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Past Events
Inamorata - La Luz De Jesus - 2006 | Inamorata 06 Photo Gallery
My first solo gallery show and book signing as a Los Angeles resident and a fun way to test new waters with fans of all stripes including porn industries luminaries Nina Hartley, Sarah Jane Hamilton, and director Ernest Greene. When my long-time friend and occasional collaborator writer/director David Aaron Clark showed up along with photographer John Nystrom, Midori, the lovely Alana Blue, and various other Bay Area refugees and residents, it started to reach that state I sometimes experience where the past, present, and future converge in a pleasantly disorienting fashion. The party at our loft space later that night (also our first here in LA) only reinforced that sensation - and a feeling of wonder that we now had a place where we could have 20-30 of our friends in one room and still have enough space to move around.
Wonder Con/APE/Slick/Good Vibrations 2004 | Wondercon Photo Gallery
2004 was a busy year. In addition to appearances at Fantasm and Comicon with Patrick, I also did local signings in San Francisco at Wonder Con, the Alternative Press Expo, fetish club Slick, and a web site launch at Good Vibrations.
My Wonder Con table-mate that year was "How Loathsome" writer Tristan Crane with visits from HL co-creator Ted Naifeh, "Suicide Pact" artist Violet Hemlock. "Dogs In Lingerie" author Danielle Willis, and many others. My favorite moment was presenting the delectable and gracious Aria Giovanini with a copy of Tranceptor and procuring a signed photograph of her for Patrick (secretly her number one fan).
Tristan also joined me and Chad Michael Ward (of "Black Rust" fame) at the NBM table for APE (where I had some time to pose with fans and make kissy faces at "Liliane" comix creator Leanne Franson) and again (with Ted this time) for a special signing at the Rawhide for Slick fetish night where the bunch of us hung out with our significant others in the candle-lit roof garden, people watching and drinking a lot. That evenings highlight was a much-needed massage from some lovely fan who had set up her table in the downstairs play room.
Later that Fall, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that author Thomas Roche was point man for my signing and web launch party at Good Vibration's new Valencia street location. Unfortunately, the new space didn't quite have the intimate charm of the old 22nd Street store or the head room of the long-time 23rd Street space but more than made up for that with friendly helpful employees and a great turn-out of fans and friends.
Fantasm 2004 | Fantasm 2004 Photo Gallery
Lyn and I returned to Atlanta as guest artists for Fantasm 2004 and this time Patrick flew down from NYC to appear as well. Yay! That year's venue was a crumbling ex-Holiday Inn complex under new (and often extremely confused) foreign management, some of whom appeared to be living there. The falling-apart rooms, random heaps of industrial debris, and drunk costumed freaks... uh, guests... roaming the concrete corridors brought to mind J.G. Ballard's "High Rise". No matter. Everyone was hellaciously friendly and our North Carolina pals Rod, Eileen, Celeste, Diego, and company were there along with artist/face-painter extrordinaire Marrus to party down with us. Patrick and I collaborated on three tattoo designs as Rod, Eileen, and con director Bonnie all went under the gun. We drank, smoked, and ate a lot (Agnes and Muriel's rules!), signed some books, got dressed and painted up for Party Battles night, saw lots of half-naked people doing weird shit to each other, and left with our dignity mostly intact.
Fantasm 2003 | Fantasm 2003 Photo Gallery
Lyn and I were guest artists at Atlanta's Fantasm convention in April of 2003. We had a great time and met many wonderful people including a contingent of folks from North Carolina who created this lovely tableau of characters from The Spider Garden and Lumenagerie for Fantasm's costume contest. I almost missed seeing them! After a long
day on the convention floor, I had gone up to my room to work on my notes for the next day's slide presentation and, after changing for dinner, I figured I would catch the end of the costume contest. I walked in just in time to see Rod, Eileen, Diego and friends gliding off stage. Fortunately, there were more than a few photographers present and I even had the opportunity to have my picture taken with them. Thanks guys - great job!
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts - San Francisco 2002 | Widescreen Photo Gallery
In October of 2001, I ran into my friend David Robson at a horror movie festival. David and I knew each other mainly from the fetish scene. He mentioned that he was curating one section of a group show next year at the prestigious Yerba Buena Center for the Arts gallery in downtown SanFrancisco and that he was looking for comix artists. Would I be interested? I told him yes, privately believing that once his superiors saw the subject matter of my work, it would be all over.
David kept after me and amazingly enough in Spring of the following year my work had been accepted for inclusion in the "Widescreen" section of Fantastic! The Art of Comics and Illusion. Four panels from my graphic novels In A Metal Web I + II were scanned at a ridiculously high dpi. After spending a couple of weeks retouching the files at 200% (and feeling like an ant crawling around on one of my pages), the panels were output as 10 foot wide paper stickers that were pasted directly onto the gallery walls - and consequentially were destroyed when the show was taken down.
Seeing my art that size in a major gallery, along side work by Ted Naifeh, Kiernon Dwyer, Rafael Navarro, and China Clugston-Smith, was a simultaneously exciting and humbling experience. That one of my panels was featured in a huge window display at the Mission Sreet entrance of the gallery was just icing on the cake.
The Fantastic! show which, in addition to "Widescreen", also included "Raw, Boiled and Cooked" (RAW magazine artists such as Daniel Clowes, Lynda Barry, Peter Kuper, David Mazzuchelli, Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, and Mary Fleener ) and "Bay Area Blast" (local comics artists Trina Robbins, Judd Winick, Richard Sala, and others) ran July through October of 2002 and proved to be one of Yerba Buena's most popular and well attended shows.
Madame S 2001 | Devotion/Surrender Flyer | Madame S Photo Gallery
My 2001 Devotion/Surrender show at Madame S coincided with San Francisco's infamous Folsom Street Fair and a round of memorable parties. Madame S, sister store to Mr.S (the Bay Area's premiere retailer of men's fetishwear), features a beautiful gallery space with rotating exhibits of erotic art.
Comicon 1998 | Comicon 98 Photo Gallery | Comicon 98 CBLDF Party Flyer | Comicon 98 CBLDF Party Photos Gallery
With the July 1998 release of the first volume of Tranceptor, Midori, Tranceptor co-creator Patrick Conlon and I once again found ourselves appearing as guest artists at San Diego Comicon - and once again being drafted as entertainment for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's benefit party. This time there were two brushes to trace and elaborate on Midori's voluptuous curves and the party goers were loving it.
Underground art legend Robert Williams stopped by to chat and to admire our work. I also got to meet my Gwar heroine, Slymenstra Hymen, whom I had last seen in 1990 from the depths of a mosh pit as she was spraying the audience with fake menstrual blood. **sigh**
For more photos from Comicon 1998, go to the Costume Design section.
DNA - San Francisco - 1998 | Tranceptor Flyer | Tranceptor Photo Gallery
In the Spring of 1998, Patrick Conlon and I finished the first volume of TRANCEPTOR. After premiering the book at Comic-Con in San Diego in July, we decided that we would have a local party in September that would function as a signing, art show, and farewell party for Patrick who was about to relocate to the East Coast.
We got together a group of our favorite local performers, built a back-lit gogo cage, covered the DNA's walls with Tranceptor art and generally had a blast.
Comicon 1997 | Comicon 97 Photo Gallery | Comicon 97 CBLDF Party Flyer | Comicon 97 CBLDF Party Photo Gallery
For the San Diego premiere of Cathexis, I signed books and Midori posed at the NBM booth. Midori made quite a stir at the Costume Contest, appearing in full latex as a courtesan of the Spider Garden (see the Costume Design section for additional documentation).
After the enthusiastic response to a body painting session we conducted on the convention floor, we were drafted as performers for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund benefit party. Late that Saturday night, in an outdoor party space filled with rapt and rapturous con-goers, Midori bound me in a shibari rope harness and suspended me from a handy girder, leaving me whirling in midair. Later, she shed her latex for me to do a more elaborate body painting session.
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