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Grave Concerns

Zombie comic book series wants Eugene’s braaaains

This originally appeared in last week's Eugene Weekly, the February 16 issue. I angle for EW's cover story now and then, which is not to say I always land it, and I was honestly sort of surprised when my editor Rick Levin lobbied to put this particular story on the cover. I certainly didn't write it with that in mind. It does seem to have struck a bit of a chord, though, as more folks than usual have sought me out to tell me they liked it. Evidently the Association of Alternative Newsmedia was diggin' it, too, as they posted it to their top stories for the week.

Many thanks to Chris Roberson and Michael Allred for the interviews!

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Eugene can be a contradictory place. Some find numerous opportunities here, seeing Eugene as a community full of music, culture, good food and outdoor adventure. Others characterize the city more prosaically, as a nice place to live, but maybe a little … lacking in diversions.

Count cartoonist Michael Allred in the former category. “Growing up in Roseburg, Eugene was always the exciting place to go,” he says. Allred, creator of the independent critical-darling comic book Madman, moved on to college in Utah (where he met his wife, comic-book colorist Laura Allred) and eventually lived for a time in Eugene. He later relocated to various points all around the country, and even to Europe. But Eugene always held a special place in his heart.

Now Allred is the artist of a comic book series that is not only set in Eugene, but also embraces the line our city walks between the everyday and the extraordinary.

Published by DC Comics’ imprint for adults, Vertigo, iZombie follows the adventures of Gwen Dylan, a UO dropout who hangs out in a diner, makes her living digging graves in an eco-friendly cemetery and who just happens to be an undead zombie.

Gwen, helped along by her friends Ellie the ghost and Scott the were-terrier (yes, you read that right), solves supernatural mysteries, eats the occasional brain and dodges an ancient order of monster hunters … all punctuated by routine trips to the diner for chocolate and coffee.

Comparing his work to a cross between Archie comics and Scooby-Doo, iZombie series writer and New York Times best-selling author Chris Roberson, who lives in Austin, Texas, says that balancing the mundane and the fantastic sides of Eugene is one of his goals. Roberson’s stories cleverly subvert the standard monster-movie formula by showing how the undead spend their down time.

“It’s almost required that the moment that someone becomes one of these supernatural beings, they become angsty,” Roberson says. “If I became a werewolf, I’d still be the person I am now, I’d just have some personal hygiene issues once a month, or have some self-control issues.”

Roberson, who has never visited Oregon, relies in large part on online street views to inform the sense of place inherent in his writing. But his collaborator Allred just moved back to Eugene after a stint on the Oregon Coast. Having one half of the creative duo based in the city where the story is set has its advantages.

Besides advising Roberson on details of Eugene geography and daily life, Michael Allred incorporates real Eugene landmarks into the comic’s illustrations, which are in turn brought to colorful life by Laura Allred.

In the Eugene of iZombie, vampires troll for dates at the Downtown Lounge. A UO science lab is used as a staging ground for communing with extra-dimensional beings. The Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson mansion at the base of Skinner Butte doubles as the home of a centuries-old Egyptian mummy. And the diner where Gwen and her spooky friends hang out is modeled on Fins Drive-In in Springfield.

Continue reading "Grave Concerns" at Eugene Weekly.

Kon-suming Passions

Fans and Friends Descend on Portland for Northwest Tiki Kon 2010

Photos by Jennifer Ragan-Fore

This article appeared this week in the summer issue of Tiki Magazine. I've really enjoyed my acquaintance with Portland's Team Tiki, and was really pleased I had a chance to document their summer 2010 adventures... even if the vagaries of a quarterly publishing schedule did mean that the article about the 2010 Kon came out after the 2011 Kon was completed. Whoops.

I have to admit I absolutely love writing for Tiki Magazine. It's not my best-paying gig (seriously, how could it be?), but there's just something about wiritng about one's passions, and about people one finds fascinating (and who seem genuinely grateful for the coverage), that makes it worthwhile. Getting to attend these events gratis ain't too shabby, neither. Mahalo, Tiki Magazine! Mahalo, TikiKon ohana!

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The lights, like the music, are low. The food is greasy and filling. And the company can’t be beat. It’s the perfect environment to nurse a Sunday morning hangover.

Scott McGerik looks up from the kalua pork, macaroni salad, and other assorted Hawaiian delicacies sharing room on his brunch plate with mainland fare like scrambled eggs and fruit. “It’s a shame how few people appreciate something like this,” he pronounces, gesturing with his knife at a glowing red lantern.

McGerik, a computer programmer visiting the northwest from Minnesota, is clad in an aloha shirt and a turquoise lei. He’s seated next to his similarly-attired wife Kat, a nurse and massage therapist, in a comfortable curving booth at the back of The Alibi Bar and Restaurant, a Portland, Oregon tiki bar dating back to the 1940s. The McGeriks have traveled to the Northwest to celebrate with like-minded tiki fanatics at Northwest Tiki Kon VIII, with the incredible theme of “Atomic Tiki.”

You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three

The 2010 Kon officially kicked off the night before, with an evening of food, follies, and friends at Tony Starlight's Supper Club. With handcrafted items for sale by tropikitschy vendors, the Kon offered a sort of tropical-themed Etsy in the club’s entryway.

History in the Making

A Springfield café connects past and future

Photo by Kai Hayashi

With this article, which appeared in Eugene's Weekly's January 26 winter Chow! guide, I sadly bid a fond adieu to able editrix Molly Templeton, who has fled the charms of the Le Eug for trendy, trendy Brooklyn. Molly has been a consistent advocate for my writing, and was even supportive of me in what bordered on a quixotic campaign to interview Gail Simone. As usual, I tried sneaking some local history stuff into this non-history article.

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Downtown Springfield’s Main Street strip continues to tread the line between gentrified and generally sketchy. And the permanent closure of Ruthie B’s Antiques in a couple of weeks marks the end of one of the neighborhood’s anchoring storefronts.

But last May saw the addition of the Washburne Café, a homey breakfast and lunch place just down the street. 

“I wanted to create a place that I’d like to go, that was comfortable and welcoming,” says café owner Karen Hageman. Originally from New Jersey, Hageman says the Washburne is her first foray into restaurant ownership after stints in construction, real estate and retail. 

At breakfast time, Hageman’s new venture serves various egg dishes with cibatta toast, including a “Washburne bowl” with eggs, meat and potatoes. Lunchtime fare includes paninis on locally-baked focaccia, as well as house-made soups. The chicken salad wrap is especially tasty and includes cucumbers and cranberries in the mix. Fluffy, house-made baked goods include tropical fruit scones and peach muffins, complemented by a coffee bar ... and free Wi-Fi.

“It’s getting busier all the time as word gets out,” says Hageman.

And she seems to be right. During a recent visit at almost 2 pm on a weekday afternoon, the lunch rush had yet to abate. The crowd proved eclectic, too. Some patrons read while dining alone. A couple of parents had children in tow. A group of college students, laptops and calculators spread across a round table by the window, discussed APR and interest rates.

Continue reading "History in the Making" at Eugene Weekly.

Elastic Journalism

On Friday, the First Lady of Inkville and I checked out "Multimedia Journalism & the Landscape of News," a talk by The Daily's Gabriel Dance. It was sponsored by my old stomping grounds, the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication.

Dance was a popular act; we arrived a few minutes late, and found the room already at capacity and hotter than Hades. Good on him.

A lot of what Dance had to say really hit home, especially his strong recommendation that 21st century journalists need more than one skill set. And as I can attest both as a freelancer and as a former magazine staffer, it's hard out there for a pimp, assuming the pimp is a writer trying to support himself solely through freelance.

Dance's song-and-dance about multimedia was interesting, and he aptly demonstrated how the concept of "journalism" is elastic enough to encompass computer animators, designers, illustrators, and other creatives.

All Dance's examples stemmed from his time at The New York Times, and I'll admit I was hoping for a bit more about Dance's new gig at The Daily. But that job is new, so perhaps Dance deserves a pass for at least a few more weeks. And frankly, The Daily has thus far failed to impress me.

But what really left me scratching my head was the amount of culture shock Dance must be experiencing transferring from the Times, a supposed liberal bastion, to working for Rupert Murdoch. As I type this, Dance's personal website features a link to an article about a journalist's "battles" with Murdock, so perhaps The Daily really is enacting a separation of church and state for the purposes of doing business.

Call Me a Duck

My marketing job in the University of Oregon's Office of Admissions allows for a whole lot of creative leg-stretching. An indulgent and supportive boss, ditto.

Videotaping a ghost hunt in a cemetery? Go for it. Facebook-based essay contest? You betcha. Foursquare scavenger hunt? Sure, why not?

But nothing—and I mean nothing—has been so much fun (and so unexpected) as the writing, production, and creation of "Call Me a Duck."

Based on Maino's "All the Above," the video was launched last Friday, and as of this writing we're closing in on 160,000 views on YouTube... and still climbing.

Originally the brainchild of my boss Holly Moline Simons, "Call Me a Duck" was fast-tracked and produced on a shoestring budget once we learned that On the Rocks, the UO's resident male a cappella group, was going to appear on this fall's The Sing-Off on NBC.  (By the way, "fast-tracked" in academic parlance means just under half a year.)  Our boys were eliminated just shy of the final round, but hey, we'll take it!

Besides teaching me how to spell "a cappella," this project afforded me the chance to write and produce a rap song, which is a résumé line item I never would've considered. 

I was privileged to work with an amazing cast and crew.  Special shout-outs are due to Holly, as well as director Michael McDermott, director of photography John Waller, amazingly organized assistant director Christopher Parker, effervescent OTR liaison (and crystal-clear tenor) Jeffrey Rogers, audio engineer (and OTR founder) Peter Hollens, and the rock of UO Admissions, Jett Nilprabhassorn.

Funny side note: In a few weeks the UO plays Auburn in the BCS championship game.  I learned something interesting today.  Guess what l'il ditty Auburn has adopted this season as the football team's "pump up" song?

Maino's "All the Above." Complete coincidence, Tigers, scout's honor!

Photo courtesy of Michael McDermott.

Celebrating Hard Times

Local craft distillery gives Eugene a buzz

My able editrix for this piece asked that, if I was going to write for a second time about my buddy James and his bootleggin', I'd have to identify myself as his friend, make it clear we have a personal connection. That was a good idea. The line between business reporting and nepotism can grow mighty thin when covering local folks. One thing that made it simpler was the fact that I honest-to-God find James' and Dudley's efforts fascinating. The boys, James in particular, have been striving for so long to reach this level, that it's really gratifying seeing them hit the mark. Cheers, gents!

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The last time I wrote in these pages about the liquor-distilling ventures of my friend James Stegall (“Money Where the Mouth Is,” 3/13/08), he had a different business partner, a different company name and a different plan for his product line. 

He also had 100,000 fewer miles on his car’s odometer, now the legacy of commuting among a day job in Albany, his home base in Eugene and the clean and earthy refurbished granary in Monroe he shares with business partner Dudley Clark and two stills composed of copper tubing and stainless steel.

They make an unlikely pair, smooth-headed, thirtysomething Stegall, and Clark with his longish silver hair and swashbuckler’s goatee. “We don’t always see eye to eye,” says Clark, “but James and I have figured how to be partners in a very deep sense. Almost like brothers.”

It’s been a busy fall season for these almost-brothers and their business, now christened Hard Times Distillery. After more than two years of work fueled by a loan and training courses courtesy of Lane County’s Entrepreneurial Development Services (eDev), their product finally hit liquor store shelves in early October.

Continue reading "Celebrating Hard Times" at Eugene Weekly.

This Little Piggy Went to Market

Last week Inkville took its show on the road to sunny San Diego, the city playing host to the 2010 American Marketing Assocation's Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education.

I took in some great (and not so great) presentations and talks.  Here are some highlights.

Alicia Nestle, assistant director for new media at Nazareth College, presented "20 Tips for Powerful Story-Driven Branding & Communications." Besides the fact that I am a professional storyteller, I also liked this presentation because its Letterman "Top 10 List" style  provided a lot of practical ideas one could implement immediately.

In what appears to be a possibly disturbing trend at this symposium both of the years I have attended, Nestle was joined in her presentation by a representative of the media firm that partnered with Nazareth. Many of the presentations involved one person from the academic side plus one corporate partner, in fact. If schools want to partner with outside third parties, sure, go for it. We do here at Oregon. But I'll admit it does give me pause in considering whether a presentation might be discounted by the AMA planners simply because the academic side presenter planned to fly solo.

Most of the conference sessions surrounding social and new media suggest to me that the University of Oregon is already at the forefront in this arena. We aren't doing everything we could, of course, but we're doing what we reasonably can, given that social media isn't at the tippy-top of any UO staffer's job description (to my knowledge, at least).

Gratifyingly, the location-based services presentation by Joe Hice of North Carolina State (who presented sans corporate partner) even used my UO Foursquare online materials as a demonstration of schools on the cutting edge of this particular medium. (By the way, NC State's social media plan is amazing, and include some cool ideas for QR codes, in particular.)

I was in awe of Purdue's "Makers, All" campaign as presented by Teri Thompson, that university's vice president for marketing. The campaign is simple and elegant, and offers return to a core branded identity while maximizing use of a mascot that might be confusing or awkward in the 21st century. But really, how could a presentation called "From Gatorade to Lady Gaga" fail to disappoint, especially when its presenter charges onto stage in a triumphant pop music opener?

Summer Vacation: Getting Animated

This blog post is horribly overdue, I'll admit. The First lady of Inkville had a work conference in Los Angeles back in August, and I tagged along. Besides visiting to Disneyland, eating Brazilian food, and  hitting numerous tiki locales, I flew solo for one day and visited the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where I saw two fantastic museum exhibitions, both of which were ending that very day.

The AMPAS Ray Harryhausen exhibition was an incredible collection of photographs, film clips, and, most excitingly, scale models. Many non-geeks are sadly unaware of Harryhausen and his legacy. The man was a genius of stop motion animation, animating fantasy sequences in films like Mighty Joe Young, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad, and, most excitingly for this 7th grade Greek Mythology fanatic, the original Clash of the Titans.

 

Photography wasn't allowed in the galleries, and a dude behind a desk was glowering at me a bit, so I hope you'll forgive these grainy, through-the-lucite iPhone photos, one of the models for Perseus and the Pegasus, the other of the monstrous Kraken. Seeing these models up close reminded me of the amazing level of fear and anticipation Harryhausen inspired in my middle school self with his Medusa sequence, and how the CGI effects of the recent Clash remake fail to deliver in terms of visceral fright... even with the requisite mental adjustment to account for nostalgia.

The second exhibition was even more amazing, and the real reason I mastered aggro Los Angeles traffic to make the commute to AMPAS. The exhibition featured materials and ephemera from the career of Chuck Jones, the amazing director of a number of your favorite Looney Tunes shorts from midcentury ("What's Opera, Doc?," anyone? "One Froggy Evening"?), including animation cells, cartoon scripts, personal correspondence, video clips, and even the man's Oscar statuette.

  

Chuck Jones was a bit (okay, a lot) of a personal hero of mine in the 80s and early 90s. I read the man's autobiography, as well as several other tomes on animation history. I watched Looney Tunes incessantly. I still think that the two-part Elmer Fudd hunting series cartoons Jones directed stand as some of the best-timed and funniest animated films in the medium.

Again, no photos were allowed, so I grabbed these images of the Internet. In fact, security was so tight at this thing, I halfway expected to see Foghorn Leghorn with a baseball bat whacking weasels on the head. When a couple of confused museum-goers confusedly attempted to stray into the AMPAS screening theatre, they were escorted back out again, quite definitively. A far cry from laid-back Oregon.

Amazing exhibitions, amazing trip. That's all, folks!

Pedigreement

If there's one thing that denotes a citizen of Inkville, it is a love of all things canine.  (Well, that or a love of Elvis films.) 

That's why I'm blogging today about the Pedigree dog adoption program, which has agreed to donate one twenty-pound bag of dog food for each blog that mentions it. And Pedigree will also donate one bowl of dog food for each "like" on the Pedigree Facebook page.

Now that's a lotta kibble.

I think it's pretty cool to see a company giving back in this way. And I'm sure an act of goodwill like this won't hurt their botm line, either. Or that of Pedigree spokesman David Duchovny. Gooood marketing.

And in honor of this program, here's a mug shot of each member of Inkville's own Seeonee Wolf Pack:

Summer Vacation: Tiki Travelogue

A couple of weeks ago, the First Lady of Inkville attended a work conference in her professional capacity. I tagged along to Los Angeles in a decidedly un-professional capacity. Still addled on the rum-soaked fumes of the Northwest TikiKon earlier this month, I decided to cram as much Polynesian pop as possible into my visit, with one goal in mind: Tiki pilgrimage.

And what Los Angeles Tiki travel would be complete without a visit to the Enchanted Tiki Room in Disneyland? The entirety of the Adventureland portion of the park is pretty Tiki-tastic, but the Tiki room (complete with its delicious and overpriced pineapple Dole whip) remains the Genesis moment for many Tikiphiles' obsession, including that of your intrepid guide.

Spoiler alert: those Tikis totally come to life.

After working up a sweat escaping the Haunted Mansion and whining about the insertion of Johnny Depp mannequins into the original Pirates of the Caribbean, we adjourned to downtown L.A. to quench our thirst at the Trader Vic's: