|
Sandez Rey (in case you're wondering - yes, he's wearing a mask in this photo)
|
First of all, why don't you introduce yourself to all those not fortunate
enough to know you?
I am a cartoonist from Minneapolis, Minnesota (USA). For those of
you overseas, that is the town Prince is from, where they filmed the
movie Purple Rain. And yes, that is a real nightclub where they
film those concert scenes and yes I have been there many times, but to
see punk rock bands and pro wrestling. In reality that club dosn't
book much R&B music.
I have been on the fringes of the comics industry for about 10 or
12 years. Under my real name I worked for 3 different small press
publishers and self published 3 different titles for my old Kidgang
Comics imprint. I did one issue of comic called ATOMIC BUZZ SQUAD for Angel
Comics, but they never printed it, they went belly up first.
I did the first and third issues ever published by a company called
Comics Conspiracy on a title called PARA TROOP. I penciled and
inked one 32 page issue of a comic called BLUE MIDNIGHT AND THE
MOONLIGHT LADY for a company called Twilight Odysseys that they printed
and another 24 page issue that they didn't. (If you love laughing
at bad movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space find a copy of
this comic - I've read tens of thousands of comics and this is possibly
the worst writing in ANY comic EVER!) For my Kidgang-imprint I did one issue of JACK OF NINES (a poorly drawn learning
experience - an attempt at spy/noir), two issues of BIG MONSTER FIGHT
(still proud of those!) and three issues of MINNEAPOLIS FREE COMIC (and
yes, it was free. Distributed to racks in local book stores and
grocery stores and paid for in theory by local advertising. The
passing out was a huge success - the selling of advertising less so).
Do you get the feeling that if I published another comic it would last
four issues? There seems to be a pattern there ...
I came into the adult end of the comics market about
5 years ago, when Michael Dowers, the editor of Eros Comix for parent
company Fantagraphics dug a two year old sample page xerox out of a
dusty file and gave me a call. The sample was so old and forgotten
by me I almost hung up on him. I had no idea what he was talking
about. But I did a 5 page story for the sex anthology BLOWJOB,
which led to me doing 15 more 5 page stories for various sex anthologies
(7 of them in BLOWJOB, which was the best seller and flagship title)
and two full length 24 page books, THE CRIMSON GASH VS HITLER and THE
CRIMSON GASH VS CRIME. All of the short stories except the first two
also feature the CRIMSON GASH and her pals.
You have a new comicbook out, Crimson Gash vs Satan. Can
you tell us in a few words what that one's about?
The CRIMSON GASH has a history with Satan and actually gave him a
blowjob in and issue of (where else?) BLOWJOB. She indirectly does
Satan a favor in "... VS HITLER" and gets in a nasty verbal
confrontation with him in the end of "...VS CRIME". So
this book picks up those dangling plot threads and sends the Gash and her
sidekicks Summer Sky and Sheriff Judy (and Golden Age Hero The Blue
Circle to carry the gear) on a quest across Hell to confront Satan and kick
his ass for what the Gash percieves as a slight to her.
It's basicly me challenging myself, trying to do an epic
story in a porno context. A lot of it is cribbed from Dante's Inferno
and various classic sources.
A few
words about this book's backup story, The Lair of Lamasthu, and
your thoughts about that story's co-star Demi the Demoness
[Demi the Demoness interview - click
here]?
Demi
is a great character, one of the few classic, enduring characers in porno
comics. The CRIMSON GASH would be lucky to be as successful as her.
I love working with Steve Crompton [SS
Crompton interview - click here], Demi's creator and publisher of
Carnal
Comics. Steve is a great guy who is full of good ideas but not at
all egotistical or hard to work with. We had done a story together
for REAR ENTRY # 11 (the all Demi
issue, still available from Eros Comix), so it was a natural to team up our gals again for the back up feature.
This was a true collaboration, I pitched Steve the idea of doing a Lovecraft-story, he suggested including his
Lovecraft-villian Lamasthu and wrote a detailed outline, I
penciled and wrote most of the dialog, he then added dialog and inked and
lettered. We were both thrilled at how well it came out on the
printed page. Despite
all the sex, The Lair of Lamasthu has a definite Lovecraftian feel
to it. What can you tell us about that aspect of the story? I
read the complete works of Lovecraft when I was a teenager. Dream
Quest of Unknown Kaddath and The White Ship were two of my favorites
stories, so it was just a matter of me trying to do a tribute to material
I liked...
What
can you tell us about Crimson Gash as such, her creation and
evolution, and past appearances? The CRIMSON GASH was
actually on that forgotten adult sample page that got me my first work
in adult comics. Her look was inspired by Go Nagai's adult manga
superheroine Kekko
Kamen. Like I said, I had pretty much
forgotten that sample, so the first two adult stories I did had nothing to
do with her. Then my editor suggested in an email in offering me the
third story, "why don't you use that super character from the
samples?" and the rest as they say is history. I had fun with
the character and have had fun with her ever since. I like the idea
of a porno comics universe, because there has never been much continuity
in porno comics (with the exception of Demi
and the adult mangas ...) Even
for porn comics, your stories usually feature an amazing amount of
blowjobs, and ... well, I don't know how to turn this set-up into a
question, but perhaps you'd like to remark on it anyways.
I plead guilty! But I must say in my defense that all the stories
I did for BLOWJOB had to have a blowjob focus - to do otherwise is to cheat
the readers of that august tome! And the CRIMSON GASH was created
for BLOWJOB and 5 of her earliest stories were for that mag, so I could
hide behind being true to my original fans' desires if I wanted to.
But I won't. Two things:
Strictly from a practical nuts and bolts perspective, when you
draw someone 'going down' on a woman it is almost impossible to get a
decent camera angle on the action. There is no sense of
movement or action because the tounge is the only thing moving.
You can't really see the pussy because the head or leg are blocking it and
you end up using the same above the forehead close up shot over and over.
It's the opposite with a woman going down on a man. You have a sense
of movement and action. There are endless angles and variations,
and you have the beauty of the womans face in all its expressiveness
interacting directly and proactively with a mans sex. So even if I
didn't like blowjobs, I might well be drawn to including lots of them.
And bloopy cum facials are fun to draw!
But I won't hide behind either of those. Yes, I am
obsessed with oral sex, both doing it to women and recieving it from
women. What can I say? It beats sniffing shoes or drinking
someones pee! If any women reading this are also obsessed with oral sex -
look me up on mySpace! Just don't tell my wife!
There is one more angle on this. There really are
hundreds of thousands of real women all around the world who really do
suck dick for a living. A few on film but most in person. A
long time ago, back when I was a drug user in North Minneapolis, I used to
sell weed in a area where a lot of hookers walked the streets. When
word got around I had a fair number of them as MY customers. I got
to know some of these women as individual human beings and that has always
stayed with me. When I started thinking about the CRIMSON GASH I
wanted her to be a heroine that a woman in the sex industry could enjoy -
sucking dick yes, but only because she always wants to. She's
one of the girls, but also kicking ass and taking names.
Your
comics also always contain quite a bit of plot besides all the sex. Where
do you get your inspirations from, and do you see your stories merely as
hangers for the sex scenes or do you see the naughty stuff as a means to
get your story across? I'm a long time reader of pulp
fiction, starting with E.R.B., Robert E Howard, Doc Savage and
Shadow
reprints, then Fu
Manchu, Bradbury, Lovecraft, Haggard through my current
favorite Edgar Wallace. I am an obsessive film fan, as you know, and
I honestly believe that Professional Wrestling is the worlds greatest
sport. Yes, SPORT. Basicly, I write my stories visually, deciding
what I want on the cover or title page first, then if I can think of an
ending to go with that image I just start drawing pages. I go with
the visual flow and think of the dialog as I'm drawing and eventually get
to the ending, which I sometimes changes before I get there. So it's
all sort of a stream of conciousness process that mashes bits of books,
movies and sex scenes together with whatever I feel like drawing or think
is funny that particular day. How
did you break into the comic business in the first place? My
first published project was the self published JACK OF NINES. My
first professional work for someone else was PARA TROOP #1 for Comics
Conspiracy. My first adult work under the name Sandez Rey was
BLOWJOB # 2.
Your
comics usually contain tons of sex as well as horror/fantasy elements and
quite some humour. Which elements do you prefer? I don't
know if it makes me a pervert, but my favorite CRIMSON GASH pages are
usually the ones where a semi-nude woman is acting tough or kicking the
shit out of someone or something. In my movie watching life I have
always been steeped in horror and fantasy and I do like designing monsters
and creatures off the cuff. One of the attractions of doing the
"...VS SATAN" comic to me was the chance to set it in Hell and
include a lot of strange demons and creatures. I love to sit down
with a tracing pad and Marker and say "O.K. what is my version of
Cerebus going to look like? How am I going to draw the Gates of
Hell?" and so on. (I do all my design work on the
back sheet of the tracing pad with a black marker and when I get a
rough or partial I like I can flip down a sheet and clean it up
or add to it or change it.) As for the humour, that's just me.
I guess I have a humourous outlook, because I never put a lot of
thought into the humour. I always approach the story as if it's a
straight action story, but funny things always pop into my mind along the
way and I can't resist putting them in. For
quite some years, you have been working for Eros Comix, but fairly
recently you have moved to Carnal Comics. What can you tell us
about that switch?
There's really nothing to tell. Fantagraphics (Eros' mother
company) decided to cancel the sex anthologies and scale back its
commitment to publishing adult comics. Not because they weren't selling -
in fact it's fair to say that the adult stuff kept that company
alive through several rough patches when steady cash was needed - they just
decided to go in another direction. They are publishing more books
and less comics across the board, and as far as the adult stuff goes, they
are mostly just going to reprint thier old library of material.
I already knew Steve Crompton [SS
Crompton interview - click here], I met him at the San Diego Comic Con
when I was promoting THE CRIMSON GASH VS HITLER and we had already done a
story together. So it was just a phone call and the switch was made.
I'm perfectly happy with the switch, Eros never really promoted my work
properly anyways and Steve is a good guy to work with.
Any future projects you'd like to
talk about? Too early to be specific, but I am planning on
doing a non-adult (but very strange...) comic in additon to some CRIMSON GASH
short stories this year. I am trying to work up a somewhat
different style for that. And I have about 150 or so pages of stuff
that was either self published or unpublished before the CRIMSON GASH.
I'd like to print that stuff in a book, but don't know if that will happen
this year or not.
Carnal Comics have only recently turned
their Demi the Demoness
into a movie (click
here). Have you at all seen that
film and do you think the same should happen to Crimson Gash?
I have seen it and I can only say that if someone likes hot girl on
girl action, you could do a lot worse than the Demi movie. I met
Sinn Sage (who plays Vampirooni) in San Diego this year and she is a
living doll. As sweet as she is sexy. I think the CRIMSON GASH would make a great movie, but I am not sure it would make a great porno
movie. What I'd really like to do, if I had a choice, is make a very
hardcore, R-rated nudie movie out of it.
Like Russ Meyers Supervixens or
Up. Where there is a lot of
nudity, but the sex scenes are faked without showing genitals or penetration shots. This is NOT because I have anything against
porno - and if someone offered to make a CRIMSON GASH porno I would say yes
in a heartbeat - but I really think the characters are strong enough and
funny enough that as a nudie film it could potentially be a cult classic
that lovers of bad films still watch 50 years from now. Also I
don't think you could find a girl with gigantic natural boobs who is
willing to suck a lot of dick on camera and can also act and not embarass
herself in fight scenes. I don't think that girl exists.
Eliminating the actual on camera sex makes the pool of girls to choose
from MUCH bigger. If you could find the girl who's got the boobs and
has a funny way with sarcastic comment AND can throw a decent punch -
that's a hit 'B' movie! So my ideal dream would be a company
like Troma Films that has a fanbase and some minimal production qualities
and knows how to shoot some action scenes. Are you listening Troma?
|
Where
are your comics available? Demicomix.com has the three full
length CRIMSON GASH comics "...VRS HITLER", "...VRS
CRIME" and the new one, "...VRS SATAN". That's probably the best and quickest way to get that stuff.
I think
all or most of the sex anthologies are still available at Eroscomix.com.
I still have everything myself, so if you look up Sandez Rey on mySpace
and scroll down my blogs you will find one titled 'how to buy comics from
me' (or something like that...) and I can get you an autographed copy of
anything you want. Beyond that, Last Gasp is a good source for adult
comics, also Rose Comics and finer stores everywhere! Comicbook artists who have really influenced you? Jack
Cole, the creator of PLASTIC MAN is probably my all time favorite.
Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Milton Canniff, Al Capp, E.C. Segar, countless
others. Spain and Crumb are my favorite underground artists and the
whole Last Gasp roster of artist from the '70s. I am currently
reading the collected HERBIE, (pub. by Dark Horse) which I love, it's
one of the most surreal and dreamlike humor comics to ever be called mainstream! That's one of my 10 favorite comics ever.
I am also devouring a Titan Books' reprint of the British newpaper strip
JEFF HAWKE, which is excellent science fiction.
|
Feeling lucky ? Want to search for books by Sandez Rey yourself? |
The links below will take you just there!!! (commissions earned) |
|
|
Your
favourite writers? Edgar Wallace, Lovecraft, Howard, E.R.B.,
Sax Rohmer. I am addicted to reprints of the pulp hero THE SPIDER
which was written under the pen name 'Grant Stockbridge' but I think
was actually Norvell Page. I love pulp heros in general, the Shadow,
Doc Savage, etc. Some of Edmond Hamiltons Captain Future stories
are great and the Purple Empire saga in Operator 5 is a masterpiece of
relentless action!
And of course, your favourite comics?
PLASTIC MAN, anything by Jack Kirby esp. FIGHTING AMERICAN, FANTASTIC
FOUR, THOR, KAMANDI. Gold Key Comics' MIGHTY SAMPSON, MANGUS
ROBOT FIGHTER and THE OCCULT FILES OF DR. SPECTOR. The
original DOOM PATROL. HERBIE. SUGAR AND SPIKE.
In undergrounds I love ZAP, DESPAIR, and the rest of
the key Crumbs from the '60s and '70s. SUBVERT and TRASHMAN for
Spain. Guy Cowells INNER CITY ROMANCE was brilliant. I
always thought WONDER WART HOG and the FREAK BROTHERS were
funny, and pretty much any title published by Last Gasp for Greg
Irons, Jaxon and Dave Richardson.
I read a lot of newspaper strips too, TERRY AND THE
PIRATES, STEVE CANYON, POPEYE, DICK TRACY, LIL' ABNER and MODESTY BLAISE
are all favorites.
Since
I know that you're a fan of obscure films and this is primarily a
film-site anyways - some of your favourite films, the rarer the better?
The Face at the
Window starring Tod Slaughter [Tod
Slaughter bio - click here] is a must see. The Fiendish
Ghouls with Peter Cushing. Kill
Baby, Kill and Blood
and Black Lace by Bava [Mario
Bava bio - click here]. Doctor
Jekyll and the Werewolf with Paul Naschy [Paul
Naschy bio - click here]. Castle
of Blood with Barbara Steele [Barbara
Steele bio - click here]. I Bury the Living with Richard
Boone.
In comedy some of my all time faves include Trinity is Still
my Name with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. They also made an excellent
but forgotten one called All the Way Boys where they were pilots in the
Amazon that was funny. The original version of The In-Laws with
Peter Falk and Alan Arkin is classic. Repo
Man is a film I described
as my favorite movie ever for about 10 year straight.
I'm a big fan of Russ Meyer and if you've only seen
Faster Pussycat,
Kill, Kill! don't judge him by that - that film has a great title
but is over-rated and not even in my top 10 Russ Meyer films! I
think... Let's see... My favorite Russ Meyer films are Up,
Supervixens, Beneath
the Valley of the Ultravixens, Mondo Topless, Mudhoney,
Vixen, Lorna,
Cherry, Harry and
Raquel, Wild Gals of the Naked West, The Immoral Mr Teas
... yup that 10. Faster
Pussycat, Kill, Kill! comes in at 11.
Pam Grier's film Coffy
is a must, all time top 10 fave in
the action catagory. Anything with Santo in it especially
Santo in the Wax
Museum, The
Witches Attack, The
Diabolical Axe [Santo bio -
click here]. If you don't know who Ray Dennis Steckler is, search out a
copy of Rat Pfink a Boo Boo. Trust me, you have to see it. The
film Atomic Rulers of the Universe, which is edited down TV episodes of
Johnny Socko and his Robot is a blast. The Seven Vampires is crazy
nudie/horror from Brazil and very rewatchable. I recently say Royal
Tramp 1 and Royal Tramp 2. If you liked Shaolin Soccer and
Kung Fu Hustle, these are two earlier kung fu comedies
from the same stars. Not quite as good, but still very funny.
And
of course: Some films you really deplored?
UGH. Where to begin? I dislike the mindless slasher style
of horror and have never been able to sit through a Friday
the 13th-movie,
or any clones of that type. I remember sitting at a hotel trying to
kill a half hour with nothing on TV but the final half hour of Friday
the 13th Part
3 and even though it was uncut on HBO and already at the climax I was
still still bored and kept flipping away looking for something else.
Drug humor has gone downhill since the Cheech and Chong days and tho
I'm an ex-pothead myself I hate a movie where all the middle aged squares
get high at the end and see the world in a different light. Yeah right -
an uptight college professor in 2008 is anti-weed because he
has never tried it. Do the fucking math! That guy was in high school
in the '70s! If he's anti drug it's probably because his little
sister got high and drove a car off a cliff!
I hate nudie films where all the girls have fake boobs.
C'mon! What is that? I'd rather see a flat chested girl take
her shirt off anyday than see all these too big, too firm unnaturally
shaped titties! Part of the magic of boobs is thier infinite varity
of sizes and shapes. Can't we all agree on that?
Besides
comics and film, any other hobbies?
I was one of the original punk rockers in Minneapolis and can prove it.
If you get one of my early comics like BIG MONSTER FIGHT and find
out my real name then google John Holmstroms original '70s fanzine PUNK
(Holmstrom did the cartoon for the Back of the Ramones' 3rd LP and the cover
of their 4th) you will see I had a letter printed in it where I take John
to task for doing an article on the BAY CITY ROLLERS. John's comment
back to me, "Anyone that offensive can't be all bad." I
don't go to shows like I used to being married with two kids, but I try to
keep my finger in a little.
I am also big booster, audience shill and unpaid promoter for
our local Minneapolis Pro Wrestling federation First Wrestling. So
called because we book cards once a month in FIRST AVENUE the nightclub
from the movie Purple Rain mentioned in the first answer. See how
this all ties together?
Anything else you'd
like to mention that I've just forgotten to ask? Just
thanks for the interest,and anyone who wants to get in touch with me
directly can look up Sandez Rey on myspace. I will be at Fallcon our
big local comics convention Oct. 4 and 5 at the St. Paul Fairgrounds in
the grandstand. At my table with me will be Alica Leafgreen the White Lesbian
Rapper who will be selling and signing her new EP
that I drew the cover for. The night before Fallcon is the big
showdown between First Wrestling, Phillys Ring of Honor promotion and
Californias Chikira Lucha Libre promotion at the West St. Paul Armory.
Bell time is 7:30, doors open at 6:30, tickets are ONLY $10, and I'll be
the guy down front yelling the loudest! Come down and see me at one
of those places if you can! And once again, thanks. Thanks
for the interview.
|