There are very rare times in our lives when we come across someone who is truly great at something. Be it throwing a football, solving impossible math equations, writing the greatest novel of our time or simply creating a magnificent piece of art that takes our breath away. These are the ones that are the true stars and should be in the spotlight. In an age where everyone is trying to stretch out that last 15^th minute of fame, wether it’s a reality show star or internet “celebrities” the truly masterful people are very rarely ever given their due props. Fortunately in this instance I can and will give someone the praise they deserve and have earned.

 I’ve been a member of the Giant Robot forums for over 7 years and in that time I’ve come across and met some truly good people. Some people I’ve merely had exchanges with on the forums and others I’ve had the pleasure of raising a glass and sharing food and drink with. One of the people whom I’ve yet to break bread with but have had the pleasure of getting to know long distance is board member Shandy Gazo, aka evillilgirl. More lovingly known as “ebil” on the forums, Shandy has always been the one board member who astounded me with her vast knowledge of anime and who over the years has showcased her amazing artistic talent. Hailing from Louisville, KY or “Louis-evil” as she refers to it, ebil has been putting in work creating custom art, 1offs and showcasing her works at various shows and exhibits. I got a chance to sit down and have a chat with Ms. Ebil and get a sneak peak of where her inspiration comes from, where she’s been and what’s on deck for her in 2010.

Hey!! So I’m glad we finally got this chance to sit down and talk. How are you?

A bit under the weather but it’s okay. Just what happens when you’re living in the Ohio Valley. Today our temp is 7 degrees!

Ouch! Sorry to hear that.

My own fault. On NYE I was doing Stoli shots and thought it wasn’t cold outside. I had my Russian hat on but it didn’t help my ears.

Yeah that’ll do it. Don’t worry this won’t take long. Now who is Ebil and what does she rep?

Well, I guess first and foremost I represent myself and my thoughts feelings intertwined with a deep love of surrealness and love of music. I’m very much into peoples or things in natures uniqueness that possibly others don’t see and that influences a lot of what I do i just try to keep it real, but found out my realness a lot of the time varied with others’ perceptions is different.  I love how art and music can open others minds

Deep, haha.

LOLZ!  First interview here plus I’m on sinus meds bare with me.

Will do. So give us a quick background rundown. Were you born and raised in Louisville?

I was born here in Louisville before the fam moved to Tampa when I was about 3 or so and lived there for about 7 years until finally moving back here. I have moved back and forth from here to Florida a couple more times. Last time I lived on the east coast around West Palm Beach/Wellington and would visit Miami off and on.

Right on. When did you catch the art bug?

Since I was 3.  My mums used to put me in a highchair with watercolors so she could cook dinner and I have never stopped since.

So your mom was what got you into art?

Yes! My mum is this really amazing artist herself so she influenced my creativity. When we lived in Tampa she would take me to the Dali museum and I would walk around there staring at paintings that seemed so ginormous to li’l me ^_^

Indeed. Who else do you list among your inspirations and favorite artists?

When I was young my first love was Van Gogh. His style was so crazy to me and I loved it as I grew older.  Of course Salvador Dali. From there Gieger, Masamune Shirow, Yoshitoshi Abe, Katsuya Terada and Junko Mizuno just to name a few. I love Mamoru Oshii too. His movies can keep me inspired for days.

Yeah I noticed the Shirow influences on one of my favorite pieces of yours, “Wired” I think it was. So how’d you start and what shows have you showcased your art in?

I started with my clothing brand Num Num, and debuted at Demf in a booth right next to Kevin Saunderson and did fairly well. I was in a graffiti invitational with Gallery Domingo (http://www.gallerydomingo.com) and I got 3^rd place. Evol got 1^st and Deaduluas 2^nd.  Then I started to paint more and show in galleries and participate in shows around the U.S.  I have had art shows with evol, Daedalus, Gallery Domingo, Mark Mothersbourgh, Devo Anti War Show, Daniel Johnston, HR Giger, Clive Barker and the Dirty Art Show last year. I’ve also had a show with Art Sanctuary which is a local artist group in Louisville. I do shows that Scott Scarboro also puts on. Now, I just sell to private collectors and just got signed to work on a comic book for a new company called Stumbling Lotus Press due out in May 2010. Still choosing the story I want to illustrate  so I’m reading scripts and all that. This will be my first publication for comics.

Nice. So comics are the new realm you’re entering?

Yeah. They said they would also pair me with a writer if I had my own characters with their own stories but for right now I want to get my comic book style down first and illustrate others’ stories. I do have stories but they are very much a works in progress. One day… ^_^

So you can pretty much say you’ve had an affinity for comics?

Totally!!  When I was 10 I was obsessed with X-Men comics. From there my first exposure to Manga and anime was Appleseed and Ninja Scroll. Then I started to try to get my hands on whatever anime I could find. Somewhere in-between  I got into graffiti when I started traveling through the underground scene when I was in my teens. Tribal and Wild Style were my favorites.

How’d you stumble across Giant Robot?

We had just moved back to KY in 2000 and my man found this awesome li’l magazine called Giant Robot and showed it to me. From there I got connected on the forums and have loved it ever since. A whole decade ago, wows!

Yeah, time flies. So I’ve seen your munchkins and they are adorable. Want to touch on your fam a bit and how motherhood has affected you creatively?

Tallying it up right now, the years counted are 13 together with the Mr ^_^ I finally gave in and we got married last year. We have done a lot of growing up together. He is a DJ and has DJ’d for the whole time as I draw and paint. As far as my kiddos, changed me? No, not really. They are a part of me if anything. I look at them as my greatest masterpieces I have made. Trying to figure out how to paint and be a good mom was a hard balance at first but I got there. They are into art and music as much as we are. Do they inspire me? Yes very much so everyday. I swear my 4 year old was the one spouting off which characters I should paint for my Kokeshi line I just did. Every couple of minutes she would run up to me painting and say “Mom you should make a Totoro or make No Face then make a Astroboy!” and thus the characters I did very much turned out on what she requested.

So what’s the art scene like in Louisville?

In the past, it was limited sometimes to lowbrow artists but has been currently arising out of art that just isn’t about chickens and horses. We have many urban artists here, a lot from Cali. One gallery that I would love to show in is the Tim Faulkner Gallery who has a nice mix of art styles. Also Derby City Expresso opens their doors to unique artists. I currently just participated in their deck the halls skateboard show. There is one group of local graff artists that put on the Clay Buffet. They clear out their pad and make it a gallery every first Friday. I had art there once. You really never know what you are going to find here. I am proud to be from here, it’s mos def a creative city and it’s embracing too. You go down to the highlands and almost every small business has lovely graf murals on their walls supporting the local artist.

Interesting. So any shows you’ll be participating in?

I will be doing a 3 day art show at Louisville Glassworks march 5-7^th.

(http://www.louisvilleglassworks.com/index.html )

Cool! Any final thoughts and links to where people can see and buy your art?

Sweet yes!!

Websites:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5397211

http://www.youtube.com/user/evillilgirl

http://ebilz.blogspot.com/

http://www.myspace.com/evillilgirl

http://twitter.com/evillilgirl

http://evillilgirl.tumblr.com/

As far as final thoughts, a quote that I love from Oscar Wilde right now: “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” — Oscar Wilde ^_^

Nice. Once again, thanks for taking the time out to chat. Much love and luck this year from all of us at Flos Angeles, Ebil!  We can’t wait to work with you on some upcoming projects this year.

So I’ve never hid the fact that I’m a big, big comic book geek. In fact I guess you can call me a fanboy. Growing up I couldn’t wait till I got my allowance and was able to go to the comic shop and just gaze at all the comics on the wall. From Batman, to the X-Men to SpiderMan they were all my heroes. Although the Dark Knight Detective fascinated me and was a favorite of mine, the hero that I always the biggest fan of was the Green Lantern.

From the first moment I saw the cover to Emerald Dawn II pt 1, I wanted to be a Green Lantern.

And more than being the Green Lantern I wanted that ring.  Batman might have had his cars and gadgets and what not but with that power ring you could do anything! Unfortunately it took DC Comics awhile to build on the high demand of peoples’ desire for their own Green Lantern Power Ring.

Like all of us, I grew up and although comics were an on again/off again relationship with me, I never forgot about wanting that ring. It wasn’t unil years later that the desire returned with vengeance. I was getting into a lot of new hip hop at the time and I remember hearing Visionaries The Blessings at a friend’s place. I asked to see what cd was playing and he handed me The World Famous Beat Junkies vol. 1

Of course the first and probably the only thing I noticed about the cd was that there on the front of this really dope mixtape was a big old Green Lantern emblem. I was blown away that this ill DJ crew would be using a comic book characters insignia as part of their crew name. I was then more blown away when i saw a picture of Mr. Choc in an issue of Beat Street I think holding up a plastic Green Lantern ring! Now I know that as ill as this crew was they didn’t have the means of producing that ring, so I knew my answer lay in the domain I knew, comic books. So I began the -hunt. Now remember this was pre-eBay and the internet was still relatively new so I had to call comic shop after comic shop to try and track this thing down because I just had to have that ring. I finally found a shop that had some and drove there to purchase it. I come to find out that these rings were promo giveaway rings DC had used to promote the Green Lantern mini series “Mosaic”. So I arrive at this shop and fulfill a lifelong dream of owning a Green Lantern power ring. And not just a plain plastic ring but a plastic ring witha glow in the dark center!

So seeing the fervor in my eyes from getting my hands on this ring and after selling it to me for like $4-$5 the comic guy busts out this gem:

Now this made my jaw drop. While I held a plastic toy, this guy had in a nice felt ring box a real, metal Green Lantern ring! The kicker? It was gonna cost me a whopping $60!! Now I didn’t have a problem dropping the few bucks on the plastic ring but I wasn’t ready to spend that kind of cash. I thanked him and left with the desire burning in me. Needless to say a week later I was back in that comic shop buying that ring. Over the years since DC released that ring it got wise to the demand for power rings and released a variety of them in many different incarnations. Some included with certain action figures, others as part of bust statues and even a full size green lantern. Now I had been out of the comic book game for a few years now, but I finally decided to make the trek and experience San Diego Comic Con for the first time. In the months leading up to the ‘Con I began reading up about what to expect and also familiarize myself with the goings ons in the comic book community.  And that’s when I saw it. Up to this point I was only familiar with of course the Green Lantern green ring and Sinestro’s yellow power ring, but this just threw me for a loop. What did I see? Nothing less than a Black Lantern Ring!!!

Scheduled to be given away in conjunctionwith Blackest Night #1, you know I just had to get my hands on this ring. When Comic Con occurred I was so caught up in the excitement of the SDCC experience that I forgot about this book release. Fortunately I found a vendor that had a fresh new bag of rings and I scooped up a plethora from him. In addition to the Black Lantern ring I also was fortunate enough to get an led light up Green Lantern ring the WB/DC were giving away to promote the upcoming DVD release of the animated Green Lantern movie. Upon arriving back to LA I decided to begin getting weekly comics again and of course continue the Blackest Night story arc because hey this was a major story arc involving my favorite comic book hero. And of course I was once again back in full Green Lantern ring mode. So I began to surf the net and ebay on the hunt for a prior year’s SDCC Green Lantern ring giveaway and also see if I could find some more of the Mosaic rings for cheap when I came across an auction for 8 different colored Corps rings. Whaaaaaat?

Having been out of comics for awhile I was unaware that a full spectrum of color Corps had emerged in the Green Lantern universe. I only knew of course of the Green Lanterns, then apparently Sinestro had his own yellow corps and the newly introduced Black Lantern Corps. What I did not know was that there was also an orange, red, sapphire(hot pink), indigo and blue Corps! And to top it off each one of the Corps was going to get a ring!! Now of course I needed to find some concrete evidence and after a few minutes online I came upon various blog entries confirming that DC was going to release promo plastic rings similar to the Black Lantern ring of all the various corps INCLUDING GREEN LANTERN CORPS, to coincide with various issues of different books that fell in the Blackest Night story line.  By now you know I was not gonna miss out on this. After finding the release schedule I developed a good relationship with my comic shop staff, provided the owner with how the rings were to be released and I worked out a deal to be laced with more than enough rings to satisfy me.

After months of anticipation I’ve finally got a complete color spectrum of color rings:

They are a magnificent sight. I’m going to look for a pretty black ring/jewelry box to make a snazzy display of all of these rings. So if you’re interested in having your very own set of Corps color rings, hit up your local comics shop before they run out. I’m sure they will be more than happy to sell you a complete set or if they’re nice enough just give them to you. Oh and I couldn’t leave without giving you a shot of my Green Lantern only ring collection:

Over the past weekend Diamond Supply co had a massive relocation sale. Nick will be moving the Diamond flagship store to a bigger and deffer location so he decided to unload a ton of gear. The event was an insane hit, with the line forming since Friday at about midnight and going strong till the store closed and 7pm on Saturday night!!! This was a good chance to score great amounts of gear from this year and some from last. I of course was in the building along with some of the OG campout homies FA’s own Fest, my boy JoeySBxSD, the other homie and FA “model” etc and big TonyTones. 

In addition to the sale items, Nick informed people that a limited amount of the RESN dunks aka the “Gucci” dunks were available for sale days before the release. Overall the sale was a huge success with Nick as always taking care of the fam by lacing us up with extras.  The sale wraps up tomorrow then moves to the Bay for the weekend taking up residence at FTC. I’ll post pics once i get the ones I took off my camera.

So if you’re familiar with streetwear then you know that Blvck Scvle has been on the come up faster than gas prices in an oil crisis. Founded by meg@gem, Blvck Scvle was more of an ideology than just a clothing line. Showcasing meg@’s views and thoughts on subjects such as death, government,religon and identity, over the past few years Blvck Scvle has become more of a movement than a brand.

Continuing in the tradition of opening the public’s eyes, meg@gem, Blvck Scvle and Sean Desmond bring you the Tenderloin Project. Watch the video, be moved and motivated.

The Tenderloin Project x Black Scale from Sean Desmond on Vimeo.