a comment on the movie experience.

EW: One thing I would say is that I feel like we fit in a post comedy movement which is something that you’ve seen it all, you’ve heard it all, you’ve seen all the different styles. The joke to us around the laugh. That’s what we like to explore, what happens before and what happens after the actual punchline.

SG: Is that a step beyond irreverence?

TH: I think it’s just a different muscle. The irreverent stuff is another thing that just makes us laugh. It’s irreverent to you if you find it offensive, so it’s going to be different for different people I would think.

SG: Is offensive a necessary quality of irreverence? I find a lot irreverent but I’m not offended.

TH: I suppose it’s a little distinction. Irreverence doesn’t mean anything to me because you’d have to put a level of authority in the equation for us to be irreverent towards. We don’t actively engage with any of those people.

SG: Is Tim the serious one?

TH: Today I am I guess. Not always.

SG: How has the festival experience been for both films?

TH: It’s been good. Positive feedback.

EW: It was a similar experience at both premieres which is people are loving it, people are laughing at the right moments, people are walking out at the right moments.

SG: Walking out of both movies?

EW: Yeah, both movies. The Comedy and Billion Dollar movies have some similar qualities which I think are really interesting, one being sitting on the edge of your seat squirming, you can’t believe what you’re seeing kind of feeling, which I think we’re all happy about creating that kind of energy in both films.

SG: Do you embrace the walkouts as much as the accolades?

TH: Yeah. I don't think we’re masochistic about it in the sense that we’re in it to piss people off.

EW: No.

TH: We are human beings that have feelings and would like to be loved by everyone as every human being does, but we also kind of have a sense of humor about it. And realize that the people walking out are not people we’re going to worry about too much.

SG: Is that part of the magic of the festival? In most theaters people don’t bother to walk out, but here they just give up and go to something else.

TH: I guess what I’ve heard, it’s kind of a thing. First of all, there’s lots of reasons. There’s I’m committed to go do something else, I’m going to try to see another movie. It’s not like, “I hate this movie. Fuck this movie. I want to burn the negative.” It’s like okay, I’m going to go see another movie now. Whatever. The thing is, what I said as the credits were coming up, look at how many people stayed. Most people stayed. That’s the key.

SG: It’s a wonderful silent communication, like "Nope, not gonna stick this one out." Even the filmmakers have a good attitude about it.

TH: It’s certainly crazy energy in the room because you see it happening. Even if you’re not leaving, that must

trigger some kind of thought process in your own head of like, “Why am I staying? Should I leave?” That’s gotta happen to some people.

EW: I think the core of both films is these are both very personal projects for us. Reviews are something but I don't think they’re super important to each of us. We both wanted to create something that was uniquely personal to us and made us satisfied. We’re not making it for a specific audience.

SG: Which film got into Sundance first?

TH: I think our film did because our film wasn’t in competition. We’re just premiering it here so it’s a little bit of a different situation. I don't know if people see that distinction.

SG: Is hipsterism something you thought about before The Comedy came along?

EW: We actually invented hipsterism. And we’re making a pretty penny from that.

TH: I don't know, it’s a catch all word that describes a certain group of people that sometimes abuse it, use it inappropriately I guess.

SG: Has it gotten out of hand these days?

EW: Well, if you’re in Brooklyn, which when we shot the movie, I hadn’t been in quite some time, it’s rampant.

TH: It’s like being in Haight-Ashbury in the ‘60s or something.

EW: A particular style, a particular kind of person.

TH: It’s like a funny irony of the style is so about individualism but it all ends up looking like a uniform.

SG: Do you find that some people who complain about hipsters the most are the worst hipsters?

TH: It’s definitely the rock through the glass house scenario. I don't think Rick [Alverson] intended this movie to be an indictment of that style or aesthetic. It’s a device I think used in the movie to create a setting and a place, an environment.

SG: Do you think it originated in a healthy, subversive or ironic way and then escalated?

TH: This is a theory I’ve heard from a couple different people, and I may not be able to prove it, but I think our generation, X or Y, between 20 and 30, our baby boomer parents were in so general encouraging of us to do what we want to do in life and pursue our dreams, I think there became a huge group of our generation who went to art school and creative things, and somewhat not very practical vocations. It created this class of people interested in arts or film or music that don’t have that many real usable things. Journalists...

SG: Obviously I'm addressing it in a thematic way. Do you guys talk about the theme on the set or are you just riffing?

TH: I think we have a plan and sometimes we deviate from that plan but the plan is to get certain information across. Film is so easy to manipulate that we kind of didn’t need to think too hard about anything. We just sort of went forward and the way things are cut and music and everything, you can just really shape the film a little stronger. Obviously there’s hours and hours and hours of footage that isn’t in the film.

SG: Are either of you from Williamsburg?

TH: I lived there for three years. I was there when it was booming and bustling, 2001 to 2003.

SG: Were you looking to explore more dramatic work?

TH: I don't think it was something we were seeking out necessarily but when the opportunity was brought up, it was something that sounded intriguing and dangerous and risky.

EW: It was also an experimental feel to it, after seeing his first film. It just felt like a piece of art rather than a movie. That was a huge draw for me, to be part of something that’s a different world.

Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie opens March 2. The Comedy shows again at the South by Southwest film festival this month.

Just officially booked my flight to Nicaragua! I can't wait, in just a few months I will be teaching English as a second language to a couple of communities in Nicaragua, one them being a community I helped fundraise money for back when I was in high school!

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Some SuicideGirls have been modeling for the site for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or even 10 years. We thought it would be fun to show you a look back and some of the SuicideGirls throughout the years. 

This week we bring you Patton!

 Patton has been a SuicideGirl since 2009 and she has 10 strikingly sexy... more

Some SuicideGirls have been modeling for the site for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or even 10 years. We thought it would be fun to show you a look back and some of the SuicideGirls throughout the years.



This week we bring you Patton!



Patton has been a SuicideGirl since 2009 and she has 10 strikingly sexy photo sets. Enjoy this gorgeous look back at the stunning Patton…



From her first photo set Woody shot by Alissa in 2002:





Join Patton and 29 other SuicideGirls for an Ohio Summer in this set from 2009 shot by Alissa:





She's a Damsel in Distress in her photoset from 2009 shot by Cherry:





Patton's classy and beautiful in her set from 2010 shot by Alissa called In Dreams:





She's a Cuddle Slut in her set from 2010 shot by Alissa:





Patton is adorable with pigtails in Tweet Tweet shot by Alissa in 2011:





She's Loved By You in her set shot by Alissa in 2011:





Patton spends the day in the bath in Improvise shot by Alissa in 2011:







She's full of Blonde Ambition in this set from 2012 shot by Alissa:







From her most recent set Hyacinth House shot by Alissa in 2012:







Hope you enjoyed the lovely look back at the gorgeous SuicideGirl Patton! Be sure to keep an eye out for a new set coming soon to member review!

Become a member TODAY for only $4 a month (if you sign up for a year) to see all 10 nude pin-up photo sets of Patton - http://suicidegirls.com/join/

Before punk and new wave erupted in New York City in the late '70s, female pop singers were like carefully crafted charms dangled from a bracelet; they were chanteuses whose sexuality was packaged as the ultimate pop commodity. When the tokenism of '60s rock finally gave way to the rebel yell... more

Before punk and new wave erupted in New York City in the late '70s, female pop singers were like carefully crafted charms dangled from a bracelet; they were chanteuses whose sexuality was packaged as the ultimate pop commodity. When the tokenism of '60s rock finally gave way to the rebel yell of late '70s and early '80s punk, female singers pushed a brazen, me-first attitude and redefined tough-girl with a heart of gold, or in Debbie Harry's case, the romantic she is, a heart of glass. And though some said she was too beautiful for punk, Debbie Harry was more than just somebody’s darling.

Harry remembers always wanting to write music. "I got so much out of listening to other people’s music," she says, "that the idea of making my own was just irresistible." After high school in the early '60s she landed in New York City and worked odd jobs as a secretary and even a Playboy Bunny before settling into her role as singer for the band The Wind in the Willows, a folk rock ensemble very true to the era. But it wasn't until she abandoned folk for an edgier collaboration with guitarist and lover Chris Stein, that Harry came into her own and began perfecting the Blondie persona we know today and have been captivated by for years. It’s is a complicated and unaffected beauty, what she once described as "that age-old tantalizing persona of innocence and sexuality."

With the pieces in place, it didn't take long for Blondie to make a name for itself. New Wave by genre, punk rock in attitude, the band quickly became associated with the burgeoning CBGB’s scene. Blondie had this ultra-cool, somewhat nonchalant blue-collar decadence about it that made the band irresistible. New York knew it and it wasn’t long before the rest of the world caught on. After the release of Blondie's debut "Parallel Lines" in 1976 and its hit single "Heart of Glass", the band was catapulted to success and Debbie Harry's impact was already becoming that of legend.

However influential, it is 30 years since she first stepped into the limelight with Blondie and the last thing Debbie Harry wants is to be considered a token of yesterday. While many of her punk peers have faded into obscurity or become over-glorified icons of their former selves, she continues to write music and push new ground. With the release of “Necessary Evil”, her sixth solo album and first in over a decade, Debbie Harry proves that she’s still got what it takes. Out now, the album is some of her more original work to date, a collection of songs that string together like snapshots from the eyes of a woman who has loved, lost, and loved again, and doesn’t regret a damn thing.

SuicideGirls caught up with her for an afternoon chat…

Erin Broadley: Hello. How are you?

Debbie Harry: Hello. I’m good. How are you?

EB: Very busy [laughs].

DH: Oh, I know!

EB: How has the reception been so far to Necessary Evil?

DH: It’s good. It’s going crazy, really. I’ve been talking to so many people. I’m surprised, actually, that so many people are interested, but it’s great. I’m feeling very encouraged.

EB: Good! You’ve said that the music you’ve been listening to these days is much more left of center and that was something you really wanted to bring out in this album. Do you think you succeeded, perhaps compared to your previous solo releases?

DH: Well, I think I was more involved with actually writing the music on this one than the others. I was much more deeply involved in the creation of the songs from A to Z, really. Since I was working with two other people, it was such a small group. Usually with Blondie, working with six people and a producer, it’s a lot of heads, a lot of opinions and styles and stuff to make it to one thing. This was sort of a lot simpler, a little bit more basic, really.

EB: Fewer cooks in the kitchen?

DH: Yeah, yeah.

EB: One thing you said was that you wanted to get away from your cute girl sound and get a bit more aggressive and darker with your vocals. I think this album really plays up your devilish sense of humor. Why was that a choice you decided to make this time around?

DH: Well, it just seemed very natural to me … a very comfortable place to be. I just sort of followed my [instincts].

EB: A lot of the focus on you has always involved your groundbreaking role as a woman running a rock band in the ‘70s. Your partner Chris Stein once said that, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the male rock establishment was really sexist and you got knocked around heavily. Are there any particular recollections from that period that stand out? Do you think it’s much different now?

DH: Well yeah, I do. To some degree, there’s a lot more girls and women actually doing stuff in the industry and in many industries, for that matter. Things have really changed in that respect. [When it coms to] selling sexuality, compared to what goes on today it looked like I was selling shoes or
something!

EB: [Laughs]

DH: I was doing hardly anything compared to the stuff that is revealed today. You know, so I feel like I’m sort of behind the times when it comes to that.

EB: Right. You once said that it was the age-old persona of innocence mixed with sexuality that really worked for you – that mysterious combination. Do you think that seductive mystery of innocence is even possible anymore with the way the media exploits female sexuality? It seems more fleeting than ever.

DH: Yeah, I think you’re right. I would imagine it would be very difficult to sort of make that happen today in a big way. It’s a much more sophisticated world. Even with very, very young performers it’s [like that]. I mean, just take for example those baby beauty pageants.

EB: Oh, man [laughs].

DH: That exemplifies it in a nutshell.

EB: Those are creepy, huh?

DH: I know it’s just weird.

EB: Yeah. Well, earlier this year you were part of Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors tour. It was hilarious because the other day my friend told me about a dream she had where you and Cyndi Lauper collaborated on a duet.

DH: Ah [laughs]. I haven’t spoken to her but I sort of got the idea that she wanted to make [the True Colors tour] a regular event, which I think is dynamite. As far as us doing a duet, I totally would love it. I think she’s such a mad woman, you know, she’s done some great songs. I think it would be quite something if we did that. Shirley Manson and I once started to record a song together but we never actually finished it.

EB: Yeah, she seems like a real blast to work with.

DH: She’s so good. She’s so talented.

EB: At this point in your career, is it nice not to have that pressure that younger musicians face in between albums to put something out right away once they wrap a record? Do you find it more creatively rewarding to embrace other art forms in your down time and let an album evolve naturally?

DH: Sure, that’s kind of an ideal situation. I think we are all driven by our own demons or compulsions, as it were. I’m probably somewhat of a driven person; I really want to keep working. You know, I would really, really like to do another Blondie CD. That would be my next sort of “conquering Everest” type of thing [laughs]. It’s just something that I’d like to do. I don’t have any kind of schedule or any approximate idea when or if, but it’s something that I would like to do.

EB: Yeah, sometimes as an artist it’s like you feel like you have all this time on your hands and then, simultaneously, you feel there’s just not enough time to fit it all in.

DH: Yeah, touring takes up a lot of time. It really does. You know, I really don’t want to stop playing, I think that playing live is one of the most important things.

EB: I read that growing up you felt too anchored and craved the life of a gypsy.

DH: [Sighs] Yeah. [Laughs]

EB: Do you think that roaming gypsy quality of touring was part of what seduced you into the music world?

DH: Maybe. It made it seem romantic and alluring but I think it was really the music that made me want to do it. I got so much out of listening to other people’s music that the idea of making my own was just irresistible.

EB: Right, being in a band can either satiate someone’s restless nature or it can encourage it even more.

DH: Yeah, yeah, I know. We talked about this on the tour bus, about how you have to be sort of cut out for it. I’ve worked with musicians that really don’t like touring; they don’t like being on the road. It makes them really nervous and uptight and everything. But most of us just really get into the groove; we really like being footloose, you know. It’s really true.

EB: In September, at the Vodaphone Live Music Awards in London, you presented Iggy Pop with a lifetime achievement award.

DH: Yeah.

EB: In another interview, when asked about maintaining relationships with your peers from early punk scene, you said, “Well I’ve been to a lot of funerals.”

DH: [Laughs] I’ve made some terrible comments.

EB: [Laughs] What was that like, presenting Iggy with that award? How have your relationships with your peers changed over the years?

DH: Well, one of the sad things about getting on with your life and your career is that you get really separated from these people and you don’t see them very often. It really takes an effort to stay in touch with them because you’re all working and, as you say, traveling a lot. You know, I hadn’t seen Iggy for a long time so I was really happy to present him with that award, even though he wasn’t there [laughs]. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be there though.

EB: Yeah, he’s been touring like crazy for the past year with the Stooges.

DH: Yeah, why would he not want to keep playing? He’s so incredible. I mean, you work your whole life to be able to do something great. Why should you stop? He’s just so great. I mean, that voice and that body … forget it.

EB: [Laughs]

DH: Those songs … he writes great songs.

EB: That’s how people still feel about you, with or without Blondie. It’s the same as what you said about Iggy, “Why stop? It’s a blessing that I’m still able to make music for a living and that I still want to.”

DH: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I totally feel that way.

EB: Another thing you did this year was interview Tamara Coniff, the editor and publisher of Billboard, as part of New York University’s “CEOs in the Arts Speaker Series.” What was that experience like, to be the one conducting an interview and turning the tables in a way, after so many years at their editorial discretion?

DH: Right. Well, I don’t know if I exactly interviewed her but she is a very dynamic, well-organized person and she spoke wonderfully. She was talking to an audience of people who wanted to get into journalism and get into the field of publishing. They were really hanging on every word, believe me, it was quite something. I think
more than anything we were just taking questions from the audience. She’s got really smart, vibrant ideas and the energy to pull it off, you know. I think people are really attracted to that kind of force.

EB: That’s something that you can relate to [laughs].

DH: Yeah, definitely.

EB:You’re also an actress. You just wrapped a film called Elegy that has a great cast--Dennis Hopper, Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz. What kind of character do you play?

DH: Yeah. I play Dennis Hopper’s character’s wife. I have kind of a small part but
it’s a very dramatic scene [that takes place on] Dennis’ deathbed, actually. I play his estranged wife of many years. So it’s a very sad, very moving scene.

EB: Sounds intense.

DH: Yeah, I’ve never played a death scene before. It was really something.

EB: All the funerals in the world can’t prepare you for something like that.

DH: [Laughs] No, not really. It was a really good experience for me to have to work like that. Being around such powerful actors, I mean, they were all just so down to business, they were just focused on their jobs, very nice off camera, very relaxed, very civil, and couldn’t have been nicer. No “I am the star” kind of treatment; nothing like that. Just really great people and then on camera, click, to work, focused like crazy. It was totally professional and a really great experience for me.

EB: With acting and performing in general, is it a challenge to be able to turn it on and off without losing your head?

DH: You know, it’s a process and I think that you sort of get used to doing that. Not all scenes are complete, bust out, dramatic deep scenes. A lot is kind of normal and you’re just tying the links of those emotional moments together. It’s not like
you’re going full tilt all the time, every single day. There is that spread – you make a map about how you’re going to work your emotions and how you’re going to spend your energy, so to speak.

EB: Right. Well, in the ‘70s with Blondie you said that, above all, you thought of yourself as an actress playing a rock singer.

DH: Yeah, unfortunately.

EB: Why so?

DH: [Laughs] I feel like that so much it’s ridiculous. I know that I’m actually singing and stuff like that but I somehow feel that, more than that, I’m spreading a kind of an emotional feeling. I feel like I tell stories to music. And you know, my singing has improved but I’m not a natural singer. I’m not naturally an incredible great singer, but I get by. My best thing is that I’m really able to tell a story and make emotion come to life.

EB: There’s been talk about a biopic about you and Blondie but I know that you’ve really come to dislike traditional biopics. What do you think it takes to truly capture an artist’s life on celluloid?

DH: I don’t know, I really don’t know. I think the things that I object to about portraying musicians or music in films, they sort of whitewash things a little bit too much. I think that really everybody really knows -- well, maybe not everybody -- but a lot of people really know what’s going on and these sort of depictions, these cleaned up versions of people’s lives, it’s just kind of boring and stupid.

EB: Do you have plans for New Year’s. I know you always prefer to work on New Year's.

DH: Yeah, we don’t have a booking right now, but maybe something will turn up. It’s either that or find a good party.

EB: That’s always the hard part about New Year’s because you always end up not having
fun because you party hop and you keep waiting for something.

DH: Yeah, you’ve got to choose something anyway, to settle into it, you know, you’re right because party hopping can be a complete drag.

EB: Yeah, you know, all of a sudden it’s 4 AM and you haven’t had your New Year’s kiss and you’re drunk in your party dress and you didn’t have any fun [laughs].

DH: Oh God.

EB: [Laughs]

DH: [Laughs]

EB: Now, you took the photos for this album yourself, correct?

DH: Yeah.

EB: You do a bit of painting as well. Have photography and painting been a big passion of yours?

DH: I think I’ve always been interested in painting although I haven’t done it regularly in a long time. Every once in a while I’ll have a minute or two or get the urge. Photography is kind of a new thing.

EB: They’re amazing photographs, the self-portraits.

DH: Yeah, I lived with a photographer for almost 15 years so I think I must have picked something up. He was always talking about F-stops and speed. With a digital camera it’s kind of simple, you know, I didn’t have a huge budget but I wanted to spend the money as much on the music as I could. So I took the picture [laughs].

EB: On another note, I read that you went topless bungee jumping in New Zealand.

DH: Oh, that was years ago.

EB: Was it? You said you probably wouldn’t do it again, that it was not necessarily the sanest thing you’ve ever done.

DH: No [laughs] but it was the end of a really long tour. We all just hopped into this van and went down to the bay. You know, they had a huge crane hanging out over the bay and all the guys were going to go. I just wanted to watch but then, I don’t know, I just sort of said, “Oh hell.”

EB: Why the decision to go topless? I mean, you’re a brave woman.

DH: I figured if I was going to go I should just be prepared.

EB: Just go all out.

DH: I figured, if I’m going to die I might as well go big. I probably didn’t whip my top off until the very last minute.

EB: Any other crazy hijinks you’ve gotten into lately?

DH: No, not really, not too crazy lately. I mean, I guess I’m so used to crazy that it doesn’t seem crazy anymore.

EB: Right, crazy becomes the norm then you’re an artist.

DH: Yeah. I guess the most sort of funny thing I did recently was rent a bike and ride around London for a while right along side of the road.That was pretty recklessI guess.

EB: How long did you ride for?

DH: A couple hours.

EB: [Laughs] You crazy, crazy, lady.

DH: It is kind of nutty, believe me.

Look for Debbie Harry on tour for the remainder of the year. For more information go to www.deborahharry.com

Look up Bill Willingham’s bio on his website billwillingham.com or elsewhere and there’s an entertaining story or two, and a few facts, but readers know him as the writer behind “Fables,” one of the best comics on the Twenty-first century, which just celebrated a decade of publication. Willingham... more

Look up Bill Willingham’s bio on his website billwillingham.com or elsewhere and there’s an entertaining story or two, and a few facts, but readers know him as the writer behind “Fables,” one of the best comics on the Twenty-first century, which just celebrated a decade of publication. Willingham has had a long history as a writer and artist. He was a staff artist at TSR, he drew the famous Alan Moore-written short comic “In Darkest Night,” and was responsible for many comics including “Elementals,” “Pantheon,” “Proposition Player” and “Jack of Fables.” He’s also written the novels “Peter and Max” and “Down the Mysterly River.”

“Fables,” which explores what happened when characters from fairy tales escape their worlds to find refugee in ours has changed over the years, but it’s still an action-packed character study where no one and nothing is safe. Last year a new spin-off series “Fairest” was launched, which like “Fables” comes out monthly from Vertigo Comics. Willingham is also overseeing FablesCon, which takes place in Rochester, Minnesota March 22-24, a convention celebrating “Fables” and mythic fiction, which features a great lineup of creators and a talent contest for a new “Fables” artist, but he took time out to talk with us about his many projects.


ALEX DUEBEN: Bill, thanks for talking with us. I know this is a busy time between work and planning for FablesCon.

BILL WILLINGHAM: This is the last big month before FablesCon in which every single thing that can possibly go wrong is scheduled to go wrong, so we’ll see how that works out.

AD: At least you’ve scheduled for that.

BW: I’ve seen other people run conventions and they have to know it’s coming. They have to know that the sky will be falling, so why not allow for it?

AD: Why don’t we start there. March 22-24 you’re holding FablesCon, which celebrates mythic fiction. Talk a little about what mythic fiction is and what the convention is.

BW: In the search for a title to describe what I had in mind about these kinds of books, Kurt Busiek came up with “mythic fiction,” which I think is as good a title as one can hope for. First of all, what it’s not: It’s not crime noir, it’s not war stories, it’s not superheroes, it’s not really high fantasy, although it could be, and it’s not science fiction, although it could be. It’s Fables and Sandman and so much that has come before. I think Cerebus from a long time ago would have fallen into that category. It’s talking animals and mice with swords. It’s literary characters having new adventures especially when literary characters cross into other books and worlds. I think all of that qualifies as a part of the mythic fiction realm. Fables, fairy tales, folklore, legends, mythology are good playgrounds in which mythic fiction does well.

AD: The convention has a great guest list, much of the Fables team in addition to lots of other people.

BW: We didn’t want to make it just a Fables convention, although there’s been some movement to have something like that, but a convention about these types of books. Not only the ones I’m involved with but the ones I love reading. And the guest list shows that. We’re small. This is our first year, so we could not have the totally exhaustive guest list that we might have liked but I think we’ve done pretty good. And we’re going to have lots of interesting conversations about the types of books we love.

AD: And you brought all these people to Minnesota in March, which I’m sure is not the easiest sell.

BW: It’s not an easy sell, but I’m happily surprised. We did better than some might have predicted. March in Minnesota can still be winter. This weekend we’re scheduled to get some more snow. I hope the city is festooned with snow when we do this because we do well transporting people through snow. We’re expert at it. Also between the hotel and the convention center, there are skyways and underground ways, the whole Mayo Convention Center complex has hidden and not so hidden ways so you can do this convention and never have to leave the warm confines of the inside if you choose to do so. What better way to have a winter convention than one where you’re out of the elements.

AD: I want to talk about Fables, but the most recent trade just came out so I don’t want to spoil anything if people haven’t picked it up yet. The title, though, Cubs in Toyland, sounds like such a nice sweet G-rated story, but it’s really not.

BW: Which was the whole point. We went, what is the happiest title we could possibly have in Fables? Anything in Toyland just sounds happy on the face of it, so to go against that we decided well then under that rubric let’s have the most dire story we can think of and we did. I think we succeeded quite well in coming up with a perfectly terrible–not terrible in terms of badly done but in terms of consequence and import–story for these kids that ended up going to Toyland. I’m pretty happy with the outcome, although this–more than any other story–right up until that last moment of the next to last issue, we asked ourselves, do we dare do this? Apparently we did.

AD: Not to give anything away to those who haven’t read it, but it was possibly the most intense and dire arc of Fables, which says something.

BW: Well I don’t want readers to be un-moved. I can handle readers being mad at me; that’s happened before. I can handle readers loving what we’ve done; that’s happened from time to time and I’m very grateful for it. But the one thing I cannot abide is reader indifference. Not leaving the readers moved in any way at the end of it is an absolute crime. Now if you can bring hilarious comedy every time and leave the readers moved and emotionally engaged, great, but comedy’s hard. Tragedy is not much easier, but everyone knows how to do tragedy. Everyone knows what would be tragic in their own lives. So we went that route.

AD: In those issues of the monthly series, there were Oz backups stories, which were drawn by Shawn McManus. I wasn’t expecting you to tackle Oz because I don’t think of them as being public domain.

BW: It doesn’t seem like Oz should be public domain, should it? And yet they are. That’s why we were able to use Oz. I knew for a fact that Cubs in Toyland was going to be this really grim story so we wanted something lighthearted to kind of cleanse the palate between servings of this barbed wire and razor blades that we’re dishing up to people. So Bufkin the silly monkey and Oz seemed the perfect way to do that. Even though that got a little bit dark here and there but in comparison to Toyland, not at all.

AD: Just before Christmas you published the graphic novel Werewolves of the Heartland, which was a great story and set in Iowa. You don’t find many comics set on the great plains.

BW: No. I had the title Werewolves of the Heartland for a while. I just liked the way it sounded. While I was pondering doing that book, I was moving from Las Vegas, Nevada to Minnesota and I passed Story City, Iowa on the road and I couldn’t not stop. I mean if you see a sign for something called Story City and you’re in my business, you’re going to stop. I had lunch there. It was this charming little town and that’s when it gelled for me. If Werewolves of the Heartland was going to take place anywhere, it was going to take place in Story City. I took lots of pictures, looked up everything I could about Story City and set it there. I did not let anyone in Story City know that this was happening. I did not ask anyone’s permission. I’m not sure how you would go about doing that: “Look, I’m going to substitute all you kind people with ravening werewolves and then mostly destroy the town. What do you think about that?” We just went ahead and did. I have not since heard if anyone in Story City has noticed what I did. At some point when I have time–and that’s a premium thing right now–but at some point I’m going to drive down there again, it’s a two-three hour drive, and strategically happen to forget copies here and there at the local diner and library and places like that. Story City, Iowa. Beautiful town. Everyone should go there. It is not actually populated with werewolves, but other than that, the book was entirely accurate.

AD: We’ll see if we can get a plaque in town: This building was destroyed by Bigby in Werewolves of the Heartland.

BW: If you take the Dashiell Hammett tour in San Francisco it ends up in the alley in which Brigid O’Shaughnessy shot Miles Archer and they have a plaque there. The city put a plaque in that very alley a brass plaque that says on this spot Brigid O’Shaughnessy shot Miles Archer and they don’t explain it was in a book. They just say that Brigid O’Shaughnessy shot Miles Archer there. I love that. I would the crowning joy of my life would be to have some kind of location call out like that where it’s not explained. It’s so much of San Francisco culture that I guess they just didn’t feel the ned to explain it. That’s true immortality.

AD: That is pretty awesome. Last year you also launched Fairest, which is more of a showcase for other writers and artists where you’re just popping in now and again. Is that how it was designed?

BW: That’s sort of official in the sense that between these longer arcs of five-six issues per guest writer–although I guess the whole point of Fairest is to have different writers so you wouldn’t really call them “guests.” In any case DC wants to be able to put my name on every collection so I’m going to do a one issue story in between every one of the longer arcs just so that we can get away with that. I don’t think it’s really getting away with something; it’s certainly a joy to do. But we’re going to do that so I keep my hand in that little corner of the vast Fables world from time to time.

AD: What other creators are working on the book in future arcs?

BW: The very next one we’re going to see is Sean Williams, who is a fellow from Hollywood. He ran a production company for many years and has finally washed his hands of Hollywood and he’s doing a story set in the Indu which is the fairy tale Fables version of India and introducing a new fairest in that land from Indian legend. That is a six issue I believe. Following that we are probably the scheduling could go one way or another, but we’re probably having the return of Cinderella with Shawn McManus drawing and Marc Andreyko writing. He came up with this wonderful caper for Cinderella that the thing to do with Cinderella is to do stories that only she could be involved in and he came up with a wonderful one for that. At some point down the road we have Matt Sturges doing Maddie the Cat, the Fairest female sorcerer cat of all the female sorcerer cats of the world. She is in cat form now but she was Medea from Greek myth who the witch Sycorax from The Tempest was based upon so she’s that witch as well. But now she’s a cat and apparently a pretty attractive one. We’ll see what’s up with her.

AD: Glad to hear that Matt is doing something for the book. I loved Jack of Fables that the two of you wrote together.

BW: Jack of Fables was fun and Matt is another one of those where anytime he wants to sneak back into the Fables world again, even for a brief visit, he’s more than welcome.

AD: Speaking of Jack of Fables, is there a chance that we’ll see a Babe the blue ox comic?

BW: Yes. There is a chance. Matt and I have been determined to do one for some time now and it’s just a scheduling thing. I’m not going to be able to work on it before FablesCon. Right now I’m eking out my issues of Fables and FablesCon is the sum total of my life but after that, I expect some of that long range stuff that we’ve been intending to do all along will finally get done.

AD: I feel like have a list of things to ask you that other people have asked me to bring up with you.

BW: By all means.

AD: What’s the status of the Fables video game?

BW: The Fables Video Game. I got roundly poo-pooed in public for calling it a “computer game” rather than a “video game.” Apparently we don’t call them computer games anymore. But yes the Fables video game is the next big project coming out of Telltale Games which has just wowed the gaming world with their Walking Dead game and as a matter of fact we probably would have seen at least one of the chapters of the Fables video game by now except for the Walking Dead was so successful for them they’ve had all those magical worker types who are able to create video games working on that still instead of switching over when they were going to. This is good news because I think if the longer they have a big mega-hit with Walking Dead the better Fables will debut when it does.

The part of me that likes side events and such things to remain true to the main story is equally as happy because these people really really know their stuff where Fables is concerned. They didn’t just glam onto the fact that this is popular so let’s grind something out. They hired me on as I forget what the title is, some kind of associate producer basically just to backstop them and make sure that they don’t get things wrong. I feel that I’ve not earned my pay with this project because they get so many things so right. They have the characters down. It’s a joy to read. The story is going to be complex and wonderful. There’s going to fights, there’s going to be investigations, there’s going to be mystery. There’s romance gone wrong and maybe even romance gone right by the end of it; we’ll see. They really just know the characters frontwards and backwards. I’m not a big gamer. I’m trying to actually teach myself to play video games just enough so I can eke my way through it when it does start coming out but so far it’s wonderful. I’m as tickled as can be with it. Although I wish I was more help. I wish there was some calamitous thing that they got so wrong so I could say, oh no. You clearly missed this and this is what the characters would actually do under those circumstances. There’s been some tweaking but no major surgery involved. Anyway have I answered your question?

AD: Well, I know you can’t say much.

BW: I tried to answer at length without giving away a single thing of substance. I hope I succeeded. [laughs]

AD: I was at New York Comic Con where someone asked if you could play Bigby in the game and your reply was, I can’t answer but how cool would it be if you could.

BW: We will hold to that answer.

AD: Will we ever see you write and draw a comic again?

BW: Maybe. I’m slow drawing but I haven’t stopped entirely. Little bits here and there. Knock wood, I have one longer work left in me. But if it’s the case, it’s going to be glacial in its production so be patient.

AD: I’m sure that you’re working on a novel or two right now. Can you talk about what you’re working on?

BW: The one I’m just starting now is the sequel to Down the Mysterly River. I cannot tell you the title only because it gives away too much, which is why I’m considering changing it simply because just having it on the shelves like that might give away too much. In any case, it’s the sequel to my children’s book Down the Mysterly River and it takes up right where the previous book left off. The novel I just handed in is unrelated to that series and it’s not a Fables novel; it’s its own thing. It is about the bastard son of Queen Mab of Fairy and True Thomas of Earth who had a dalliance in the land of fairy for a while and their son grew up to be a bastard in every sense of the word. Not a pleasant fellow at all. It’s about what terrible thing he did to get himself kicked out of the realms of fairy so he’s been hanging out in our world for the last eight hundred years and what he’s been up to and what he has to rise up to the challenge when a bunch of dire stuff happens in our modern day.

AD: You wrote an earlier version of Down the Mysterly River in the late nineties and around the same time you wrote a couple short novels about Beowulf. Have you given any thought to doing something with those stories and that character?

BW: Yes, as a matter of fact. Ken–my agent–wants me to put the two novellas together along with a number of short stories that I did with the same character and the same setting to get a novel sized book out of it. We may do that. I’ll have to revisit them and see if I’m still enamored enough. The good news is I have a very few of the Beowulf books that I self-published. I am going to bring those to FablesCon so that those people who have been looking for these for forever have at least one legitimate chance to get ahold of them. This will only be available at FablesCon and then maybe years down the road in some kind of collected edition. But if you don’t want to wait years, this is your only chance to get them. Not that I just planted a big commercial for our convention right in the middle of our talk.

AD: I wanted to ask about two older projects because you’ve been working as a writer and artist for many years. You started working as an artist at TSR back in the eighties.

BW: TSR was an odd year for me. I spent only one year in their art department. This was just after getting out of the army and I considered myself a pretty good artist. Looking back I see that I was being very kind to myself. But the quality of artwork at TSR was not stellar at the time. It has gotten very professional since, but at the time someone like me could get a job in their art department. But I was pretty certain that I was not prepared for a job as a professional artist. Partly due to the fact that when I got out of the army, I thought I had the job. The art director sent me a letter that sort of half offered it to me but didn’t quite say, you got the job, get over here. When I got there, it turned out it was between me and one other fellow. We had to compete for this and as part of that process the art director was asking me things like do you know how to do keylining, do you know how to do four color work, do you know how to do this and that and all these technical terms. The other poor fellow who was up for this job was honest and said he didn’t but he could learn. I was dishonest and said I did. I had no idea what it was. Partly because of our samples and partly because of my lying like a fiend, I got the job and this other fellow didn’t. I felt guilty about that for years.

This is more of a confession than anything else. But I got the job and then for the first couple weeks I stayed late at work every single night and got a reputation of gung-ho good worker type but it wasn’t really for that reason. I continued working because I said I would, but the main reason was so I could break into the art directors office every night. He had a lock on his door but it was an easy one to jimmy. I mean having come out of three years in the MP’s, this lock was easy to get through. So I broke in every night and searched his office as to what all these terms were that he quizzed me on so that I could try to fake my way through it if it ever came up. I found out that four color work was just a fancy name for painting in full color but I did not know then that all things were separated into four basic colors for printing. I finally saw a separation and opened up the different layers and realized, oh, four colors. So I taught myself all the things that I had lied and said I knew how to do with this little bit of after-work larceny every night. They were fine people. They were great artists to work with. I learned a lot. I thought I was ready to do comic books and just learning some of the basics of producing reproduceable art in the TSR art department helped me a lot towards getting my first comics work. With the proviso that I still wince at some of the terrible artwork I produced at that time, I have very good feelings of that year.

AD: You went on to write and draw a lot of your worn work like Elementals and you drew a Green Lantern story for DC that Alan Moore wrote back before he was Alan Moore.

BW: He was pretty extraordinary and known to be such then. It was kind of intimidating to do. I’d like to go back and re-do that one just to do it a little better.

AD: In Darkest Night was a fascinating story.

BW: It was a terrific story. And I absorbed some of his script writing techniques in the sense that he would produce. [The comic] was eight-nine pages long but the script he produced had to have been two dozen pages long. This was single-spaced, typed. The thing is he doesn’t do short, brief descriptions. The opening lines of that particular script was some stream of consciousness thing like: okay I’m sitting in the good chair, I’ve got my ciggies and coffee on hand and a fresh ribbon in the typewriter and I’m ready to go. He’s writing all this. It’s literally in the script. It wasn’t until the second page where we actually got to any information as far as page one, panel one. I was delighted by this. I think I’ve absorbed too much of that as I do tend to get a little chatty and wordy in some of my scripts.

AD: Thinking of the script as more of a conversation with the artist

BW: It is. It is exactly that. A script is two things. There’s the stuff that’s going to be published, the dialogue, the captions, if there are any, the thought balloons, if there are any of those, but the rest of it is this letter you’re writing to the artist. This is what we’re going to draw, this is what needs to be in this panel that type of thing. It’s a marriage of poetry and technical writing wherein you have to write your dialogue as realistic and delightful as possible but for the instructions to the artist you need clarity above all else. It does not have to be poetic but it certainly has to be understandable. So you really are this schizophrenic writer, this Jekyll and Hyde, the difference being you have to be able to switch back and forth at will and not have one of the personalities attempt to kill and eat the other.

AD: I like that.

BW: Well, thank you.

AD: To return to FablesCon, you have a great guest list and I’m sure you’ll have some fun programming in store for people.

BW: We are going to try to get some of the guests who would not normally share a stage with each other on the stage with each other to see what interesting stuff happens as a result. What I want out of FablesCon is that every fan, every reader who attends this come away from it feeling this was money well spent. The time and travel they had to do to get here was worth it. And the way to do that is for one thing to have good and interesting guests and then give as many ways for the fans to interact with those good and interesting guests as possible. So we’re going to make this a very approachable convention meaning that we’ve set up ways for each guest to be available for questions on the large stage or in intimate settings and everything in between. We’re going to have some fun with the panels. We’re not doing panels about shopping lists. We’re not doing the panels that have unfortunately taken over much of comics cons these days which is this is the one hour panel about this publisher listing all of its books and trying to get you to buy them.

I’m all for those capitalistic tendencies. That’s how we get stories out. We should try to get people to buy the books we produce. But comics conventions also used to be about the art and the science and the philosophy and the unreasonable demands of doing comics and talking about that. I miss that and so we’re going to bring that back in a big way. We’re going to have lots of content about the theory and practice of doing comics. We’e going to have some fun stuff. We have one show just devoted to we call it the talk show room. It’s going to be panels but it’s going to be in talk show format with a host and a desk. We’re going to have guests come in and sit on the couch, we’re going to have a potted plant and just give some the guests a one hour talk show. Hopefully we’ll even get cheesy music for that room too to introduce each show. And we’re going to have a bar. Every comic convention has the one bar where the guests tend to hang out. We formalized that. We opened a bar specifically so that it’s only our place only people that are guests or people attending the convention can go to where you can sit around and talk with these people in a more convivial setting without the microphones and panel stages separating you.

AD: This is a convention as you would like it to be.

BW: Just like every cop who’s ever existed has always planned the perfect crime–thinking, if I was that guy I wouldn’t have confessed because we had nothing on him and that type of thing–I think every comics creator has their own secret idea of, if I was to ever be silly enough to do my own convention here’s what I would do. To a certain extent FablesCon reflects my perfect imagined convention. Now putting on a convention I found out is so much more work than one would think. There are compromises to be made and there are budgets that have to be adhered to so it’s not exactly the perfect convention. In the perfect convention, everyone I invite says yes. Every person who shows up is delighted to get there and be there. We have an unlimited budget. Unfortunately that doesn’t actually exist in the real world.

AD: Just to wrap things up, I think it’s fair to say that you’re bigger now than you’ve ever been.

BW: Yeah but I’m trying to cut down and hit the treadmill. Ba dum dum.

AD: But seriously, you’ve made a lot of comics over the years and then in the past decade, you’ve become an overnight sensation.

BW: Well for one thing, I don’t trust it. People are very kind and willing to say, oh, you’ve made it, Fables is wonderful, it’s a hit. I have seen the ups and downs of this industry long enough to know the transient nature of everything. I don’t celebrate the success that much because I know it is just a blip in time. That said, I do enjoy this. I do enjoy that Fables seems to be finding readers. If you want to tell stories for a living, the one thing you want is an audience that is willing to let you command their attention for a while and not feel cheated afterwards. That’s pretty nice. I have to tell you, it’s pretty enjoyable. I just don’t expect it to last. Elementals was kind of a hit when that first came out and then it went away along with the company that produced it. I thought, well, that was it. That was my shot and I had a good run and now I’ll be one of those guys just hanging around the comics industry that just does a little work here and there, but it turns out there was a second chapter to be told. So we’ll see. But the impulse to tell stories is not going to go away regardless. That’s there regardless of how big the audience is that’s paying attention.

AD: Bill, thanks so much for taking the time.

BW: Well, thank you. And those of you out there that read Fables, thank you. And those that don’t, perhaps you’ll consider.

AD: And I hope you don’t have snow that weekend.

BW: I kinda hope we will. We’re good at traveling though it and I want people that come here to have the full vigorous Minnesota experience. Plus I want the locals around here to have one more excuse to come in out of the cold and drop in at this fun funny books celebration.

And really,what is my eyes color? *spoilers*

hello everyone how is your day going? mine is going well ive just been drawing sash my god those hips. i love girls who are curvy. i love girls who arnt stuck up ether lol but most girls arnt really stuck up the tv makes us shy guys afraid of beautiful girls and fuckin makes all the girls wanna be super... more

hello everyone how is your day going? mine is going well ive just been drawing sash my god those hips. i love girls who are curvy. i love girls who arnt stuck up ether lol but most girls arnt really stuck up the tv makes us shy guys afraid of beautiful girls and fuckin makes all the girls wanna be super thin lol well when girl have a baby she gets big lol so why is being curvy bad idk lol





on a cool note im glad that my nieces and nephews got me some art suplys i love this bad ass kids lol to be honest they make my life so much fun


here is my fan art for the day



my scaner is bad so im not posting this up just yet but i was like blog now lol ^.^

thank you for all my friends and the kind people on sg i love you all

I think it'd be fantastic to see some of you folks in our fabulous SG gear. Take a snapshot, post it here, and each week, we'll choose our favorite pic and send the winner an item from the SG SHOP. Make those pics look fantastic and they may even end up in the SHOP! Happy snapping! more

I think it'd be fantastic to see some of you folks in our fabulous SG gear. Take a snapshot, post it here, and each week, we'll choose our favorite pic and send the winner an item from the SG SHOP.

Make those pics look fantastic and they may even end up in the SHOP!

Happy snapping!

I'd just like to take a second here to show my complete and utter excitement over the past day or so, because I am in awe of the curvy lovelies that have gone up... all in a row. So yeah. Just. Thank you girls for being awesome. xo

Some SuicideGirls have been modeling for the site for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or even 10 years. We thought it would be fun to show you a look back and some of the SuicideGirls throughout the years. This week we bring you AnnaLee! AnnaLee has been a SuicideGirl since 2005. An avid bird lover nature is a recurring... more

Some SuicideGirls have been modeling for the site for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or even 10 years. We thought it would be fun to show you a look back and some of the SuicideGirls throughout the years.

This week we bring you AnnaLee!

AnnaLee has been a SuicideGirl since 2005. An avid bird lover nature is a recurring theme in her photos. She has 20 photo sets and has gained quite a lot of tattoos since then. Enjoy this look back at the beautiful AnnaLee...

From her first photo set Nothing More in 2005:







From 2005 Bone Puppy her first collaboration with Cherry:







From 2006 Serpentine shot by Cherry:






From 2007 Cosmic Dreams by Cherry:








From 2008 Shimmer shot by Albertine:








From 2009 Paven shot by P_mod:







La Double vie by P_mod form 2009:








From 2010 Natural History by Lavezzaro:







From 2010 Parallel Universe shot by P_mod:








From 2010 Specimen by P_mod:





From 2011 The Wolf caught the Bird with GoGo shot by Cherry:








From 2011 Blushing shot by Sean:










From 2012 Parhelion shot by Cherry:













Hope you enjoyed the beautiful look back at classic SuicideGirl AnnaLee! Be sure to keep an eye out for a new set coming soon to member review!

Become a member TODAY for only $4 a month (if you sign up for a year) to see all 20 nude pin-up photo sets of AnnaLee - http://suicidegirls.com/join/

I’m not one for spiritual journeys where I discover crap inside myself but I know that if I ever went on one, I would want David Carradine with me. Carradine is best known as Caine the star of Kung Fu and more recently as the titular subject of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. For the first time in his... more

I’m not one for spiritual journeys where I discover crap inside myself but I know that if I ever went on one, I would want David Carradine with me. Carradine is best known as Caine the star of Kung Fu and more recently as the titular subject of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. For the first time in his 50 year career Carradine decided to keep a journal while working on Kill Bill. He ended up writing a whole book, The Kill Bill Diary: The Making of a Tarantino Classic as Seen Through the Eyes of a Screen Legend. I got a chance to talk with Carradine from his home in California.

Buy The Kill Bill Diary

Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?

David Carradine: I’m putting some stuff together for this art exhibit I’m going to have this month in Beverly Hills.

DRE: What are you showing?

DC: My artwork, paintings and drawings.

DRE: When did you start painting?

DC: I’ve always painted. This is a new thing for me, though. All of my paintings have just hung around and then I started painting on the computer. As long as you don’t do a lot of crashes, those survive and it doesn’t take up a lot of space.

DRE: So you draw on a tablet or do you draw stuff and then scan it in?

DC: I do a little bit of drawing stuff and scanning it in but by and large I paint on a tablet. I use a paint and graphics program that’s on my Mac.

DRE: Have you ever sold paintings in the past?

DC: I never tried to sell paintings before. I painted a lot years ago but all my paintings and all my sculptures have disappeared. I can’t even explain to you where they disappeared to. So then I started this new thing of working on the computer and now I’m finally going to get to do a show and it will be my debut.

DRE: Do you get nervous before debuting at something like this?

DC: Not exactly. I wouldn’t call it nervous. There’s a lot of work to get ready in time but I can’t say that I get nervous. It is not fun getting nervous

DRE: I would imagine that you don’t get nervous about much anymore.

DC: Nah, I don’t think I ever did. I think the first time I was ever on stage I was pretty nervous. But now I never feel nervous while working. I’m nervous before something happens but not this time. This one I’m just going straight ahead.

DRE: In terms of the Kill Bill book, do you usually keep a journal when you’re working on a film?

DC: No, never.

DRE: What made you feel like doing a journal this time?

DC: Well somebody I know told me that I’m a pretty good writer and that if I keep a journal I might get a book sale.

DRE: How did you like the process of keeping a diary on set and trying to remember stuff for a book?

DC: Oh it wasn’t a problem because I did it, basically, day by day. I didn’t have to remember. After I wrote the book, people would say, “God you have a great memory. How did you put it all back together?” I said I didn’t put it back together, I just did it right then. Pretty much every evening I’d be in my trailer with nothing to do so I might as well write down what happened that day. Once in a while I’d slip a day or two and then I’d have to go, “What the hell happened the day before yesterday?” But by and large I just wrote it as it happened.

DRE: Did Kill Bill come out the way you expected it to?

DC: Oh yeah. Quentin is constantly writing. Quentin never stops writing. He wrote right up to the very end. Then after we finished shooting, he wrote some new stuff and we came back and did pickups. But it was all progressive. The editing process tends to pull things out but the writing process never really did that. The writing process actually always added to it.

DRE: After reading the book I’m amazed that there wasn’t more uncontrolled insanity on the set.

DC: Why would you think there would be?

DRE: Just because it was such a complex film to make.

DC: Well the more complex it is the more we’ve got to hold it together. But the reason I asked why because a lot of people think Quentin is some lunatic and he just isn’t. He’s very didactic. He knows exactly what he’s doing all the time. But he can also change. He’s very malleable. He is totally in charge and totally working towards the end of the project. There is no insanity involved at all. So of course there’s none in the book and I didn’t want to make some up.

DRE: Were you surprised that Bill and Bea didn’t get to have big drawn out fight at the end of Kill Bill 2?

DC: I think I might have been actually slightly responsible for that. In Quentin’s original script, there was no big, long, drawn out fight. Then Quentin visited [Kill Bill fight choreographer] Woo-ping [Yuen] in Australia where he was shooting something. Quentin got really excited about using all those techniques. Then before we even started shooting I said, “Look I don’t want to see a Woo-ping movie. I want to see a Quentin Tarantino movie. We don’t go to your movies for the action. We go for the crazy things that people say.” Quentin decided to go back to more of his original concept and also in-between I think Quentin had seen Matrix II, which is loaded with that stuff. It’s also done by Woo-ping and Quentin hated the movie. I hated it too. I think almost everybody did.

DRE: Who didn’t hate it?

DC: Yeah. Quentin said “I think this shit is over.” He basically said to me that he didn’t want me on wires. I had become a real expert at the wire. I was eager to do it just for the fun of it. But he said that he said he wanted people to really see that I was doing it. Even in that fight with Michael Jai White, which is not in the movie but is in the extras on the DVD, is quite a fight. But there are no special effects in it at all. In the whole movie, there’s very little of that wirework that transcends what you think a human body could do. There is one sequence where Bea and the leader of the Crazy 88s run up a wall. Quentin used the wire just to make somebody a little bit more athletic, except for Pai Mei of course. But Pai Mei is a fantasy character so when Pai Mei stands on her sword, we like that. One of the great talents that Quentin has is knowing what the audience is going to like. He seems to really have that down. The other thing he’s got down is never letting the audience know what is going to happen next. Whatever happens next is always going to be something of a surprise. But I can say I was a little disappointed that the fight with Michael Jai White didn’t get in the picture. I wasn’t really disappointed that I didn’t get to do the wirework because I think he was right about it. I think that Matrix II and Matrix III and Charlie Angels II had really worn that out to where I don’t think people would have been really happy about seeing another circus exposition, is that the right word? Probably not.

DRE: Well it is like a three ring circus of violence, that’s the closest.

DC: Well my kung-fu master, Rob Moses, who was with me during the training, calls it a kung-fu circus. That’s never what we did back in the old days on the Kung Fu series or our movies in America. We showed people standing on their own feet and kicking and punching and jumping and dancing, as they could. Then the Chinese came in and overwhelmed us with Crouching Tiger. Then there was the Matrix and all the Jet Li stuff. That’s not the way that we made the stuff popular in the United States. We made it popular with Chinese people that are actually doing things. Matrix I certainly was an epiphany. We all went “Wow this is hot.” You can’t just go do it over and over again and expect people to be amazed by it.

DRE: I was a little surprised that you suspected that Woo-ping didn’t like you.

DC: I don’t think that he was totally responsible for that, I don’t like him very much either. He’s very stand-offish. It was very difficult to talk to him. He pretended throughout the entire time that he couldn’t speak English. I realized that it was a pose of his after a couple of months. I was not impressed about the attitude everyone else had toward him. They all called him the Master. I’ve known some masters. I’ve had interviews with the abbot of the Shaolin monastery a few times. He’s a very humble, simple person. Woo-ping has too much arrogance for me to classify him as a master. He’s a businessman. I would not want to run into him in a dark alley and have to fight my way past him. I’m sure he’s very capable, he’s a great choreographer. But that’s what he is, he’s a choreographer. Myself I’m a dancer, I’m a kung-fu artist, I am an actor. I got my own way to go and he can help me if he wants to. But he can’t rule me.

DRE: It’s interesting that you said he wasn’t humble since it seems that humbleness is what martial arts are really all about.

DC: Not everybody does it that way. Bruce Lee did not do it that way, for sure. Woo-ping does not do it that way, he is an absolute autocrat. His people don’t dare do anything that he doesn’t want. He wants everything to be his own way. Remember that sword draw that I did where I throw it up in the air and catch it in the fight with Michael Jai White?

DRE: Yeah, it’s fantastic.

DC: I had been practicing that for three months. Whenever I had nothing else to do in training I would practice trying to see if I could do that. On the day of the fight suddenly Quentin said “I want you to do that sword draw.” Woo-ping said “No, no, no, no.” I finally said, “Look, that’s the draw I’m going to do.” That’s all there is to it. It’s not just me saying it, the director said it. I didn’t say this but I could have, “Who the fuck are you? Telling me what I’m going to do and what I’m not going to do. I’ve been in this business for 50 years. I’m one of the people who made martial arts a famous thing in the world and I practiced this thing for three months. This is what I’m going to do.” Then there was a whole protocol thing going on. I walked away and Quentin came over and he had already talked to Woo-ping. I said, “I thought it was wonderful the way you dealt with him so diplomatically.” Quentin goes “There’s this protocol problem we got.” I said “Look, I don’t want to fuck with Woo-ping but on the other hand I really want to fuck with Woo-ping.” Quentin laughed and said, “Okay.” We went back and we continued with his version. Quentin gets what he wants without ruffling anybody’s feathers. Since everyone was setting this guy up as such a master I figured I had to shoot him down.

DRE: I am really shocked that you didn’t get the amount of respect you deserve.

DC: I think Woo-ping respected me. I just don’t think he quite knew what to do with me. I think he was reticent to try to teach me his stuff because he had that respect. That’s one of the things that came up early on. I said, “They’re not using me.” Quentin said, “Well, they’re afraid of you.” I said, “Look, I’m here. I’m working out eight hours a day, five days a week. What’s the point of it if they don’t lean on me and make me better.” The trainers got that. I really don’t know whether Woo-ping got that or not because, like I said, he’s sort of inaccessible. He doesn’t talk to you. I look a little askance at people that would allow people to treat them that way.

DRE: I love the story in the book where Harry Knowles doesn’t want to get out of range of you throwing a knife. Did you find that there are a lot of people like that?

DC: Harry Knowles is really special. There’s only one of him.

DRE: You also wrote in the book that you were hoping that this film would cause a resurgence for you like Pulp Fiction did for John Travolta, do you feel like that’s happened?

DC: Oh yeah. I’ve made a few movies since then that maybe wouldn’t have happened without Kill Bill. People called me as their first choice for some great parts. I did three or four of them last year. You haven’t seen them yet, but they’ll be out soon.

There’s nothing more fun than being the central character in a film. Particularly being a force that changes the shape of the film or controls the shape of the film. I’ve done that a lot in my own television series and most of the movies have been one man shows. That’s the highest position there is to be in and if you’re the villain you may be very important but you’re not the primary artist in the project. It’s a lot more fun to be the primary artist. People say that the villains are the best parts. Maybe they’ve never been in that other position. I don’t know. Maybe they’re just trying to speak well about what it is they do. But I don’t really enjoy playing villains much. I haven’t played many villains, really. Maybe it is that I don’t see them as villains. In real life people don’t think they’re villains. I don’t think Lucky Luciano thought he was a villain. You see a lot of movies where people play the bad guy and are joyful about being a villain. I don’t think that’s the truth in real life. Even serial killers think they are heroes. That’s a movie thing and I’ve never cottoned to it. When I play a bad guy I always refused to stick to the conventions like “The Leer.” Where you’re smiling, leering villain enjoying tearing people apart and shooting the shit out of every village. I don’t think that’s true. I think those people are serious about it. I don’t think they’re grinning. They’re not having fun. I think most of them think they’re doing God’s work. So I try not to think of these guys as villains. I think of them as people who misguided themselves into a dark place and think it’s the place to be.

DRE: I got to interview Roger Corman last year and he said that he’s proud and still has affection for all his films that he has made. Of course he’s not really in his films.

DC: He’s not an actor.

DRE: Are there films that you wish you never did or do you feel that it’s all part of the deal?

DC: I don’t think there are films that I wish I never did. There are films I don’t like. But most of the time when I was making a film, I thought it was going to be a good film. I’ve made a 120 feature movies and I don’t know how much television and once in a while you do something that you initially felt was beneath you. Sometimes it turns out you found some way to make it up to your standards or above them. Sometimes you’re making a film that you think is going to be a great movie or a great performance or something and then you see the film and you go, “Well that didn’t work, did it?” I’m not proud of every film but I’m not ashamed enough of anything to want to run away from it.

DRE: Corman sold the remake rights to Death Race 2000. If they remade it would you be interested in being involved?

DC: I don’t think they are thinking about me. I’m not going to be a charming courtier and try to campaign for the part. I think Warner Bros purchased the rights to do it from Roger and they’ve been talking about Tom Cruise playing a part. I don’t even want to get into that with Warners. I’ve never had an easy time with Warners. I made my all of my Kung Fu series with Warner and even though I probably made hundreds of millions of dollars for them. But they don’t come to me. I don’t know what they’re pissed off about [laughs], maybe it is because I walked off the first series.

DRE: Do you have good memories of making Death Race 2000?

DC: Yeah I have good memories. It all went very fast. We shot it in three weeks and it was raining all the time. You can’t see it because of my black vinyl costume. It was difficult to shoot because of that. We couldn’t spend as much time shooting as we wanted to because sometimes we had to change things because of the rain. I had no idea it was going to be something that would last forever. I believe it is the highest grossing film in the entire history of Roger Corman which meant a lot of money for me. I had a big piece of it but it never occurred to me that piece was going to amount to much. It was a little movie I made in three weeks and that movie just keeps going on. Now that they’ve sold it to Warner Bros, I get a piece of that too. If they want me to be in the picture, I would be in the picture, but when they remake these things they very rarely use the people who were in them the first time around. They always recast them. I know there’s talk at Warner Bros about doing a feature version of Kung Fu and they’re talking about going back and telling the original pilot movie story over again with a young actor. It would have to be a young actor because he’s studying up at the monastery. He starts out as child and a teenager. I’m 70 years old so I couldn’t play that part. But I think they’re making a mistake because it’ll be like Wild Wild West. For the movie they recast it and unless you are a geek TV fan, no one remembers who originally played the parts. But Kung Fu is a little bit different. I can’t imagine how they can expect to get a huge audience with somebody else playing Kwai Chang Caine because I’m entirely too identified with it. I ought to know because I have to live with it. But the sensible thing that they should do is a sequel where we see what the hell happened to this guy. What’s he like in 1906? Years ago I got tired of trying to convince Warner Bros of my opinions about things. I got other things to do. If they want me involved in any of these projects I would certainly think about it. But I’ve got so much on my plate, I don’t need it and I am getting tired of talking about it.

DRE: Have you ever seen David Carradine related tattoo on somebody?

DC: I don’t think a lot of people show me their tattoos. But I have a lot of tattoos myself. I don’t have them on my arms so I don’t show them a lot on the road. When I originally started getting tattoos I started putting them in places where I didn’t think they would get in the way of my movie career. That was before we knew there were ways to cover them up. I have one on my forearm. It looks like a seagull but it’s actually a flying tern and it covers a V shaped scar. I got tired of the scar there so I made it look like a seagull but as I said it’s a blind tern. Because that’s a pun.

DRE: [laughs] What was the last one you got?

DC: The last one I got was a pretty big dragon on my left thigh and it’s still not finished. I always wanted a dragon there and I was about to do Kill Bill and I was on my way to China. I thought, “I should have this dragon before I go there”. So I got a hold of this guy that came to my house and I spent an entire weekend, about 20 hours of tattooing, to get the dragon on. It still isn’t finished. I don’t think I will ever finish it because who’s got the time. People ask me how many tattoos I have and I say one because I do think of them as one entire painting or theme. I don’t know if it is true or not but that’s the way I think about it.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck