Fantasy worlds: Las Vegas is crawling with independent comic-book creators

By Saab Lofton

Before the first-annual Las Vegas Comic Con at Mandalay Bay, Oct. 31 through Nov. 2, a local zine called Who's Yo Daddy? by Iceberg Slick was the only Vegas-based comic I had any experience with. After the Comic Con, I learned Las Vegas is -- if anything -- suffering from a glut of talent. Perhaps one day this town could be known for its comics scene, as well as its gambling.

Here are but a few of the creators who ain't waiting for a big, corporate publisher to sweep them off their feet like a Valkyrie would a Viking on the battlefield.

Bare Bones Studios

While there have been many failed attempts at comic and zine publishing in Las Vegas, Bare Bones Studios is without a doubt the company with the most staying power. As writer Robert Beck puts it, "It's been six years, so I'm not sure of anyone else that's been around that long. I mean, there may have been people that were around and stopped doing it, but to be consistently publishing books for six years in a row, I think we're probably the longest running."

Admitting to being "driven solely by the pat on the back," Beck's work hasn't profited enough for him to quit his day job at the Clark County School District. Citing how hard it is to independently distribute comics, he explains there's "a weakness in the system. [Retailers] don't want to support small press people. They know they can put Spider-Man on the shelf and make their rent for the month."

Nevertheless, Beck sounds as though he doesn't regret his labor of love costing him as much money as it has over the years. "There are people that drink, people who smoke, people who do drugs, people who gamble, people who go to prostitutes -- I like comic books. If that's my vice, so be it."

My personal favorite Bare Bones title is Jake Lapsys' Why Was I Programmed to Kill? A strip with the feel of a "Saturday Night Live" sketch (one that's actually funny), Lapsys tells the hilarious story of an archetypal 1950s robot who wants nothing more than to be loved but always snaps at some point and winds up involuntarily destroying everything (and everyone) in its path.

"In all science-fiction books and movies about robots, they all go through some kind of conundrum where they have to question their programming," says Lapsys.

Between working on Why Was I Programmed to Kill? and other projects for Bare Bones, Lapsys says he's been able to support himself for the last six months. "They're paying the bills just barely, but they're paying the bills ... for the moment."

When asked how it feels to live the dream, Lapsys answers: "It's scary, but it's fun. I used to work for Vons, and I put lettuce on the shelf, and I didn't care for that at all. Now that I'm actually trying to do something I like, I love it. I wouldn't go back." (Beck, however, was quick to point out that Lapsys had a nest egg and lives with roommates; so, aspiring cartoonists, don't go homeless trying to emulate Lapsys' success.)

And when it comes to the future of comics in Las Vegas, Lapsys says: "If we are going to make it on a national scene, we'd have to have some kind of local support, and we believe there are enough people in Las Vegas to give us that support."

Aberrant Press

A graduate of the Las Vegas Academy, Justin Newberry told me he's heard plenty of trash talked about how culture is supposedly dead in Las Vegas. As he puts it, "If the artists keep leaving, we'll never have any culture here."

So in the end, it's our choice as to whether Las Vegas has a future in comics (or anything else, for that matter).

Thus far, Disposable Graffiti is Aberrant Press' claim to fame, a dark comedy that's "the perfect book for anyone who's losing their mind," according to Newberry's website. With every copy comes a free CD containing "gritty, dirty punk rock with banjos" played by a band called the Brier Patch Boys.

"You're supposed to follow the adventures of the band inside the book," Newberry says, comparing the Brier Patch Boys to Grammy-nominated band the Gorillaz, which animates its videos and is usually only seen in the flesh when playing live.

Aberrant Press is funded primarily by Newberry's day jobs, which currently include being a bathroom valet at Striptease on Valley View. But as trying as that can be, he says digging ditches -- which he's done -- was worse.

To keep from suffering too much longer, Newberry applied for a grant from the Xeric Foundation -- which was founded by Peter Laird, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Xeric awards five grand to independent artists twice a year. (Newberry should find out in the next couple of months if he's won.)

Newberry was en route to Desert Springs Hospital when I talked to him. He's set to ride along with some paramedics, in order to complete his EMT training. He's also thinking about publishing a one-shot comic about being a paramedic. Combining the day job and the dream job? Shweet.

Abaddon Comics

Abaddon Comics' website describes its flagship title Spytfire as "the story of a little girl that got lost in two jungles -- one in Indonesia and one in Las Vegas."

David Dace's day job is graphic designer; he works on comics "for the love of telling a story." When I asked him what it would take to be able to afford to do Spytfire full time, he says: "You'd need to have an average of 30,000 sales a month to be able to quit, to profit."

With influences such as John Romita, John Byrne, Bernie Wrightson and George Perez, it's not surprising that Dace once gave the majors a try.

"I tried Marvel; I tried DC. It's kind of hard when you don't live in [New York City, where both companies are based] to pound the pavement."

And as far as using Las Vegas as a base of operations: "Well, Vegas isn't going to be San Diego or San Francisco -- it's not. But yeah, Vegas is growing; there's new things here. You've got to remember, as the overall art community grows in Vegas, the comic book community can grow too. This is the first time that [the local, independent comic scene] has actually grown to this magnitude."

However, Dace also warns that one must always maintain a link with the outside world. "Most of your advertising has to be national. You have to advertise in books like Wizard, Diamond and things like that. Once your book is in Diamond and will be distributed nationally," then one conducts a PR blitz "to let the locals know the book is coming into the stores.

"You have to do everything on a national level. I don't care where you are. You could be stationed out of San Francisco, New York, San Diego, L.A. -- it doesn't matter. A local comic book-reading base will never buy enough books for a person to be able to make a living."

I asked Dace what he thinks about all the Vegas comic publishers uniting under a single banner in the name of solidarity and saving money. "It's conceivable. It'll take everyone getting the thing together and getting funding. The biggest part to any business isn't the creativity of it, because everyone's creative and everyone has an idea and a story to tell. The biggest thing is getting the funding."

Dace's partner, Jan Paul Koch, half-jokingly disagrees. "Frankly, I don't think it'll work. Artists are a lot like lawyers. They all have big egos and strong wills."

Koch is an attorney who's been in Las Vegas for 17 years and freely admits, "I'm an ambulance chaser." Koch is also a writer and creator of Spytfire. Spiritual, Koch spoke passionately of how he wanted to depict "different religions getting along" in his work. He says Todd McFarlane's Spawn "was a great character," because of the book's metaphysics. "I have God in my comic, and there's not too many comics that have God in them."

As far as setting Spytfire in Sin City goes: "This is one of the few places that has the number of evil casino owners that we need to advance the plot."

Upon realizing that the digital technology he was using to set up "trial exhibits" could be used to make comic books, Koch waited for "an advance in the technology" to catch up with his vision (and sounded very much like George Lucas talking about The Phantom Menace process). Now Koch is thinking about branching off into computer animation as well.

And I had to ask: Would reading superhero comics for moral messages make his fellow lawyers more ethical? Koch laughs: "I don't think it would hurt anybody to read more superhero comics. I really don't. I think that sense of equality and justice and truth and morals that superhero comics portray can help everybody. I really do. It's the foundation of our society."

One-Shot Comics

"The way I see it, comic books are like the professional wrestling of literature. Everybody watches it in their home, but nobody wants to talk about it in public," says writer/artist Michael T. Hanaoka.

Hanaoka is the creator of an urban vigilante named Paindealer. A frustrated, working-class 20-something who's tired of being a victim of the system, he goes to his universe's equivalent of Wal-Mart and buys himself just enough apparel and paraphernalia to become a homemade, ghetto version of Batman. Except unlike the Dark Knight, this hero actually loses. "[Paindealer] gets beat. He gets beat down; he gets pummeled."

Hanaoka no longer lives in the kind of neighborhood his character does. "I used to, though. I was born and raised in one. And people laugh: 'Hawaii? There is no 'hood down in Hawaii.' But yeah, there is."

In America, it's crack or crystal meth; in Hawaii, Hanaoka says the vice of choice was known as batu. "My own brother dealt it," he says.

Like Jack Kirby, Hanaoka grew up in a neighborhood where fighting was all too common. Fortunately, his father was a martial arts instructor who trained the young Hanaoka from an early age.

One-Shot Comics' motto? "We finish what we start." But to see Paindealer in print again, there must be a demand from readers. Rather than producing a title that's episodic in nature, Hanaoka prefers releasing a series of one-shots, "Just like life: Not every bit of your life is exciting, but you do have spurts here and there that you can tell a story about. So that's how the books are going to run."

When it comes to funding, "everything basically came out of my pocket. Being independent is definitely a hard struggle." However, Hanaoka was approached by Slave Labor Graphics at Comic Con, so hopefully he won't have to struggle much longer.

In the meantime, Hanaoka is taking advantage of two lucky breaks: Being allowed to sell his comics at his day job at the Tower Records on West Sahara and being asked to do a potential national ad for One-Shot.

"Because we're a local small press, UPN said it'd do a little commercial for us," explains Hanaoka. "Maybe a minute long for only $400."

Hopefully, neither Hanaoka nor any of the other artists in Las Vegas will have to defer their dreams of success any longer.

Saab Lofton is a local freelance writer and a regular CityLife contributor.