Jeremy Wheeler – The Bang!, comics, movies and life in the Midwest.

STI: You went to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and graduated when?

JW: ’97

STI: Ok, and from there, that’s when the comics started coming out, right?

JW: Yeah, yeah. The comics started coming shortly thereafter or during. There were actually some comics that were made during when I was there that never quite made it out, but shortly after Pittsburgh I moved back to Grand Rapids and hooked back up with Matt DeLight and we started doing Age of Sinnocence and we also started — and that’s when I met Jason Gibner from The Bang!, and that’s when I started doing comics with Jason as well as Matt. We did some series of comics called “I Fucked Up 1 and 2″ and “I, Loser” which Vault of Midnight might have a copy or two of those.

STI: “I, Loser”. Is that in the vein of, like, “I, Robot” or more like an Apple “iLoser” kind of thing?

JW: It’s more like, we’re idiots who have completely fucked up with women many times and here are some stories of us being, just, complete jerks or complete losers. Very self-depreciating and just really good stories that we had to tell that we probably told each other a million times and it was time to do it in comic format. So yeah… we’ve excelled at the “small press world.” The roots of  The Bang! actually go back to a zine we did called Geek Monthly. Whether people have read our stuff or not is a whole other question, but that’s a Midwest thing, I think.

STI: Is there still new material coming off the press?

JW: Uhhh, yeah. Well, as the years have gone on, more and more things have happened. I started a comic blog that was kind of like a personal blog called Keepin’ It Wheeler. I started doing, um, it was just kind of a way for me to kind of spew out all of the things that I was involved in and interested in. So it was kind of like a bio/comic meets film analysis meets party planner extraordinaire. I mean, its just a mix of so many things and it’s actually hard to send around to people because you’re just like, “Well, this isn’t exactly all movies and it isn’t exactly all bio stuff.” It’s just a whole big mix.

STI: It’s one central location for Van Wilder meets Rob Gordon meets Bankie.

JW: Yeah, I mean, yeah! It was a whole big thing and I did that for a while and I actually released a limited edition volume of that and I hope to do more of those soon. And then, Age of Sinnocence has kept on going. We continue to do stuff. Lately, my newest project is “Remake Hell“ and that’s at remakehell.tumblr.com. This is a comic of me retaliating against Hollywood for their constant lack of creativity and the reckless mining of their back catalogs.

STI: The full-page comic that always opens with watching the TV and getting the latest report from Hollywood.

JW: Yeah yeah yeah yeah!

STI: Generally a spit-take follows or something like that.

JW: Yeah, yeah! A spit-take follows, usually with some violent, over the top shit ending with me dead every time. I just started it, and there’s no shortage of material to go on. It’s a tough thing because just today there was a remake announced and I know that probably tonight I will have to spend a couple hours kickin’ something out. I don’t know what the fuck it’s gonna be, but I’ll figure it out.

STI: Which one was announced today?

JW: Captain Blood, the Errol Flynn pirate classic. Phillip Noyce, who directed “Clear and Present Danger” as well as plenty of other great movies, he’s going to direct it. It’s in development and we’ll see what happens. There’s a pirate craze. Everyone loves pirates. Everyone loves movie pirates but hates pirates who actually kill you on a cruise ship, so… [laughs] That’ll ruin the vacation real quick!

STI: Speaking of movies and remakes, you’ve been reviewing movies at All Movie Guide since 2001. What drew you in that direction?

JW: Location. Ann Arbor. I had no idea that the All Media Guide was based in Ann Arbor. I had no idea who the people behind it were. Jason Gibner and I were working at the Harmony House downtown on State St. People might have known it because there was a Ticketmaster in there. They also might have known it because we had a shitty music stock. [laughs] I mean, we were a crappy chain place and they closed it on us. In, like, a week’s time, they closed it and I just so happened to know a gal who worked at the All Media Guide who got me a job and within a year or so I was working in the movie department. That’s around the time I started reviewing movies and started working on their database and just kind of feeling my way through that. And it’s nice that I’m interested in movies so it creates a good environment there.

STI: Professional critic?

JW: Yeah yeah yeah! Absolutely. I mean, in a time when film critics are dying, I still have a job as a film critic. No matter what you say about our company, no matter what you say about our database, no matter how much more awesome you think the All Music Guide is compared to the All Movie Guide, I still have a job and that’s great. Our company just bought TV Guide, so now I’m a real deal TV Guide reviewer, which is bonkers. Really nuts. And I love the people I work with, so… they’re fantastic.

STI: Well, you write a bit, you draw a bit, you DJ a bit. We’ve kind of covered all things. Is there anything you haven’t tackled yet that you think you might venture into?

JW: Film-making. I was involved in [some film-making in] Grand Rapids. Jason Gibner and I, as well as a few other of The Bang! alumni, we were involved in a public access show called “Late Night Movie Geek Monster Fest” which is almost 15 years old at this point which is nuts to think about at this point. And we played wild stuff like “Black Shampoo”, like Sam Raimi’s “Crimewave”, Tim Ritter’s “Truth or Dare” — that one being a terrible, but hilarious, low budget blood fest. We had a lot of fun with that. Recently, we were involved — God, it was almost two years ago — there was a Grindhouse — there was a contest for “make your own Grindhouse trailer” for when Grindhouse came out and we put out the “Detective Frankenstein“ trailer and it actually, well, just like all the other fake trailers that were created by just, normal people, we got press for it and people looked at it and thought it was funny, so we’re hoping to do a Detective Frankenstein movie at some point. The makers of Detective Frankenstein, we are shortly going to go into music video territory for a band in Chicago that we’ll be announcing pretty soon. I’m also do button-making on the side, as well as all of the design work for The Bang!. I have something over– oh, I dunno– it’s like a hundred or some odd posters right now and if you go to GigPosters.com you can see all of them. Take a look.

STI: So it sounds like we’re going to speaking again in the future when the video thing happens and you’re suddenly pitching the new video for the band.

JW: Or, or not! [busts out laughing]

STI: Not very optimistic!

JW: I mean, here, The Bang! is seven years old. Should we have grown bigger in that time? Probably. Do we regret not growing bigger than we have? No, because life moves on. I mean, The Bang! and comics are just this crazy railroad that just bowls over you and you try to keep up. Especially in the Midwest. People don’t really have contacts in the Midwest. You aren’t really connected to other people who are really making it big in any given industry, so if you’re a big fish in a small pond or not, it’s a little hard to kind of grow beyond your means if you are rooted where you are. That’s entirely not a bad thing because I wouldn’t– I don’t regret anything that we’ve done so far. Right now, we’re looking forward to the Ten Year Bang!. This  is our next goal, besides securing a workshop/practice space. I don’t know if we’ve had too many goals before, but right now we’re looking forward to the Ten Year Bang!. I’m hoping to take the people involved to Disneyland at the Ten Year Bang!. That’s my big teary-eyed dream that I will stick to and I will hope for and I will do short of making full-fledged promises. [laughs] We’re also proud to announce that we’ll be handling decorations duty inside the Michigan Theater for the Annual Ann Arbor Film Fest this year, which should be pretty insane – in the classiest sense of the word, of course.

STI: Well, Street Team Interviews will keep its finger on the pulse of The Bang! for the next several years so we can see how the Ten Year Bang! turns out.

JW: Fantastic. I can’t wait! It should be… it should be plenty stupid. [laughs] Until then, I can promise plenty of stupid shit to come out of us, of The Bang! and of Age of Sinnocence and all of our comics and all that crazy stuff. And, you know, tune in… or not.

STI: Thanks so much for talking with us today.

JW: Absolutely. It was my pleasure. Yes. Thank you for the beers. [laughs]

[Interview transcribed from an audio interview conducted on December 3rd, 2008]

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