Ace Bar. The East Village of New York City. Crowds of tourists and hipster-types make their way from the bar to the tables. Most of the floor is taken up by NYU students and indie-rock know-it-alls who extol the virtues of Johnny Cash to girls who couldn't care less. Walking from one end of the bar to the other is an obstacle course of weaving and bobbing through the crowd. The smell of women's perfume battles with that of cigarette smoke and the jukebox is barely audible over the blending voices of the crowd.

Next to that wall is a table where only two guys sit. One is shaven-headed and wearing a T-shirt with an automatic rifle design that reads DEFEND BROOKLYN. This is Brian Wood. The other is goateed and wearing a Misfits "Skull" shirt. This is me. Full ashtrays and empty bottles litter their table as we converse.

"This song kicks ass."

With that deep proclamation, we suck hungrily at our respective drinks. Tom Petty's AMERICAN GIRL is coming through the jukebox. I do my best to sing along, making a mockery of the tune with my cigarette-and-vodka soaked staccato voice.

"Here we go," Brian sighs. "Here we go again."

Zippo clack. Petrol whiff. Twin plumes of smoke are exhaled through nostrils as I prepare to speak. "Just because you don't think this is the best American song in history and are clearly a communist, doesn't mean I can't sit back and enjoy the musical stylings of my fellow Floridian."

"Again with the commie shit. You know I'm not a communist. I am, however, sympathetic to the plights of the working class. "

I point in derision to the bottle of Budweiser in Brian's claw. "Is that what that is supposed to represent? That you're 'down' with the working class?"

"I drink Bud because it reminds me of my roots, and yes, my roots are that of the working class, I am very proud to say. My granddaddy worked in steel out of Glasgow. My daddy was on the assembly line at IBM. My mom cleaned rich people's houses. And we had Bud in the fridge at home. It's a simple, honest beer."

I contemplate this truism while Brian lifts more beer to his lips. AMERICAN GIRL ends and Motorhead begins. And for that one moment, all is well in the world.

I pipe up, ruining the beauty of the moment. "All right then. I was watching the 'Concert for NY' on VH1, and I shuddered as Natalie Portman and Richard Gere got booed when they made calls for peace. I can understand that a group of firemen who'd lost friends and family members only one month before is not the right crowd to preach to about forgiving the terrorists, but at the same time it occurred to me that this country is experiencing a major political shift to the right. Paul McCartney, for Christ's sake, sang a song extolling his willingness to fight for a freedom granted by God. Paul McCartney!

"Now the book that 'put you on the map,' so to speak, was very political, calling into question not only Governmental controls over movement and thought, but the idea of a theocracy running the show. At a time when anyone who questions the motives of our leaders is called 'unpatriotic,' do you stand by the position you took in CHANNEL ZERO?"

Brian scoffs. "First of all, you ain't gonna impress me with examples of Paul McCartney and Richard fucking Gere.

"Secondly, yeah sure. I'm sure people could use CHANNEL ZERO as a reason to call me unpatriotic, but truth be told, I was never a patriotic person to begin with. My radical feminist mother and 'I hate the fucking world and everyone in it, lemme buy some more guns' asshole father saw to that. I have memories of being a small boy watching the news with my dad and listening to him curse the hell out of Jimmy Carter for making him pay too much for gas.

"I dunno. I just grew up with a sceptical eye towards anything and everything, and I am still very much like that. I don't believe one should blindly follow ideals, concepts or perceptions just because they exist or we happen to live in a certain country or belong to a certain race, or whatever. People who do that are fools.

"So, half a bottle later I finally get back to the point of your question: I stand by CHANNEL ZERO. Not really sure what you mean by 'the position I took' writing the book, because a lot of what's in there doesn't really represent what I personally believe. It's what the characters think. But if you mean the overall message/tone of the book, then yeah, of course. You'll never find me disowning anything I've ever done. Except for your mom, because man oh man, I wish I never fucked her."

"Setting aside the sullying of my sainted mother's good name." I reply, "and forgetting the fact that you obviously gleaned your political beliefs from Bruce Springsteen liner notes, I'll have you know that while Stolichnaya vodka might not be a 'working man's' drink, it is, in fact, far superior to Budweiser. James Bond drinks it, for fuck's sake."

Brian makes a face. Listening to me go off about James Bond is not something he wants to do. "I gotta piss," he says, quickly getting up from the table as Motley Crue's SHOUT AT THE DEVIL begins to blare from the speakers.

He returns within sixty seconds to see me lighting another Kamel Red Light. "Righty-ho," I say, exhaling smoke as Brian sits back down, "You're a vocal supporter and personal friend of David Choe (SLOW JAMS). How did you first become aware of his work, and what is it that draws you to his admittedly fucked-up view of the world?"

'I stand by CHANNEL ZERO. You'll never find me disowning anything I've done.' "I found Choe's work in the NON anthology, and hunted the lunatic down at San Diego Comic-Con one year," Brian answers. "I want to be Choe. I want the Choe life, with the Choe girl and Choe skill and Choe wardrobe and the Choe flow. Choe don't give a shit about nothing. The world swirls around him and he remains unaffected like he's in the eye of a storm, until he wants to poke his monster cock into society and fuck something up and make something beautiful.

"Choe is Basquiat. He will be Warhol and he will be Picasso. He'll be influencing the nubile minds of art school freshman girls in the year 2100 with his fucked up shit. Ejaculating cocks and whatnot. Inspiring!"

The waitress walks up to the table. Wood orders another bottle of Budweiser, I order a Stoli on the rocks with olives. AC/DC's BACK IN BLACK is now playing and college girls are amassing around the wall. Giggling and pointing out the lunchboxes to each other, drunk already after one beer each, while I grin like a dirty old man. Wood is lost in thought, probably still thinking about Choe's ejaculating cocks.

"All right then," I ask, once the girls go back to the crowd of frat-boy Staten Island types waiting at the other side of the room, "You and Choe were supposed to work on a project for Marvel together, a project that fell apart due to editorial...well, 'incompetence,' really. After something like that, what are your feelings about Marvel? Can you foresee a situation where you'd work for them again?"

"Man, I dunno," Wood responds. "They keep asking me, but you know. Why should I? Money, I guess, is the only reason. But the whole work-for-hire situation is for the birds, man. I do work, it appears briefly, disappears, and hardly anyone gets to see it. Forever. Even if they put out trades of the work, that only lasts so long, too.

"I have a lifetime guarantee from Larry Young at AiT/PlanetLar to keep my books in print as long as he's publishing, and I keep all the rights and the money and I feel like a rock star and he gets me laid on a regular basis with choice selections from his harem of San Francisco scooter girls. Marvel just makes me feel ineffectual. I wanna sell books to everyone on the planet, you know, not just the itsy-bistsy miscroscopic subset of society that reads Marvel comic books.

"Maybe the next time they call they will say some magic words to get me to work for them, but it's highly unlikely."

"Talking about sales," I say, popping an olive into my mouth, "Your new book, COUSCOUS EXPRESS just came out a few weeks ago. It's doing well, isn't it?"

"People who read comics clearly want but one thing," Wood loudly pontificates, "and that is a graphic novel with cute girls, tough guys, scooters, and lots and lots of bullets whizzing about. Our sales are wildly beyond expectations and in but a few short months I will be able to buy and sell your ass several times over. I will turn you out and make you walk Flatbush Avenue in hotpants and people will call you 'John Boy' and toss chicken bones at you. You will cost two bucks and crooked cops will take advantage of you at every opportunity!"

I look about, embarrassed, as Wood's volume rises and heads begin to turn. I am by now very used to Wood's pimp fantasies, but I also have no desire to be ejected into the street by the surly bouncers. "Enough!" I bark. "The book's selling well, right? Everyone who hasn't bought it, should, right? It's 80 pages of pure '70s cop movie-style action-adventure mayhem, and chicks dig it as well, right? Why can't you just say that and leave my ass out of it?"

"Sorry", Wood mumbles.

"I should hope so! So, when's the much-rumoured sequel coming out?"

"Ah!" Wood perks up again, happily back in his rant groove. As if on cue, TEAR THE WHOLE THING DOWN by The Higsons comes thundering out of the jukebox. Waitress Joan swings by to collect more drink orders, and Wood leaves me hanging for several long minutes as he finishes off his Bud and thinks back happily to his youth spent with the reggae and the ska and the punk rock.

Waitress Joan returns with the order, and Wood tips her grandly, flashing the fat roll of cash that one can only accumulate through a one-two income combo of comics writing and video game design. He takes a long, fierce pull at the Bud, while I sip daintily at my own drink, pinky extended, waiting.

'My neighborhood cops wear gold chains and sell weed.' "The sequel. Also known as THE COURIERS," Wood at long last replies. "The project closest to my heart. The one I dreamed up while I myself was a bike messenger here in New York City, putting myself through art school. Well, with luck that will be out by summer. That's the plan.

"But first," Wood continues, raising his bottle in silent salute to the rugged majesty of Merle Haggard, which is not being played on the jukebox, but rather inside Wood's head, "First I have business to attend to. Namely, POUNDED with West Coast prettyboy artist Steve Rolston. That's in April from Oni Press. I am currently writing JENNIE ONE, to be drawn by punk rock zine artist Becky Cloonan. And let's not forget the choice items available this January during the long-anticipated Brian Wood Month, specifically the CHANNEL ZERO DESIGNBOOK, T-shirt, and COUSCOUS scooter patch. Those are all from AiT/PlanetLar."

I nod my head slowly, spearing olives with the little straw in my drink. "All of that stuff sounds pretty cool," I lie. "I imagine you find the time for all this because no one ever visits you at home, seeing as most people are afraid to enter your neighbourhood without police protection."

"My neighbourhood cops wear gold chains and sell weed." Wood barks.

"You know what I mean. Don't be a prick."

"Look, it's not that bad," Wood replies. "Sure, after dark it can get questionable. Hell, even a man such as I has been frightened for my safety once or twice, but I learned the ropes quickly, so I'm rarely concerned for my well being around my apartment. I mean, the rest of the city was getting used to the burning smell of the WTC after the terrorist attacks, and I'd been smelling burning rubber from car fires for years around home. "And I suppose it's a bit odd for those who do brave the visit to see more chop-shops and liquor stores than bars or laundromats. And there is the fact that the Subway map at my train station has been forever painted to read, "Kill Whitey," but really, are these things so bad?

"Well..." I begin.

"Of course," Wood interrupts, "I guess I'm forgetting to mention that most days, I'll be followed around by crack whores offering blow jobs for rock. Or the roving gangs of razor-nailed teenage Latina girls who insult me from across the street. Or the packs of little hood rats who toss shit at my windows, God bless their rickets-ridden souls. Yeah, being Whitey in a place like Bushwick, Brooklyn can be a little rough, but I got it dialled."

I nod, openly bored, and toss the last olive into my mouth. "Listening to you talk about your 'hood makes me want to go home and play GRAND THEFT AUTO 3, man. Let's get out of here."

"Fine with me," Wood answers, "I'm tired of buying drinks for your cheap-ass broke self anyway." We grab our jackets and leave the table, putting away pens and cigarettes and lighters and matchbooks before giving Waitress Joan a good-bye hug. The Stones' RUBY TUESDAY is playing, and Wood notes with approval that it's a fitting soundtrack to this tender farewell scene.

"Can I help it if I'm a starving artiste?" I ask plaintively as we walk out the door into the cold New York wind outside. "Sometimes you have to subsidise my alcoholism..."

"Save that shit for your woman," Wood spits. "Your drunken antics amuse me. Now, I'll give you a dollar if you take a monster dump on the hood of that squad car over there."

John Cecil is the author of A THING MOST INTENSELY and the stage play LIARS.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.