As some of you folks may know, I originally published my succubus character Lorelei in a couple of small-press, digest-sized comics that I wrote and drew; the Lorelei One-Shot Special was released in 1989, with Lorelei #1 following in 1991. What you don’t know about is one of the fans I made through Lori—and what became of him…
Shortly after I published that second comic in late 1991, one of the orders I received was from a guy named Dirk Vermin, an artist living in Las Vegas, Nevada who was also the front man for his punk-rock band Vermin From Venus. He’d seen the ad I’d run for the comic, liked the succubus angle and the Tom Sutton cover, and decided that Lorelei #1 was a comic he had to have. Cool! Another fan to add to the then-growing list.
Early in 1992, Dirk wrote back to tell me how much he’d enjoyed the issue—so much so that along with the letter he sent a few creative goodies of his own: a copy of Vermin From Venus’s debut LP, Sex On Planet X; a copy of his debut comic, Betty Page Fetish Comix (starring 1950s pinup Bettie Page, whose bad-girl-next-door killer looks were introduced to a whole new generation of pinup fans through Dave Stevens’s Rocketeer comics); and a T-shirt printed with the Betty cover.
I still have all three of those items. And I wear that T a lot, even twenty years later. (It’s held up surprisingly well, after countless washings.)
I lost track of Dirk after that, in those prehistoric days before the Internet was a common thing, and it wasn’t until recently that I came across Sex on Planet X in my record collection (yes, such things still exist). Curious as to what might have become of Dirk, I went to the Google and ran a search…and was surprised by what turned up. He’s still rocking Vegas—though the band name has changed to The Vermin—but the stunner was, he’s also a TV celebrity! Folks who are into tattoos may recognize Dirk as the owner of Pussykat Tattoo—and the star of A&E’s new reality series Bad Ink, which just wrapped its first season.
Geez, you just never know how your fans are gonna turn out, do ya? 😉 I’ll have to check out the show, now—and knowing cable TV, it won’t be hard to catch it. A&E’s probably running the hell out of it to fill that Breaking Bad void, right? 😀
