Real Interviews- Luke “Don’t give me a nickname” Herr

I interviewed the Editor-in-Chief and unfortunate ring leader of the Nerdcenaries team, Luke Herr. Hit the jump to see where we go off the rails and how we find new ways to offend you.

N: Luke, why did you start Nerdcenaries? Isn’t there already a site that does news releases?

LH: Well there are two stories. There is the fake one about hoping I could bring something different to the medium but really I’d been out of college for three months looking for work and I needed something to get my parents off my back. Also I’d repaid for the domain registration of Nerdcenaries so I figured I’d toss together a fake comic news site with some friends and so I could put it on the resume.

N: How has it expanded over the years? Can you talk a bit about the beginning years before it’s become the sprawling empire it is today? Related, is it true that Nerdcenaries controls the logging industry?

LH: Nerdcenaries isn’t even a year old Ziah. It is neither sprawling or an empire. It is a squealing, petulant child in the baby jail of the comics news prison complex for babies who committed crimes. Also there is no log industry.

N: If Nerdcenaries was a serial killer, which famous one would it most resemble?

LH: I don’t really think Nerdcenaries would be a serial killer. It is more of a drunken arson crime of passion kind of guy. So Neil Gaiman?

N: What’s your biggest regret about the site? (besides spending time and money on it)

LH: I really wish that I’d talked to more of my friends from the start about contributing to the site because there was that month long period or so when the site had no updates.

N: If Nerdcenaries had an Uncanny X-Men/ Original X-Men style fight to the death with the current staff and the original, with you in the middle shouting “FIGHT FOR ME! KILL FOR ME!”, who wins, and which team turns out to be cyborgs in space?

LH: Is that Archie or Banshee on that cover? God, I think I’d win – like they’d fight to the last guy and then I’d nut shot them. Unless there wasn’t a prize.

N: There is no prize to gain from killing your staff Luke.

LH: Oh… well if it was new guys vs old guys, I think the old team would win. Jim, Dom and Joe are pretty big guys and you are are a 12 year old Chinese girl (Editor’s Note: This is 100% true. I would know, because I am the editor), Ari and also Darryl and Jon. I think the old team would win.

N: But we outnumber them, right? Ari’s a cheap fighter, you know. She goes for the shins. Are we the cyborgs though? Who’s the cyborgs? This question matters, Luke. The people want… No, NEED to know.

LH: I think the original team were the cyborgs because that is now the only excuse for not getting in those articles to me.

N: If you had to fight any person in history, with the addendum that it had to be one that was generally liked by the majority of the population, and that everyone would know you knife-fought them, who would you knife-fight to death?

LH: Dr. Bill Cosby. I respect him as an actor, psychologist and comedian. I’d not feel dishonor losing against him and I think if I beat him, it would be a hard earned battle.

N: Do you think that his distinctive speech patterns are a defensive battle pattern, and if so, how would you prepare to counter it?

LH: I think expecting them would the wrong thing to do and so I’d ignore them.

N: Let’s switch back to the editorial/writing side of things:

You’ve been working with a lot of new people lately, what do you think is the best thing for an editor to do in the situation, besides ignore the multitude of felonies your faithful staff has committed in your name?

LH: I usually pretend to have read their articles, make some formatting changes and the look at the DeviantArt account where I follow smut artists. Yeh-yeh!

N: Would you describe your editorial style with: A) show the carrot B) Attack with Stick C) Look North or D) Ignore stupid answers?

LH: E) Power Overwhelming, Black Sheep Wall, Food For Thought, Medieval Man, Operation Cwal

N: What do you listen to when you write?

LH: It depends on what I am writing and what is going on around me. If trashy tv is on I’ll put on my poofy headphones and zone out to write, if I can focus with it on I’ll usually have some Adam WarRock, Akira the Don or Beastie Boys.

N: What are your goals for where you’d like Nerdcenaries to go, if anywhere? (A suicide pact is not an acceptable answer, by the way)

LH: If Nerdcenaries can get to the point where I find work through it or someone on the team does, that would be fantastic. Otherwise it is sort of goal-less. I do it for the fun and sometimes the free stuff I get asked to read. And because it gives me a reason to talk to people without feeling like I am imposing on them.

N: Do you remember the first comic you ever read? What was it?

NH: I read the newspaper comics for ages but the first comic I ever read was Watchmen back in my junior year of high school. And then shortly after I bought my first comic, Lobster Johnson. But for years before, I memorized the wikipedia pages on the characters, I loved the tv shows. I was into the characters everywhere except in the comics.

N: Was that because the comics weren’t courting your demographic of white, male, heterosexual fans of superheroes enough?

LH: It was more of nobody around me read comics. Like I went to the game shops because I was really into Magic the Gathering and then Dungeons and Dragons but the shops didn’t carry comics except one up in Michigan I went to when I saw my aunts.