Laurenn McCubbin, who cuts a striking figure in fancy shoes and glorious pink hair indeed, is one part of the team behind XXXLivenudegirls, recently reviewed in TCJ #237 by the fabulous Ms. Mary Fleener. She comes from a school some of us would describe as Fuck Me/Fuck You feminism; at least, that's how I would describe it, being a graduate myself. We're a rare breed in comics, and we've gotta stick together. Fortunately, Laurenn and I have other things in common as well; we're both graduates of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, come from comedy backgrounds (leaving these last under some duress), would kill -- and possibly have already done so -- for good reading material, enjoy her husband (although she more than I, in this case) and value a good joke above all else. This is why we get along so good.

The following interview originally took place at a drunken barbecue in Oakland, CA the weekend SPX was supposed to have taken place. Unfortunately, this tape was lost due to technological incompetence on the part of certain TCJ staffmembers who shall remain nameless but are female and therefore excused from such heady concerns. Laurenn and I were thus forced to reconstruct our conversation via e-mail some days later. Luckily enough, we both remembered what we had said so naturally in conversation verbatim and type it all in, lightning-fast.

Upon reading this interview, you will surely wish to look at Laurenn and comics partner Nikki Coffman's website XXXlivenudegirls.com. Then you will wish to send them money for the paper version.

ANNE ELIZABETH MOORE: How did you get your start in telling stories?

LAURENN McCUBBIN: I started as an actress -- ever since I can remember, I wanted to be an actress. Not just any kind of actress -- a famous actress. I did theater in high school and college, and even taught improv for a short time. (A thought that now makes me shudder -- I can never do another improv game. Eeuuch.) At one point, group of friends and I went to the Holy City Zoo, the week before it closed. This was the first time I had ever seen live stand-up. About 10 minutes in, I was thinking, "Well, fuck - I can do this."

So, two days later, I went on at my first open mike, and a week later I was on the show for the final night of the Holy City Zoo. I stuck with it for a couple of years.

I never got very far, mostly because I can't tell a joke. I tend to tell stories that I think are funny, rather than the standard formula -- setup, punchline, pause and double take -- and my stuff was always a little off. OK, a lot off. Also, I am not willing to look like an idiot for a laugh. I won't make faces, or wear funny teeth. I don't do well with demeaning myself.

I worked with an all-female sketch comedy group for a while. We were called The Doll Squad, and we had some fun. Two members quit right off, claiming that I actually hated women. I thought that was really funny, since at the time I was exclusively dating girls: The only lesbian who hates women, thank you! I think what it was, was that I don't put up with crap from women. I'm not catty, I don't play dumb to get ahead and I won't tolerate this in others. As well, I won't say I love something, just because it came from a girl. I think this offended them more than anything else did.

MOORE: Well, sure. I mean, women are presupposed to be nurturing and caring, especially toward each other, so labeling something all-female implies that it will also be sort of all-nice, at least within the confines of that all-female structure. When really, hopefully, we're coming to a time when we can engage more critically and thoughtfully with stuff like feminism or other political ideas. So what caused these two members to leave the troupe?

McCUBBIN: Jealousy, sheer jealousy.

No, seriously -- I was very critical of one girl's writing, and I was very vocal about it. I mean, when you are doing sketch stuff, you have to think about what it sounds like, how it will flow when read out loud. She put no thought into it and got caught up in an idea that wasn't going to work. On top of that, it was not funny. Painfully so. Over my protests, we went ahead and performed it. When it bombed (as I knew it would), I was very "I told you so." I am not too diplomatic. So, the writer, and her best friend, left the group in a very dramatic, over-the-top way. At first I was stunned, and hurt, then I said, "Eh, fuck 'em."

MOORE: Comedy's rough for this sort of thing, since you do have to draw to some degree from personal experience. How did you find putting yourself out there as a bisexual in a public forum? And keep in mind, I worked in comedy, too. In my experience, revealing personal things about yourself in a deliberately jokey environment can bite you in the ass.

McCUBBIN: Oh yeah, it can. Especially if you are foolish enough to show that you can be hurt by those kind of remarks. Some people get an unholy joy out of it. I was stupid enough to not only talk honestly about my sex life, but stupid enough to be honest about my bisexuality. I had people telling other comics and club owners that I was a slut, that I would sleep with anything just to get ahead (although, I have to admit, I heard this about every female comic I knew). The rumors got so out-of-hand that people I hadn't slept with were claiming that they had and other female comedians (and hangers-on) were telling me that I was "out of control."

Whatever. If I did half the crap in my life that I was accused of ...

MOORE: So, then, how could you ever have left the field (as if I couldn't guess)?

McCUBBIN: I had to leave comedy because of the overwhelming negativity. It was all the worst aspects of Hollywood: lookism, sexism, backstabbing, not being able to trust anyone. Plus, you were under attack sometimes for things that were really personal and important to you -- if you mentioned anything about your life, you could count on someone mocking it, and you.

Plus, I got really sick of being told "chicks aren't funny."

MOORE: Yeah, people always ask me, "What was it like working in comedy? Was it just a total blast?" And my response is always, "Comedy is not funny." They think I'm deadpanning, but I'm just serious. It's not a joke.

McCUBBIN: No, it's not! The most fucked-up people I have ever met were comedians. I hate to think that you have to be damaged to make comedy, but maybe it's true. You develop humor as a defense mechanism, from being abused. Maybe this defense goes haywire when you are rewarded for it.

MOORE: Your experience with an all-girl comedy troupe obviously didn't sour you from working in collaboration with other women. You and your XXXLivenudegirls partner, Nikki Coffman, seem to get along great despite her recent move. What prompted her move, why haven't we seen her around and how, exactly, do you guys work together?

McCUBBIN: Man, I miss Nikki. It's hard, finding someone you mesh with so perfectly, then having them dragged away. Nikki and her husband Craig had to move to Omaha because Craig got caught in the dot-com downturn, right as Nikki got pregnant. They have family there, so it was a soft place to land and they are getting a lot of support.

Nikki hasn't been around first because of her pregnancy (she was in the can't-stop-puking stage during the San Diego Comic-Con), then because of the cancellation of SPX. The sad thing is that was the only con she would be able to attend. She is due in February, so APE and Mega-Con are out. Unless we could sell tickets to her giving birth in the booth. Do you think that would sell?

We are working together now by the beauty and grace of FedEx and e-mail. Plus, we talk almost every day. She calls me and makes me listen to her sonograms.

MOORE: So the other online feature we're working on right now involves the organization Friends of Lulu. Have you been involved with them? Why or why not?

McCUBBIN: I have had one encounter with Friends of Lulu and it was pretty off-putting. No one wanted to talk to me about my work until I submitted it through the proper channels, everyone was pretty horrified by my title and my pink hair and the fact that I didn't already know who they were. I gave them a copy of our book and have heard nothing. I'm not planning on following up.

MOORE: Do you feel the need for some sort of organizational support as could be provided by such a structure, though, or do you think you can get this through other means?

McCUBBIN: I don't know, because I am not sure what kind of support they actually offer. Cash? Publicity? Calling every day, asking about our work and making vegan chocolate-chip cookies? 'Cause, y'know, those are the things that I am looking for.

Lulu seems to have reading lists, reviews and awards that are very insular, and important only to them. That being said, I really think that Robyn Chapman ought to win the Kim Yale New Talent award for Theater of the Meek. Does this disqualify me as an objective party?

I think I get the kind of support I need from other artists, from being part of an active artistic community. I can't work in a vacuum, and I enjoy the critical process, critiquing other artists work, and having my own critiqued. Feedback, mmmm, yummy! I think organizations like Friends of Lulu might be a little outdated. Not that I am not about supporting female artists, hell, no! I just think it needs to become more active, less, passing around lists and patting each others' backs, saying, "Aren't we supportive, poor little marginalized us."

MOORE: Comic to comics: How'd you make the transition? How similar are the fields?

McCUBBIN: The transition was a long and gradual one. I left stand-up and concentrated on my writing - I did a lot of spoken word. At The School of the Art Institute of Chicago I was able to get into some graduate writing workshops.

I don't find the fields too similar -- there are more straight white boys than anything else, yes, and crude humor seems to sell bigger, but otherwise I find comics a completely different scene. For one thing, everyone seems a lot more supportive in this industry -- no one is tearing everyone else down to make themselves look better. Everyone seems to genuinely want to see others do well. The idea is to grow the industry, rather than keep all the success to yourself. When I was doing comedy, the scene was dying, and the comics were doing their best to kill it. A friend of mine and I used to say that we could gage how well or poorly we were doing in a room by whether or not the other comedians were laughing. The more they laughed, the worse we were -- they were only happy when you bombed.

MOORE: That's another thing we have in common: Art school. How do you feel an art school education has informed you as an artist? As a comics creator, specifically? Did you get any formal training there for what you do now?

McCUBBIN: Oh, my God, I can't tell you how valuable art school was for me. I know it's cool to mock art school, and I understand where that comes from -- I saw an awful lot of crap in Chicago, lemme tell ya. But The School of the Art Institute of Chicago was the best thing that ever happened to me. It gave me confidence in my own abilities, it opened me up to a whole artistic world beyond the tiny graphic design world I had been inhabiting and it taught me how to give and take criticism. I didn't learn comix there as a formal structure, but I did learn how to get my ideas across in multiple mediums. I can paint it, draw it, write it and perform it. I can't yet get paid for it, but what the hell, I'm working on it.

MOORE: You were the initiator of the Left Coast SPX. What are your thoughts on the gathering, now that you've had some small chance to recover? Why did you feel it was important beforehand and what do you plan to do with what you learned now?

McCUBBIN: I felt it was important because everyone was in mourning, not just over the events of September 11th, but over the loss of SPX. I wanted to get my mind off of war and back on art. I wanted so badly to be a part of a community. Man, did I ever find one. Everyone was so positive and so full of energy -- I left feeling completely exhausted, but not depressed. I have hope about something, for the first time in a long time.

It has made me want to make this community grow and prosper. Kelly and I are working on starting our own press that will hopefully promote Bay Area comic artists, and as well, I feel like I have a group of people that I can talk to about my work. Feedback is so important to me -- I can't work in a vacuum.

MOORE: Yeah, that New York gang makes us West Coasters look like a buncha fools, with their camaraderie and their organization and their unity. It impressed me that you could drag your husband Kelly into the middle of this (Head BBQ chef, I think, was his official title) and even he would become infected by the comix love bug.

McCUBBIN: Yeah, Kelly came away totally jazzed and enthused about comix and about the talent pool in the Bay Area. So much so that he has decided to become a publisher, poor thing. We are starting our own press (called, most probably, Briar Rose Press, unless someone else has the name). We are even investigating buying an offset printer and running our own print shop. He's so cool. He's crazy supportive and he has always been my most effective critic.

MOORE: What's the best thing you picked up recently?

McCUBBIN: Wow -- I read so much, that's hard to quantify. Let's see, I just finished David Rakoff's Fraud, which I really loved. He's very David Sedaris-like. I just picked up Ultra Baroque which is a catalogue of the Post Latin American Art exhibit at the SFMOMA -- fascinating, creepy stuff. Comics-wise, I just read David Lasky's Boom-Boom for the first time -- wow! Also, I read Andrice Arp's "A Turnip's Progress, Part 1" in Hi-Horse #2 -- genius. Beautiful, beautiful. Oh, and James Kochalka's Kissers, and Ben Catmull's Paper Theater.

MOORE: Wait a minute, you have time to read things that aren't comics?

McCUBBIN: Oh yeah -- I am a voracious reader, and I read wicked fast. Like, speed-reading fast. I am always looking for new stuff, and I have a wide range of interests. I get sad if I have nothing to read.