Heeb Storytelling: Live Comics Edition 12/21 at Joe's Pub!

Very excited because I've been an audience member at Joe's Pub many times but never been onstage.

Heeb Storytelling: The Live Comics Edition

Heeb Storytelling: The Live Comics Edition

21 Dec 2010 - 07:00 pm
425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY

@ Joe’s Pub

Heeb Storytelling: The Live Comics Edition a night of irreverent entertainment—graphic novel style curated by Heeb comics editor Jeff Newelt. Eight extraordinary comics creators + pals will perform their, smart, funny and sexy comics projected on a big screen, accompanied by a soundtrack + shenanigans.

Performers include Molly Crabapple (Dr. Sketchy’ s Anti-Art School, Puppet Makers); Jeff Newelt AKA JahFurry (The Pekar Project); Sarah Glidden (How To Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less; Miss

Lasko-Gross (A Mess of Everything); Cynthia Von Buhler (EVELYN EVELYN), Dean Haspiel (The Alcoholic

w/ Jonathan Ames, HBO’ s Bored to Death), erotic book editor / cupcake connoisseur Rachel Kramer Bussel, photocomix pioneer Seth Kushner + special guests TBA.

“ Comics aren’t just for schmendricks anymore,” said Jeff Newelt.

Tuesday, December 21, 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Doors at 6:00 p.m.)

Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY

$15 (reservations required for table seating)

Call the theater: (212) 539-8778 or buy tickets at www.publictheater.org (Telecharge: 212-239-6200)

You haven't lived until you've eaten your face off a cupcake

A few early shots from last night's AMAZING In The Flesh Reading Series 4-year anniversary. Photos and videos TK. The unofficial theme of the night was whores, and we did it justice. Oh, and cupcakes. Thank you so much to Treat for doing such delicious, glittery justice to the Molly Crabapple-drawn In The Flesh logo.

Not-to-be-missed In The Flesh 4-year anniversary November 19th

If you have ever attended In The Flesh and had a good time, please tell at least one person about tomorrow night's very special 4-year anniversary blowout event. This is my baby, my labor of love (I get a cut of the door but put that back into photography/videography/snacks) and my longest-running project. I've had 3 sex columns that have all been canned but this free event has been going and going. Here's the master list of everyone who's read (as of I think August).

Tomorrow is truly a not-to-be-missed event. We have sex toys and porn and books and the gold JimmyJane vibrator to give away, and art cupcakes with the drawing Molly Crabapple did of me. I can honestly say that in 2005 I had no idea In The Flesh would become so special. It's a hell of a lot of work - I am constantly booking, promoting, scheming about it, but I love it. Maybe not the being-in-front-of-the-mic-to-read-my-smut part - that still makes me nervous - but the hosting, that I love.

So please come out and join us for a truly special event. Doors are at 7 and that's when I recommend arriving; we will start at 7:30. I even bought a new timer to keep everyone in line. If you're running late, we'll be around until 10.

Also see the upcoming lineups:

Sex and Religion Night, December 17

Sex and Food Night, January 21

Love and Lust Night, February 18

And I don't have the lineup all HTML-ed yet but the March 18 BDSM Lineup (subject to change but pretty firm) is: Me, Melissa Febos, Selina Fire, Monk, Julie Powell, Xan West, Mollena Williams and Lolita Wolf. AKA, AWESOME.

And here's my Amazon.com list of the books we'll be hearing from in 2010 at In The Flesh...so far. April 15 is Nerd Sex Night and May 20th is True Sex Confessions and June 17 is GLBT Night.

You can also keep up with In The Flesh:





And just because, I will repost two of my favorite things that have been said about In The Flesh:

New York Press:

Even though Happy Ending Lounge is most closely associated with its namesake series (which has picked up and moved to Joe's Pub), there's something a bit naughtier brewing at the Broome Street den of debauchery. Now in its fourth year, In the Flesh, hosted by Rachel Kramer Bussel, features established and up-and-coming writers sharing their franky, funny, frisky tales of love and lust and manages to do so—for the most part—without veering into creepshow territory. Tension is cut by asking the audience to anonymously submit sexy secrets, and it doesn't hurt that Bussel provides hundreds of cupcakes and not-to-be-missed miniature peanut butter cups to lull everyone into a sugar-induced sense of security. Normally we would avoid an erotic reading series like the plague, but after venturing down here to catch a friend reading her dirty dissertation, we were charmed by the humor of the readers and crowd and not at all displeased by the fact that everything we heard was actually—surprisingly—sexy.

Susie Bright:

I have read and performed at hundreds of venues, all over the world— and in terms of sheer class, generosity, and author-happiness, the only producer who comes close to Rachel, is the British Film Institute. And they don't have cupcakes.


This Molly Crabapple-drawn In The Flesh logo will be on a dozen special cupcakes for the early birds!

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
4-YEAR ANNIVERSARY, SPANKING STORIES, SEX BLOGGER CALENDAR & MORE!
November 19th at 7:30 PM (doors at 7; note early start time)
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Between Forsyth & Eldridge. Look for the hot pink awning that says "XIE HE Health Club."
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://www.inthefleshreadingseries.com

We're celebrating 4 years of sexy smut with a party and reading galore! Bringing back memoirists Lily Burana (I Love a Man in Uniform, Strip City) and Isobella Jade (Model Life, Almost 5'4"), Erica Kennedy (Feminista, Bling), Abiola Abrams (BET, author of Dare), Jennifer Peters (Penthouse Forum), Desiree (contributor, The Mile High Club) along with Bottoms Up: Spanking Good Stories contributors Tess Danesi and Rosalind Christine Lloyd. You will also hear from the organizers of the 2010 NYC Sex Blogger Calendar, which Tess and host Rachel Kramer Bussel (Peep Show, Spanked, Bottoms Up) posed for! Copies of authors' books and the calendar will be for sale. 300 free cupcakes from Baked by Melissa will be served. Prize giveaways include: 24-karat gold vibrator Little Gold ($325 value) from JimmyJane, paddle and slapper from Extreme Restraints, $100 Babeland gift card from Beyond the Birds and the Bees, 2 copies of the 2010 Sex Blogger Calendar (featuring Tess, Rachel, Abiola and others), Abiola Abrams' novel Dare, XXX porn film Afrodite Superstar and hot word game SexySlang.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the country's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. The series was named Best Reading Series by New York Press in 2009. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Susie Bright, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Mike Daisey, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, Zane and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine, New York Observer, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, Gothamist, Jezebel.com, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth.

Once upon a fabulous time Abiola Abrams was raised by Guyanese royalty in a gorgeous suburban ghetto of New York City, appropriately called the "Queens County." These are her chronicles: Dare is her first novel, and her writing is featured in the anthologies Dirty Words, Behind the Bedroom Door and A Memory A Monologue A Rant & A Prayer. Abiola's films range from Knives in My Throat, about mental illness, to Afrodite Superstar, about sexuality. She has hosted shows for BET, HBO and NBC and is now also a host-producer of The Planet Abiola Show. Recently audiences enjoyed watching Abiola get her dating game together as "Miss Picky" on VH1's Drew Barrymore-produced hit reality series Tough Love.
www.abiolatv.com



Lily Burana is a punk rock girl turned writer and editor. Since starting her writing life as a columnist and editor at punk and alternative 'zines, she has gone on to write for The Washington Post, GQ, The New York Times, Self, Glamour, Entertainment Weekly, Details, The Village Voice, The New York Observer, and others. She has been a Contributing Editor at SPIN and New York magazines. Lily married an active-duty Army officer in 2002. Her latest book, I Love a Man in Uniform: A Memoir of Love, War, and Other Battles (Weinstein Books, 2009) was inspired by the overwhelming response she received to her writing about the domestic side of military affairs--a Slate Diary and a New York Times Op-Ed. Her first non-fiction book, Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America (Miramax Books, 2001) made Best of the Year lists in Entertainment Weekly, Salon, New York Newsday, and Rocky Mountain News.
Lily Burana



Rachel Kramer Bussel is an author, editor, blogger and reading series host. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a former sex columnist for The Village Voice. She’s edited numerous anthologies, two of which (Up All Night and Glamour Girls) have been Lambda Literary Award finalists, most recently The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories, Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, Best Sex Writing 2009, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, and Spanked. Her writing been published in publications such as Clean Sheets, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, Fresh Yarn, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Tango, The Village Voice, and Time Out New York, and in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006. She has hosted In The Flesh since October 2005.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com


photo by Hilary McHone

Often based on her own explorations in the world of D/s and BDSM, Tess Danesi explores the darker side of erotica, writing with raw honesty about that shadowy area where pain becomes pleasure and pleasure pain. Tess has been published in several anthologies including Pleasure Bound by Alison Tyler, Do Not Disturb and Bottoms Up by Rachel Kramer Bussel as well as in Time Out New York. CarnalNation.com generously sends her amazing sex toys to review and she can often be found testing them in her high tech masturbation testing facility aka the office ladies room. In between all that and her actual job, for two years running, she’s produced the NYC Sex Blogger Calendar which raises funds for Sex Work Awareness. She blogs about life, death and everything in between at Urban Gypsy (http://nyc-urban-gypsy.blogspot.com).



Desiree is a brainy, sexy, foodie, geeky, writer chick from New York. She lives in Brooklyn with her vampire cat Snarf and has always had an inclination toward the naughty. She never backs down from a Scrabble challenge and once scored seventy six points with the word "clitoris." Her dirty stories have been published in anthologies such as Lust Chronicles and The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories and her musings about sex have appeared in the Huffington Post and The Frisky. She blogs about love, sex, and life at www.baserinstincts.com. For general info on her antics or to find out where to read her stuff, check out www.desireemoodie.com.



Isobella Jade is known as one of the tiniest working models out there. She is also the author of Almost 5’4”, her modeling memoir. In early November her graphic novel Model Life: The Journey of a Pint Size Fashion Warrior debuts. Daily Isobella gives modeling insight and advice on being a shorter-than-average model on her blog, and despite her height she has used what she does have and has modeled for Marshalls, Victoria's Secret, Easy Spirit, Macy’s, Bon Appétit, TLC, Univision, MTV, Women's World, and many, many others. Her story and advocating has been featured in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, Allure.com, Page Six, Ad Age, The New York Post, WSJ, Nylon, Mediabistro.
www.isobelladreams.com



Thanks to the aggressive heroine of her second novel, Feminista, Publisher's Weekly as called Erica Kennedy "the pioneer of bitch lit". She is also a screenwriter and blogger who began her writing career by blindly pitching and selling a humor piece on why women love to hate Gwyneth Paltrow to the New York Daily News women's section where she became a frequent contributor. She has written celebrity profiles and style pieces for In Style, Vibe, Paper and UK Elle. She blogs about pop culture and all things FEM at The Feminista Files (thefeministafiles.blogspot.com/).



Rosalind Christine Lloyd is a contemporary fiction and erotica writer (and occasional poet, journalist and music reviewer) whose work has appeared in over fifteen anthologies. She currently has two novels in progress, is working on a compilation of her published short fiction and has one completed screenplay. She lives downtown with her queer version of a nuclear family.
http://rosalindchristinelloyd.blogspot.com



Jennifer Peters is the associate editor of Penthouse Forum and Girls of Penthouse and a contributing editor to Penthouse Magazine. Her work has appeared in several places under numerous names, but her favorite bylines use her real name. Those rare works have appeared in Forum, Penthouse and Rachel Kramer Bussel's Peep Show anthology.



You'll be hearing readings from these books:


Bottoms Up: Spanking Good Stories


Model Life: The Journey of a Pint-Size Fashion Warrior


I Love a Man in Uniform

Giveaways include (more TK):


24-karat gold Little Gold vibrator courtesy of JimmyJane

From Extreme Restraints:



Strict Leather Black Fraternity Paddle


12" Slapper With Holes

$100 Babeland gift card from Beyond the Birds and the Bees


SexySlang word game


XXX porn film Afrodite Superstar


Abiola Abrams' novel Dare


We're giving away 2 copies of the calendar!

Molly Crabapple profiled in The New York Times

photo by Brian Van

If you didn't already know, Molly Crabapple drew the In The Flesh logo for me (for free!) and has been incredibly kind to me and In The Flesh over the years, not to mention being outrageously talented. I've interviewed her twice over the years: once for Gothamist, once for The Village Voice. She very graciously took me to The Box one night and every time I check out her her blog I'm in awe of her talent, productivity, and spirit. She is truly visionary and one of a kind. I'm honored to be her friend, and to own an original Molly Crabapple that not only hangs proudly on my wall but gets tons of comments every time I pass out postcards (Reverend Jen was like, "You look just like your drawing!").

She was just profiled by Carol Kino in The New York Times on Sunday:

With her long dark hair, artfully made-up eyes and demurely vixenish demeanor, she can suggest Morticia Addams, John Tenniel’s Alice in Wonderland or an anime caricature. And because she is never far from her iPhone or her MacBook, little of her life seems unshared.

In fact, some believe Ms. Crabapple’s talent is neither making art nor modeling nor fire eating nor Internet branding, but her ability to combine everything in one seamless persona. Joe Wos, who founded the ToonSeum, the cartoon museum in Pittsburgh, calls her “one of the most innovative young artists out there right now” but argues that her influence extends beyond drawing. “Dr. Sketchy’s itself is a work of performance art,” said Mr. Wos, who runs the Pittsburgh sessions of Dr. Sketchy’s. “Molly Crabapple is an art movement in and of herself.”

Or, as Ms. Crabapple said matter-of-factly, “What you get in life isn’t about how much you cultivate your talent; it’s about how you cultivate your name.”

Certainly the last year has been good to Ms. Crabapple in terms of name cultivation. July saw the publication of her first graphic novel, “Scarlett Takes Manhattan.” Created with Mr. Leavitt, who wrote the text, it recounts the fairly pornographic adventures of Scarlett O’Herring, a fictitious 1880s New York circus performer. Its colorful pictures, made with pen and ink and colored in Photoshop, exemplify Ms. Crabapple’s style. Curves and facial features are exaggerated, bodies tumble through space, and each scene is filled with impossible Rube Goldberg-like architecture.

Photos from The Slipper Room

These are by Nick McGlynn, from Molly Crabapple's book party for Scarlett Takes Manhattan. I'll be interviewing her about it shortly.

Molly Crabapple's Scarlett Takes Manhattan NYC release party, with burlesque and cupcakes

Molly Crabapple photo by Aaron Edwards

I'm a longtime Molly Crabapple fan (see my 2005 Gothamist interview with her), so am very excited about her book party next week! Unlike other events of late, I will definitely be there. The book is also available for pre-order on Amazon.



Plus there'll be red-hot flavored cupcakes by Glittle Cupcakes. (the above ring pop one is also by them, but I'm not sure if those exact ones will be there)

On July 8^th, Fugu Press will release “Scarlett Takes Manhattan,” the first graphic novel by Dr. Sketchy’s creator Molly Crabapple and her longtime collaborator John Leavitt. Set in the demimonde of Gilded Age New York, “Scarlett Takes Manhattan” tells the story of poor Bowery girl Shifra Helfgott, who rises to become the premier fire-eater of her age.

Chock full of rigged boxing matches, dirty politics, and turn of the century lesbian culture, “Scarlett” has been described as “disgustingly wonderful” by Warren Ellis and led Margaret Cho to call Molly “THE artist of our time.”

To celebrate the release of “Scarlett Takes Manhattan,” Fugu Press will be throwing a glittery, burlesque-inspired launch at The Slipper Room, New York’s premier variety venue.

See sexy burlesque photos and register at Eventbrite

And I can't post it, but click here for a gorgeous photo of Molly.

New Yorkers: Want snail mail?

If you live in or near New York, or think you might be here and attending my reading series In The Flesh, then please do send me (rachelravenous at gmail.com) your mailing address and next week when the new 2009 postcards come in, I'll mail you one! You get to feed my post office fetish at the same time.

U.S. addresses only. And, you know, since it's a postcard, it says "erotica" on it so if you get mail where you wouldn't want that seen, skip this.


In The Flesh logo by Molly Crabapple

Watch the debate and see political art by Molly Crabapple!

CLik here for more details.

Molly Crabapple's art show Demimonde opens tonight!

Me with Molly Crabapple; photo by People magazine Valentine's Day superstar Judy McGuire (her book How Not to Date is featured in the new issue, with Britney on the cover - check it out!)

I've already gotten a sneak preview and it's amazing. Would that I could afford some of it (though I do have a Molly original - yes, the one of me for In The Flesh) on my kitchen wall. Molly Crabapple continues to astound me with the intricacy and sexy deliciousness of her art. Smart, sexy, and intriguing - most of these pieces are HUGE and really worth your time. If you can't come tonight, check it out anytime during the run. Show details and video preview below, or see Arena Studios. Curated by Audacia Ray.