Cover Letter: Comicbook Rockstar

Agentfenris aka Kurt Christenson

Born in 1976 to teenage parents in the back of a Mustang, Kurt Christenson grew up in Long Island. At three he had his skull clutched in a dog's jaw, two years later he died, only for a moment but long enough to change his life forever.

Grew up poor white in a rich black neighborhood, Wheatley Heights, renting the lower half of a house from a rockabilly couple. Junior High switched to mafia middle school in North Massapequa. Rode BMX, became a dirtbag, shoplifted, got beat up by cops.

High School I ran away from chick drama and dove into Dungeons & Dragons, comic books, and Asian Cinema. I was the dork court jester with mad long hair. Always the roadie, never the rockstar. Fine by me, I had Grant Morrison's Invisibles, Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan, Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man.

Only person I know who owned the original Watchmen issues (bought at Busy Bee Flea Market for $12). I currently own 30 longboxes that I moved all over NYC, from the East Village to Soho, from storage to Brooklyn. These thousands of comics inspired me to create my own.

When I was 27 I was depressed, fat, and in a terrible long term suburban relationship. But I was also a comic book writer moving out to the big city. In 2001 I started writing scripts, got paid, then co-created my own graphic novel: LEGEND OF LIQUID FURY with the most insane artist you can imagine.

We hit the cons hard and put that book in the hands of every major creator at cons all over the East coast, leading up to San Diego Comicon '04.

We were sitting with the ManOfAction team who would go on to change comics & animation for this new teen generation, we had a possible publisher and industry pros were talking about us. And then it all fell apart.

I had a nervous breakdown on that con floor. My first serious panic attack. The whole comic deal and buzz disappeared and I could only see how unhappy I was. I quit my job designing medical/financial forms, broke up with my girlfriend of 7 years, and started over.

27 without any experience of the partying twenties. I got high and played Goldeneye or watched a John Woo movie. I was a lightweight with a babyface, a hunger for adventure with severe social issues. A true dork with no style long out of touch.

Before then I went to Ska shows at Coney Island High, Dancehall Crashers at the Roxy, Rancid at Roseland. Late 90's in army jackets and ripped jeans wearing my signature huge red Converse. We sung Bloodhound Gang's One Fierce Beer Coaster on the way in on the LIRR.

So I drank, for free, a lot in the first year I lived in NYC. I moved in with this Colombian force of nature Diana Zuluaga. She taught me all I needed to know about living in the city. Scarfing free food at art events, to free movie passes, and open bars.

I worked for the paparazzi for six months with DZ but eventually we both quit and couldn't afford the higher rents down on Clinton & Delancey. We split and I lived out of my car for a bit, crashing in Jersey with some comic book pals from TenTonStudios.

I started hitting the nightlife hard with my future soulmate/life-partner Jared Drace, LES (in)famous lead guitar player for Activator, Voodoo Fe, but I met him as the driving force behind acoustic rock comedy duo Rooftop Quality. We eventually blacked out together on July 4th, 2005 at a GenArt event at the Puck Building.

(I have vague memories of that night, somehow stumbling out of Lucy's, somehow scoring digits from a hot blonde with a British Accent, totally blacked out. First date was a bit awkward when I didn't recognize her as she walked up.)

I had given up the dream of comic books, I just wanted to get shitfaced and score with chicks, or really, just drunkenly running amuck in Alphabet City, insulting chicks at every turn, somehow finding some skeeze to bring back to have sex atop the aforementioned 30 comic boxes. Either that or scoring a sandwich from Jose at St. Mark's Market.

But like all great romances we drifted apart, mostly due to our mutual love of self-loathing and a penchant for relationships. I lost my job as Obama took office and I moved in with a girl all primed to ruin my life, had it planned in my head all along.

In that time though my friends in TenTonStudios were all becoming working artists at Marvel, DC, Image Comics. It was so awesome to catch someone on the train reading their X-Men, Spider-Man, Deadpool comics. I still hit up the parties, and tried to rock the scene when I could.

It wasn't until Reilly Brown and I were hanging out on rooftops and drunk in dive bars that we came up with the concept that would become Power Play. A digital-first comic that was designed to read on iPads & iPhones. A sarcastic jab at superheroes & New Yorkers.

But fun like comics should be, representing actual people and how insane & badass they have to be just to live here. It was designed as tablets hit the scene and debuted at NYCC just after DC comics total line relaunch with same day/date digital releases.

Now I've gone from freelance photo editor for the paparazzi to photo for New York Daily News, assisted photographers on red carpet events, and now freelance for Entertainment Weekly.

In the meantime I launched the first Brooklyn Comics podcast WriteClub, wrote for and run the tumblr for Unwinnable.com, as well as my own personal, Instagram, three twitter feeds (personal, poet, and comic), and about to learn app building and programming.

I'm in the middle of developing an interview series called Three Rounds where I will interview a local Brooklyn creators at their favorite local dive. I have an extensive network of people from musicians, comic creators, filmmakers, comedians, burlesque, animators, performers of all kind ready and willing.

I just need the time. The day job, which is really a night shift, cuts my energy and neuters my social life. I have a few things in the works which will up my visibility, I just need a bare minimum of cash to survive as I scrape what I can of this city and market it cross-platform but in a way that only a fucking New Yorker with nothing to lose and nothing left but hustle and that dream.