Found one of the last flyers. @PowerPlayComic #nyc #digitalcomics (Taken with instagram)
Having ridden the New York subway system for five years, it seems the only real perils these days are rats, panhandlers, and being taken out by an errant cross kick from an energetic breakdancer. These photos from the How To Be A Retronaut blog are a wonderful reminder of a more colourful and edgy New York that is (perhaps sadly?) long since passed.
This is exactly what happened, except the mugging part took a few years, and I just walked away from the guy. I also think black out, vomit on the subway, and pass out on the sidewalk should be included, but maybe that’s just my first year in NYC.
i’d love to ok
pretty much.
spend $$$$$$$$.
FUCK.
rob.
love many.
start tattooing.
Steven Siegel.
More from this amazing photoset of NYC in the 80s here.
Damn, I remember seeing subway trains like this as a little kid when I went into the city with my grandma. Never seemed sketchy back then, but then again my grandma was a badass.
never a dull moment on the nyc subway
Ukulele and drum improv jam on the subway. Ms. Jessica Latshaw on the uke.
THRUST: a superpower city novel #NaNoWriMo Day 1
In New York City, having superpowers fucking rocks. Don’t let anyone tell you different. I know, you’ve seen those afternoon specials about whiny, trust fund kids who melt everything they touch, or the immigrant worker who erupted into sound waves in the subway system, screwing everyone’s Labor Day weekend and making the MTA hike our fares, again.
When you powers like mine, shit is so much easier. I mean, I don’t even take the subway unless I’m four sheets to the wind and navigating tunnels to avoid traffic and the goddamn pedestrians. I know I’m one of the lucky ones. My special skill set is quite handy actually. I can glide along electro-magnetic waves and just skim past bike messengers, I’m able to pulse a force blast that can launch me a mile into the air, careening past the Chrysler Building, and my reflexes crackle to life at the merest hint of dastardly-do in this fair city of mine.
That’s why I call myself Thrust. Yes, the jet stream of my rocketing body, stone hard as it pulses with power, gone in a blink of an eye, off to do battle with another foe halfway across town as you feel the breeze of my supersonic molecules whoosh past you. Super speed is the greatest superpower to have in this super slow ass city. TOURISTS GO HOME! YOU’RE KILLING THE FOOT TRAFFIC FLOW!
As for battle, well, no, I don’t ever do battle, per se. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bank robbery, and the only time I saw someone get shot was before I had my gift. I try and help out where I can. Wallets snatched are snagged back, cats swept from the street seconds before taxi tires flattened it. It’s seriously a major pain in the ass to actually pull off, I mean, seriously delicate handiwork here, but when you get that kid’s ice cream scoop back up on to the cone? It’s just worth it. Sometimes.
I’m still usually late for work. But that’s only because I know so much of what’s going on in the city lately. I try and cram way too much in and it just always backfires. Like this morning, I woke up late but was still able to snap a few pap shots of Kim Kardashian as she headed in to Good Morning America, and bam, right to my favorite breakfast sandwich cart on 33rd & 8th, swoosh over to the West Side Highway where I actually take a ten minutes to eat and thank god that I don’t live across the Hudson in Jersey.
Before I know it, I’m exploring some nook and cranny down in the Financial District, an alley that I never noticed, and then sure enough, by the time I hit the front door to the Daily News building, I’m a good twenty-minutes late. I told them I was sitting on the A by 14th Street for 30 minutes underground, and they totally buy it because it happens almost every damn day! I’m promised a bonus for getting the pic of Kardashian, even if most of them are too blurry.
The one real drawback to my powers is the constant vibration. Okay, now I know where you’re mind’s going there, and yes, that is a severe bonus for the ladies gracious enough to sleep with me, but in the day to day it becomes really awkward. I can’t really use a pen and paper anymore. It’s just one stream of scribbled out gibberish, and even with a keyboard I mostly just let my fingers sit just above the keys, zone out, and let them hammer away. I try and meditate, but I can never focus, so mostly I just drink cheap booze to keep the shakes at bay.
God forbid I drink a coffee, even decaf and I can shatter bricks with a twitch of my fingers. Yerba mate is good substitute, but it makes me feel like I don’t eat healthy enough, which I don’t, but there’s just too much good-bad-for-you food in the city. Cheap dumplings on Eldridge, chicken & onion slice at 33rd & 3rd, White Castle in Williamsburg. I was vegetarian for awhile but I only ate the fake meat at Red Bamboo on w4th, which is my absolute favorite, but vegan cheese doesn’t like me, at all.
Okay, the worst part about these powers, I can smoke. Fuck coffee, and all the rest, but if I even try and light up after dinner, or between PBRs outside a dive bar? I pretty much hack and gag til I scour the back of my throat with stomach bile. I loved a good smoke back in the day. I only ever smoked regularly for those rare and beautiful moments when all you need is to be alone, in the rain, tucked in a doorway, no idea where you are going to live and dead set on never calling that insane chick ever again…and you pop open the pack and there’s three left.
One for now. Two for five minutes later, and three for first thing in the morning. And that’s all you need right then to let you know that you’re going to be just fine. At least til tomorrow.
POWER PLAY issue#01 Drops Tomorrow From ComiXology!!
An early decision by Reilly and myself was that if we were going to develop a comic together it would have to take place in NYC. There are just so many cool spots, rooftops, dive bars, random sculptures, street art, etc. all over the five boroughs, so why not showcase them? Why not create some fun superpowered twenty-somethings to run amok through these streets?
All the locations in Power Play will be actual places you can visit yourself. (Though no guarantee that it’ll look exactly the same, NYC is always changing!!) Here are two locations you can see in our FREE PREVIEW!
Up above we have Union Square, a hub of activity and probably the most useful subway station in the city. It also features one of my favorite and unusual pieces of public art in the city, the Metronome, by Kristin Jones & Andrew Ginzel, installed in 1999.
Then we’ve got the opening action scene in the series which takes place on the Queensboro Bridge, or the 59th Street Bridge as it’s sometimes called. Linking Queens and Manhattan it’s a bridge that doesn’t get as much attention as the other bridges but it has a great view and sports the Roosevelt Island Tramway. You may’ve seen it featured in such films as Woody Allen’s Manhattan, John Carpenter’s Escape From NY, and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.
The first issue has even more spots from NYC, and the future of the series will see the characters fighting one another everywhere from Brooklyn to the Bronx.
What’s your favorite location in NYC?
