Some of you know Justin Leeper as an old Game Informer editor. Some of you know him from his writing in the SmackDown vs. Raw videogame series. A few of you know him from his comments on this very site. Now you can meet Justin Leeper, author of Still Man Fights!
In this interview, Justin Leeper talks about Still Man Fights and how his experiences in gaming, pro-wrestling, stunt choreography, and writing came together in the book. Find out why people are saying that it’s great for A Game of Thrones Fans and how the book’s fight scenes are similar to combat in Infinity Blade.
Kindly check out the interview and if you dig what Justin has to say then please check out his book.
@Big Blak You know, I totally forgot to ask Justin about Gwar during the interview. I'll ask him to expand on his Gwar duties in a comment. I remembered like 30 minutes after we stopped shooting. Ha!
Lol!!! I usually watch your videos when I get home and I was hoping that was in there but oh well lol. I'm still going to watch it.
OMG, major epiphany!!!!!! I can't watch videos at work unless I'm on lunch, but now that I have the G2X I can watch this right now!
I was used to navigating on the MyTouch 3G that doesn't have flash and a slow internet experience.
I started working with Gwar by editing their official website. It was a fansite that they liked more than their official one. The guy who did it was a good coder, bad writer. I would suggest corrections/edits, and one day he just called me the editor. I took that and ran with it, rewriting a lot of stuff and making new pages for things.
Gwar was going to be at DragonCon, this Atlanta event. I and a bunch of others from the Gwar internet community went. I introduced myself, and all the guys were awesome.
About 6 months later, I was doing my first wrestling show in Cleveland (driving up from Key West). I got Gwar involved, and they did their first actual wrestling match. I was Techno's slave, and he played a big role in my squash match (I was squashed). The show was a flop, but I got to know them better.
The next year they were on tour during DragonCon, and hired me to help set up/run the book with Sleazy P Martini. I did my best, and earned their respect. It was also just awesome to be able to help — going to the Slave Pit my first time, corralling a bunch of costume pieces and such, getting to hear Sleazy's stories while we tried to stay awake the 12-hour drive back to Richmond.
A few months later, I moved to Richmond — solely because I wanted to be a part of what they were doing. They took mercy on me and I went under the wing of Brad (Jizmak), the drummer and merch guy. I was his slave, doing all various merch duties. I was the first person they ever paid for the position; it wasn't much (less than my $425/month rent), but I was happy. I also hung out with the boys afterward, working out and playing hoops.
Around that time, they filmed the It's Sleazy movie. I helped out in various ways: doing PA duties during the sports-drink commercial, acting in the full-flo tampon commercial, and even being Beefcake's stand-in for the Nitro Burnin' Funny Bong video (I think I was the 3rd person to wear Beefcake's outfit after original Beef Mike Bishop and Casey Orr).
I got the offer to move out to MN to write for Game Informer, and I couldn't pass that up. I still keep in touch with several of the boys, though. I got Oderus to do voiceover for WWE SVR11, where I was able to direct him in the booth. I've been up on stage, shooting the blood canons. I even got to sing Sick of You live onstage for one Dave Brockie Experience show (side project with Dave, Brad and Balsac). I just talked to Dave the other day; his novel Whargoul is out (I had it on floppy years ago), and he want to collaborate with me on a Gwar video game.
So there's way more info than you wanted to know. But Gwar is one of those topics I can talk about for hours. In fact, X-Cops "The Party's Over" (another Gwar side project) just came on my iTunes DJ.
Now go buy my book! ;)
Nice Justin! I was expecting something along the lines of you working very close to, not with GWAR lol. It's cool to know that you were the one who got Oderus in the booth!
Justin I don't have a kindle I'm old school!!!!!!!
Your G2x has a Kindle app. :P
Ah touche but no credit card but I will be making some purchases from Amazon with a hired card, will that work?
Damn swype gift not hired lol.
Yup yup. That'll work.
The first time I saw Gwar, I was about 13 and they were touring to support America Must Be Destroyed. The second time I saw them, it was Gwar and X-Cops in support of the first (and only that I know of) X-Cops record as well as This Toilet Earth. I believe that was the first tour with Casey Orr.
The next time I saw them, I got backstage with some friends, met them all, partied a bit, and the girls I went to the show with got fed to the World Maggot (I could not be fed to it because the World Maggot is apparently very sexist).
I've seen them twice since then, fought my way to the front every time and went home soaked and dyed.
I personally would play the hell out of a Gwar video game. In fact, I would probably buy 2 copies and keep one sealed for the collection.
The closest you can get is the Beavis and Butthead game for Genesis. The point of the game was to rebuild your Gwar tickets lol
Same as the SNES version. I beat them both back in the day just to get to GWAR.
I thought the Genesis version was better though (they were 2 totally different games with the same goal).
Gwar got to do the art for their sprites in those games, and there were MIDI versions of a Gwar song or two. I never got that far, but I own a strategy guide I found at Half-Price Books for a buck.
N8R: I'm sure you already know X-Cops was made up of Gwar members. Crazy they opened for themselves. That was about the time I first got into them.
Yeah, but I didn't realize until halfway through the set of the show I saw. I remember thinking how incredibly awesome it was that here were these guys that not only played 2 sets, nor just 2 sets with costume changes… but it was X-Cops and then Gwar all performed by the same 5-7 people.
At the time, I didn't even know that Bishop had left the band yet. As soon as I saw Beefcake playing with a pick, I knew.
Out of coincidence, I ended up seeing my brother's band around that time and he was on a bill with the Jesus Lizard and Kepone.
About 1/4 through Kepone's set I realized who I was watching. The same dude I had been watching for years and the very first guy I ever looked that made me say "I wanna play bass like that."
The most valuable thing I pulled away with from my teenage infatuation with Gwar was that I need to be my own idol because even the most brutally dominate force on the planet is comprised of regular people like you and me. The experience opened up my eyes to what was possible and what was easily overlooked. I decided to stand out from that point on, and I thank everyone who was ever part of Gwar for that.
The books seems interesting enough, I might have to download the kindle app on my ipod touch so I can buy the book and give it a read. I'm not really a Gwar fan, but it's cool that Justin worked so closely with them like that.
For those without Kindles (or Kindle apps), I also have Still Man Fights up on Smashbooks — which allows for PDF versions and HTML versions, as well as most other e-reader support.
Raymond, maybe you ought to look into becoming an affiliate for that, too. ;)
With either version, you can preview the first 50 or so pages.
Kindles are pretty awesome, though. I've really enjoyed mine — takes up less space, it's very easy on the eyes, and you get instant gratification.
I will have to check out smashbooks. I like having .pdf copies of books, all of last semester's textbooks were .pdf's and it was very convenient in class. Kindle would have been a little better, and I'd love to get one, but I already have a laptop and no $$ yet for a kindle.
You know there's Kindle for PC too, right?
Yeah, but most of my textbooks were *ahem* free. Never saw a point for Kindle on PC compared to just getting a pdf on my PC. It would be more effective for me if I used Kindle books somewhere else too, but as of now I don't.
Well, that's the point. You can sync Kindle on multiple devices. It's nice to open a book right where you left off, no matter what device you're reading it on.
I realize that's the point, but I don't use Kindle on any other devices so it's sort of a null point with me right now. Going right back to the last page I was on would be kind of nice though.