ANYTHING GOES, AND SO IT GOES…

I never wanted to be a journalist.

That’s a strange thing to say considering how often I’ve found myself wearing the reporter’s hat in the fields of comics and radio, but it’s the absolute truth. Here’s a semi-interesting related fact: in the 11th grade, I was hauled into the principal’s office for discipline because I hadn’t managed to drop by my post-lunch journalism class for two weeks. What can I say? I like a nap after a good meal.

“It’s an all-time school record,” Mr. Morris said, his beady eyes doing their best to lobotomize me from across his desk. “No other student has had the utter gall to attend every one of his other classes like clockwork while flagrantly blowing off just one in particular for so long.”

I do my best to be a leader.

Back to the issue at hand: I had just wrapped up a long-running weekly column (“The Jerwa Report” at Dynamic Forces) and I couldn’t have been happier to see it end. Naturally, the universe had other plans, and I heard a rumor that my pal Marc Mason was casting a line and hoping for some semi-articulate nibbles. He’d already drafted my wife and I knew I was expected to simply fall in line.

“You owe me, you bastard,” Mr. Mason said, his beady eyes doing their best to sodomize me from across the internet. “No other writer has had the utter gall to write so much for every one of his other friends like clockwork while flagrantly blowing off just one in particular for so long.”

Hang on a second. Déjà vu.

Okay, there we go.

Long story short (do I even KNOW any short stories?), I figured I’d do well to appease Mister Mason, as he is a very large, angry man in a Hawaiian shirt. I quickly made a list of all the things I DIDN’T want to do (“work” figuring very prominently at the top of said list) and eventually whittled the concept down to simple communication between people that I know personally or have at least worked or corresponded with in some capacity.

I put out the proverbial feelers and a deluge of responses came in far more quickly than I expected. Writers, artists, editors and publishers! Film people! TV people! That guy who sleeps in my carport and eats out of my recycling bin! Your mom!

ANYTHING GOES WITH BRANDON JERWA will debut in early 2008, once I have a couple in the can - and rest assured, the title of the column says it all: ANYTHING GOES!

I’ll be sitting down with a variety of guests to talk about something they’re trying to promote, comics in general or maybe something else entirely: TV, music, food, religion, sex, love, hate – NOTHING is off limits. It's no-holds-barred, uncensored conversation on a variety of topics. Leave your tender sensibilities at the door and tell Grandma to go watch “Murder, She Wrote” because I won’t be held responsible if things get out of hand. It might be monthly. It might be bi-weekly. It might be bi-curious.

Okay, probably not that last one, at least for me. I got that all figured out for myself in prison.

One thing’s for sure, though…this is definitely going to be interesting.

|