Nowhere Band News

We had to put our car, Ella, to sleep on Thursday. We’re both still pretty shaken up about it– 6 weeks ago, she was totally fine. And then she developed a limp, and then things got steadily worse by the week as what turned out to be cancer (we thought it was an infection at first) spread like crazy. I’ve been kind of a basket case for at least the past month, ever since it became clear that the antibiotics weren’t working.

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This is a handout I whipped up to, um, hand out at tonight’s Derailleur show at the Bedlam Theater (we’re too cheap or too futuristic to make CDs). We go on at 8:30ish, the other bands are reputed to be excellent, and the $10 entry fee goes towards a project involving lockers for the homeless. If you’re in the Twin Cities, you should be there.

So, then, the production update: there’s a good chance Nowhere 44′ll be late, and for a shitty reason: we’ve been undergoing kind of a long-ongoing catastrophe as our cat Ella has gotten steadily sicker. It’s been tough to deal with, and is probably just going to get tougher. So if the comic’s late, that’s why.

So, I’m back, and work on Nowhere #28 is proceeding pretty well; it’s about half pencilled, although the half that remains is the tough half.  Oh, well.  Things are looking good for it to be up by Monday, June 9.  6/9, dude!

In the meantime, while you’re waiting, here’s an oldie-but-goodie for you: my comic about a guy who sets out to shoot Fleetwood Mac in the head. There are some things I’d do differently if I was making that one now, but I still like ‘er a lot…

So, Dan’s a pretty good drummer, but he’s got other skills. He just sets them aside out of concern for the happiness of his friends.  What a guy!

This one isn’t ripped straight from real life like the whole Great Big Schmooze deal was, but there’s sort of a historical precedent.  Back in my first band, Red Hay, our drummer was a sextuple- or septuple musical threat who pretty much limited himself to drums.  I doubt that he ever had any conversations where he flat-out said he was holding back to spare our feelings (although he’s a hell of a nice guy, so I wouldn’t put it past him), but I was still always conscious that he could probably step forward and go all Gary Louris on us at any moment if he got the itch.

So, then, it’s Hiatus Time.  I’m off to California for a week, with production starting back up when I get back.  That puts the next strip up at, what, some time in June?  Let’s say June 9th as a probably-hard deadline.  Although you never know, it might be worth watching this space to see if things run more quickly for some reason.

…aaaand now we see Aaron reap the wages of cock-blocking his bandmate. Poetic justice? Just the way things go? All in the game, yo? It’s not for me to say.

OK, I guess it is for me to say, since I wrote the damned thing. And here’s what I’ve got: like several other Nowhere strips, this whole Great Big Schmooze business is at least partly rooted in something that happened to me (in this case, about 10 years ago), back in the days of my band Red Hay. I was the Aaron figure in that little piece of Kabuki (here’s a hint: whenever a strip’s based on a real-life event, all you need to do to identify which character’s taking my role is to look for the one who’s being the biggest chump or asshole; that seems to be the way I write the reality-based scripts). I really was thrilled to have actually picked up a girl (so I thought) by playing guitar, and I really did sort of elbow my way past one of my boys to get there, and the whole thing ended more or less the way 26d does, except without a righteous drawing of the Hindenburg (actually, the night of the initial pickup also included a crazy little side adventure wherein my friend Chad and I spent a hair-raising half hour with a completely insane dude who wanted to be called “Hustler Pete.” I’m still on the fence about whether The Tale of Hustler Pete will ever be transmuted to comic form).

So, May is a crazy month for me. My wife’s birthday, our anniversary (5 years!), a week’s vacation at the end of the month, and some family visits. Which is to say, sorry the schedule’s been a little choppy, and there’s still some chop to come. One more strip will come out next week, and then there’ll be like a 2-week lull while I travel and recharge and all that. Full service will resume in early June.

After getting laughed at by Rebecca, I can’t bring myself to use the Item! Item! Item! format anymore.  So now we get em-dashes.

-I’m back from Miami (pictures here, if you’re into that), and finished my Uptown Girl Presents story while on the road.  Nowhere #20 is going really quickly, and should be posted by the end of the week.  Probably by the middle of the week, even.

-The latest word from MPR is that the Nowhere Band piece will run at the end of this week or early next.  I’ll post more when I know more, and believe me, I’ll be linking to the online archive of it.

-It occurred to me today that I never wrote anything about Jim Walsh’s Replacements book, All Over but the Shouting.   I really need to, because that book kicked off about as many trains of thought as the Schulz bio did.  But I’m tired and it’s late, so let’s consider Walsh and the Replacements as members of the “coming attractions” list.

As usual, I’m way better about working on comics offline and thinking, “hey, I should post this to the newsblog” than I am about actually posting things to the newsblog.  Which means that I have a backlog of news, and will be releasing actual comics before too long.

Item!  The McSweeney’s audiobook recording is done, and turned out to be a ton of fun to do.  I felt like a big weirdo, standing on the Washington Avenue Bridge with a recording setup, reading out loud about COBRA.  But hey, you gots to suffer for art.

When the audio download’s ready, I’ll link to it.

Item! Just this morning, I finished inking the guest story I’m doing for Bob Lipski’s Uptown Girl Presents. It’s not a Nowhere strip, but it’s very similar, and the Awesome Boys do make a cameo.  I’ll be traveling for the rest of the week, and finishing the digital part of that comic while I’m on the go (and I’m not sure when the comic would appear here, if ever– certainly not until after Bob’s book has actually been on the stands for a while), and then production will resume on Nowhere.  Strip #20 should be out and about by, say, March 15 (beware!).

Item! I spent a really fun hour and a half yesterday talking to Minnesota Public Radio’s Chris Roberts about Nowhere Band (and, to some extent, Derailleur). It was a cool, cool session, and it sounds like the piece will air on this Friday’s Word of Mouth broadcast (naturally, I’ll be out of town for this).  Should also be available online, eventually, and I will of course post the appropriate links when they’re available.

OK, that’s it.

So, the Awesome Boys have finally played their first show, even if it’s just a wedding reception in Fergus Falls. I’m proud of them, and I can relate– both of the bands I’ve been in have done the rural wedding thing, and it’s always bun an interesting combination of fun and weird. I’ve also lived through the horrible equipment-pretzel that Josh suffers in the first panel, although never for three hours.

Despte being #19, this is actually the 20th Nowhere Band comic (9 stretched over two strips).  Arbitrary numbers are always good places to take a break, and in this case I actually have a god reason:  I’ve been asked to contribute a story for an anthology issue of Bob Lipski’s excellent Twin Cities comic institution Uptown Girl. It’s too cool an opportunity to pass up, so I’m going to spend a couple of weeks working on that, and then the Awesome Boys will return in March to deal with their new status as a working band.

The blog will stay more or less active during that time though; news may be brewing on other fronts.

Also:  I just found out that Best Buy now sells guitars.  Fairly nice ones.  What the hell?