Luke Herr, the controversial creator of Nerdcenaries, a website run for and by clinical psychopaths, and Socialfist, a comic that’s about communism, seems to have another shameful secret recently revealed in a forthcoming report by the Federal Bureau of Intimacy (the Bureau of Investigation’s creepy overly-talkative cousin).
Category: Know The Staff
Know The Staff: Arielle Sorkin
This week we sat down for the long forgotten Know the Staff section with Arielle Sorkin.
N: Greetings Arielle Sorkin. How are you doing this evening?
AS: Thinking about gas money and stomach cramps, but otherwise in good spirits.
N: How did you get into comics?
AS: I was into manga for a long time, and then my buddy Ziah started to unceremoniously dump comics on me at every given chance. Eventually I started actually reading them.
N: What kind of manga were you into?
AS: My tastes have always been all over the map. I read a lot of Shonen Jump series like Reborn and Eyeshield 21, I still read Bleach. Generally comedy stuff too. I read some of the more mainstream “girly” stuff, but romance tended to bore me.
Know The Staff: Jordan Neves
Nerdcenaries: How are you doing Jordan Neves?
Jordan Neves: I am well. I’m eating licorice and watching television.
N: But what are you doing about the swarm of Ultrons in the making?
JN: I’m pretending they don’t exist. It works for most issues in my life.
N: So what do you do for Nerdcenaries?
JN: I write? I draw? That’s basically all that is available.
N: So if you get offered work as a chef online, you won’t do that?
JN: I only cook French Toast and… just French toast, actually.
N: Gasp! What is your opinion on Wild Cat?
JN: The Crimefighter?
N: Yes.
JN: He’s cool. I liked him in Brave and the Bold, voiced by Lee Ermey. Ermey hits most things out of the park.
N: You mean like Saving Silverman?
JN: I only saw the end of that movie. But he was good in that.
N: Now if you had to sidekick for any superhero, who would you pick?
JN: I would intern for the Doom Patrol. I could use some good stories.
N: I am pretty sure they don’t pay for the internship. Is that a thing for you?
JN: What, money?
N: Well, like if you are risking your life for them, they can’t pay interns.
JN: Well, they’ve got a startling death rate, but it’s worth it to tell your friends about the time Nowhere Man switched the floor with the roof and made everyone think their carotid arteries are giant earthworms.
N: What else do you do on the Internet?
JN: I run a personal blog and I run an image blog. I’m not very productive at the moment.
N: And is there anything you want to pimp for other people?
JN: Ha ha! I’m way too selfish to do that.
N: Wonderful. Well thank you for your time Mr. Neves.
JN: Thanks for the interview.
Know The Staff: Joe Hunter
Since we are still a new magazine with a mostly brand new crew we feel it is our responsibility to introduce ourselves to you, the new readers, so that we can be boiled down to archetypal characters and then placed into your FF7 fanfictions because you can only read about Cloud and Sephiroth banging for so many times.
Nerdcenaries: Greetings Joe Hunter. What is your favorite color?
Joe Hunter: Green, I guess?
N: So, how did you get started drawing?
JH: Uhh… according to my parents I got glasses and just started drawing derpy little not-quite-stick figure Batmans on everything. I was apparently quite smitten with Batman ’66 as a child.
N: Who with a soul wasn’t?
JH: Very true.
N: No, that was actually a question.
JH: Oh. Uhh… Fascists? Shit, I don’t know
N: Works well enough for me. So have you had any official art training?
JH: Art School. Oh Christ, Art School.
N: Is Oh Christ the one where you paint with blood from stigmatas?
JH: Yes. You’re familiar with it?
N: I looked at it but when all I bled was wine they got all quiet and whispery.
JH: Uh-huh…
N: But art school, what was so bad about it?
JH: The atmosphere was just kind of suffocating, especially if you weren’t in Fine Art. And I’m about as far from “fine” as it gets…
N: So now you mostly freelance?
JH: Yup. And do comics and crap.
N: What are some of these comics that you do?
JH: I write and draw Ghostbucket which is a bunch of semi-autobiographical comics alongside whatever else I feel like doing, and I draw another comic called Halfling or something with some guy. It’s a fun story about a bisexual midget detective from New Jersey. He himself isn’t a midget, he investigates midget-on-midget crime.
N: Is it a short comic?
JH: DOHOHOHOHOHOHO
N: Will it be collected as a mini?
JH: OH YOU.
N: Will they be used as fuel for a dwarf star?
JH: There’s a line and we’ve clearly crossed it.
N: Now is it true that you terrorize a small countryside because you are, in fact, a kaiju monster?
JH: Yes, but I thought that was going to be our little secret.
N: So is there anything you want to pimp before we go?
JH: I think I did the pimping already…?
N: Pimping for other people?
JH: I don’t know…
strong>N: Awesome! Well thank you for your time Joe.
JH: Thanks.
Know The Staff: Dominic Griffin and Jim Bizon
Since we are still a new magazine with a mostly brand new crew we feel it is our responsibility to introduce ourselves to you, the new readers, so that we can be boiled down to archetypal characters and then placed into your FF7 fanfictions because you can only read about Cloud and Sephiroth banging for so many times.
[Since new contributors Dominic Griffin & Jim Bizon live in the same house, separated only by a wall, not unlike Run DMC and Aerosmith, we decided to let them interview each other.]
Jim: What’s up? Have you seen this new AFLAC Commercial?
Dominic: Is it awesome?
J Eh. It isnt Gilbert Gottfried. [long silence] So, who exactly is Dom Griffin?
D: He’s a sort of writer person. Pop culture junkie. Movie nerd. Professional wrestling mark. Likes: Batman, Grant Morrison’s impossibly shiny dome, tacos. Dislikes: Pants, oligarchy, tiny buttons. Why do people call you “The Jimma?”
J: Funny enough, It all started as a typo sometime around 2001 on an ancient Social site called Bolt.com, I just kinda ran with it, Y’know…Like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
D: Same thing happened to The Rock. Someone was trying to write a fan letter to Charles S. Dutton, star of television’s ROC, and it ended up in Dwayne’s mailbox. True facts.
J: Not suprising, He strikes me more as a Clancy. So, Comics?
D: They’re great? I learned how to read from old Claremont/Byrne X-Men issues, so comics hold a special place in my heart, nestled carefully between cookies and freedom. You’re an artist. Who are your biggest influences?
J: Jeez. That’s a toughy. I’d honestly say Bruce Timm’s Work on “Batman: The Animated Series” is pretty high on my list, and of Course Jack Kirby, for he is King. But in all honestly, alot of internet artists: Chris Haley, Jay King, Joe Hunter, Deanne Trippe, Olly Moss, Ming Doyle, Jess Fink and Mike Mitchel…they got the fire going under my ass again.
D: I concur, in that I maintain giant crushes on all those you named.
J: So you mentioned Grant Morrison earlier. You’re good with the words, who are some of your revered scribes?
D: The aforementioned bald one. Mark Waid. Warren Ellis. Outside of comics, David Mamet, Charlie Kaufman, Noel Coward, Paul Schrader. Um, Shakespeare. I’m a big fan of anything Chuck Klosterman writes anywhere. SEX, DRUGS, AND COCOA PUFFS changed my twentysomething life. It was like the toilet paper letter from the “prisoner” in V FOR VENDETTA. Like, wow, I am not alone in this depth of geekery.
J: So, I’d say we’ve known each other for a minute?
D: …15 years?
J: Give or take a day or two in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.
D: OUR FRIENDSHIP IS OVER 9000!!!
J: CHA LA, HEAD CHA LA!!!
D: …do you want to pimp stuff?
J: Shameless plugs?
D: Yes. That’s what I meant. Not, like, prostitution.
J: It’s not like I need to tell people to follow you or I on Twitter.
D: Yeah, it’s not like people need to know that you and me are on Tumblr.
J: Also, they probably already like Xaiados Studios on the facebooks.
D: …I still have a Friendster*.
*Editor’s note: NO ONE still has a Friendster.**
*Now get me pictures of Spider-Man. – Actual Editor.
Know The Staff: Flynn Nicholls
Since we are still a new magazine with a mostly brand new crew we feel it is our responsibility to introduce ourselves to you, the new readers, so that we can be boiled down to archetypal characters and then placed into your FF7 fanfictions because you can only read about Cloud and Sephiroth banging for so many times.
Nerdcenaries: Greetings Flynn Nicholls of the Internet!
Flynn Nicholls: Hello!
N: Tell the readers of Nerdcenaries who you are!
FN: Oh geez. My name is Flynn Nicholls and I am an illustrator and comics person. I went to college for animation, which is another thing I do. I live in Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
N: When you call yourself a comics person, what do you mean by that?
FN: I am a person who writes and draws comics.
N: Are any of your comics online and if so, where are they at?
FN: I have a sketchblog at http://thrillstounding.tumblr.com/ where I post sketches and comics. Right now I’m posting a fantasy comic that I’m basically improvising as I go. It’s called Treasure Robbers.
N: And is there any official update schedule for that comic?
FN: It’s pretty loose. I mostly post things Monday through Friday but there’s no set days.
N: So what got you into drawing comic?
FN: I’ve basically been drawing my whole life. I was fueled by a lot of Saturday morning cartoons. My favorites were usually based on comics (TMNT, X-Men, Spider-Man) and a lot of my friends read superhero comics so I got into that pretty early on. I also read a lot of Tintin growing up.
N: So what got you into posting comics online?
FN: My friends had been telling me to do a webcomic for years before I actually did one. I’d actually tried to do one in high school with a friend of mine. He would do a stick figure layout with the writing, which I think he got from American Splendor, and would send it to me to draw. That comic did not last very long. Then in 2007 I started finding cartoonists who posted their comics on Livejournal, one of them being my friend Jamie Baldwin, who encouraged me to start one. So I started doing that in early 2008, just to see if I could maintain a regular schedule of drawing and posting material.
N: So if you had the option to draw for any writer, who would you want to?
FN: That’s a pretty tough question! Grant Morrison? I’m going to shoot for the moon and say Grant Morrison.
N: Who are your stylistic inspirations?
FN: This is kind of hard because I have a habit of switching art styles depending on what I’m doing. I don’t know if that’s a good thing to do or not. I know Art Spiegelman has a tendency to do that so there’s one. Jack Kirby, Mike Mignola Jamie Hewlett, Hayao Miyazaki, Moebius, Geoff Darrow, José Luis García-López and Fil Barlow are all people I like. I think that’s my pool of artists that inform me when I’m doing sci-fi and fantasy stuff. I also like Winsor McCay’s and Herge’s draftsmanship. I’ve been getting into Akira Toriyama more recently. Sam Bosma is another one, his work is amazing. There are a bazillion webcomics and general illustration work that I’m constantly taking in so it’s hard to give a coherent list.
N: If you had to compare yourself to a superhero, who would you pick?
FN: Hm. I guess Spider-Man? Is that dumb? I find Peter Parker pretty relatable but I think a lot of people do.
N: Does Bruce Banner find Peter Parker relatable. Does he?
FN: They’re both science nerds, right? Who got into accidents that gave them superpowers? So probably on some level?
N: Haha. Well, before you go is there anything you want to pimp?
FN: I suppose I could pimp Reissues. It’s been on hiatus for a little while but I’m looking to get it up and running again. It’s a project wherein people are free to submit their own renderings of album covers.
N: Awesome. Well thank you for your time and I look forward to seeing more of your work on Nerdcenaries in the future.
FN: Thanks!
Know The Staff: Luke “Koltreg” Herr
Since we are still a new magazine with a mostly brand new crew we feel it is our responsibility to introduce ourselves to you, the new readers, so that we can be boiled down to archetypal characters and then placed into your FF7 fanfictions because you can only read about Cloud and Sephiroth banging for so many times.
Nerdcenaries: So Luke, what is it that you do?
Luke Herr: Well. Shit. I am interviewing myself right now.
N: Yes but what do you do when you aren’t doing that?
LH: Ah. Well I am a recent web design graduate from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh currently looking for work and I decided to start a comic news and humor website.
N: And was there any impetus behind that decision?
LH: Not really, I had a few ideas I was kicking around for various blog posts. I decided I needed to start a site to host them and then I wanted to kick it up a notch.
N: But from what I know about your plans, this is going to be more than a one man operation, isn’t it?
LH: Yeah. The other thing that I wanted to do is sort of make a new launching point where friends and people who need a chance to do something new can be like “I worked and was published at this site that wasn’t just mine.” Also I didn’t want to write something every day and I figured more writers means more groups of friends which means wider exposure.
N: So basically you hooked in a bunch of people to try anf get famous while doing less work?
LH:Yes. I am surprised how candid I am being about this.
N: So why do you think people should read what you write?
LH:Well, I like to think I am fun. If I’m not though I can try and find people who are. I like to connect people for that purpose.
N: Interesting. So do you have any writing experience?
LH:Oh yeah, previously I was a competitive creative writer in The Power of the Pen back in junior high. In high school I started the Nerding Review Blog and I’ve been doing a series of comics and other writing bits since then.
N: Is there anything else you are doing now as a writer?
LH:I am currently writing Changeling, a sort-of mystery webcomic as well as a bunch of articles here on Nerdcenaries. I also am planning on writing the scripts for the rest of my webcomic Socialfist that was cancelled due to financial issues. Sociafist is about communist superheroes taking over America.
N: As a closing question, who is your favorite superhero?
LH:I really like Moon Knight. He’s like Batman but crazy and magical. I was disappointed by that last series that came out about him. Moon Knight is a totally fun idea but I found that most people tend to make him violent. I want to see the Moon Knight that Adam West would have played in the 60’s – campy Moon Knight. Moonmobile, Moonarang, Moonshoes…. Actually Moonknight in Moonshoes would be amazing.
N: Well is there anything else you want to plug right now?
LH:Not that I can really think of right now. I mean I’ll link it all right on this site.
N: Thanks for your time.
LH:No problem.