Roundeye at “Central Station”
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Roundeye at “Central Station” |
eXile: The “Roundeye” adventures taking place in the nightclubs “Central Station” and “Three Monkeys” were never published in the eXile. Why?
EM: Well, I think that was a collective decision between a former editor at the eXile, the artist, Roman Papsuyev, and some people from the management of the actual clubs. They have the same management, you know-the clubs are actually located very close together, in the Paveletskaya region. It’s about a ten-minute walk between them...
eXile: Why didn’t the management want the comics published? For that matter, who was this former eXile editor? Most people think the paper’s always had the same editors.
EM: No, that’s not true. For about a year the paper had a managing editor. His name was Jon Ramirez. He wrote under a pseudonym-”Naum Kimmelman”. You might remember that psychoanalysis column...
eXile: Oh, that thing. That wasn’t bad.
EM: No, it was clever, but it took him two full weeks to write each one. He’d sit there every day for ten hours, and at the end of two weeks he’d have 400 words. It drove everybody at the paper crazy. That, and the fact that he worked for the New York Times. He was an intern there-he only worked at the eXile on a volunteer basis. Anyway, he was forced to leave the country about a year ago when he was caught stealing a fire hydrant from the Times offices. He tried to say it was an assignment from the eXile, but not even the Times people believed him... Actually he was a kleptomaniac, hence the fascination with psychoanalysis.
eXile: Getting back to the “Central Station” comics...
EM: Yeah, anyway, Roman and I had spent a long time working on those comics. Roundeye was always meant to be a gay superhero. But in the early adventures, we kept him in the closet. It gave the comics a sort of campy undercurrent. But after a while, we started playing around with the idea of exploring Roundeye’s private life in a series of adventures. The idea was to make him a completely sympathetic, well-adjusted gay man, enjoying a healthy and satisfying gay lifestyle in secret. The idea was to follow him around to various nightclubs, perhaps develop a sort of rewarding and uplifting love story between him and a man he meets in a club.
eXile: In “Central Station”?
EM: Well, that was one idea. In the early comics we always emphasized the idea that Roundeye was a man with taste and style. When he wasn’t in uniform, he was always wearing some sleek ribbed black turtleneck, or relaxing in a cafe in Prague, or worrying over the furniture arrangement in his loft in Manhattan. Obviously, if he was going to be hanging out in a Moscow gay club, it had to be a place like “Central Station”-or, if he was feeling a bit wilder, “Three Monkeys.”
eXile: Why?
EM: Well, Roundeye wouldn’t be the kind of guy to hang out at some crude meat market. He’d want a place with a low-key atmosphere, that served a good cup of coffee, and had high-class entertainment. “Central Station” fit the bill. It’s got an unpretentious exterior-in fact, there’s no sign at all outside, and there’s generally no loud crowd hanging around the entrance. As a high-profile closeted superhero, this would have been important to him. He would have wanted a quiet place with a crowd of regulars.
eXile: Are you saying it’s an exclusive club?
EM: Not exactly. It’s just that there are a lot of regulars there. Everyone pretty much knows everyone else. I’ve been there, it’s got kind of a family atmosphere.
eXile: Are you gay?
EM: Well-I, uh, I didn’t say that. I’ve just spent some time there.
eXile: In this one drawing, you’ve got Roundeye relaxing at a table, drinking some elaborate cocktail.
EM: Yeah. That’s in the upper cafe area at Central Station. He’s drinking a Pina Colada in the picture. Again, that was going to be part of an ironic portrait of Roundeye that was to come out in later adventures. In public we planned to have him campaigning against alcohol-you know, posing in D.A.R.E. posters and that sort of thing— but the truth, which we were going to reveal, was that he had a weakness for tropical cocktails. Anyway, they’ve got a whole list there.
Providing needed aid at “Three Monkeys” |
EM: What’s he looking at in the picture?
eXile: He was meant to be facing the stage. This was a miscommunication between Roman and myself. They have live entertainment shows at the club on most nights, usually at around 1:30 a.m. They’re very popular. In this scene he was supposed to be watching “The Sisters Karamazov”. Kind of a camp nightclub act...
EM: You’re saying the artist forgot to do the scene right?
eXile: Yeah. Roman said his imagination failed him when he had to draw that scene. I meant to take him to the club to actually show it to him, but he came down with flu-like symptoms on the appointed night.
eXile: The flu, or flu-like symptoms?
EM: Flu-like symptoms.
eXile: Okay, what about this scene with Roundeye giving the young man a cape? What happened there?
EM: That was in “Three Monkeys.” That particular scene was in what they call the “dark room” there. It’s just a sort of dark room where men can sit and talk. Roundeye here was consoling a young man who’d just had a fight with his lover. In the end of the comic, he brings them back together, and they walk off into the sunset. You know, everybody hand in hand, the two men saying “Thanks, Roundeye!”, and that sort of thing.
eXile: The sunset?
EM: Well, not the sunset, exactly, but a VIP area. They have these rooms there you can rent for free— actually you pay twenty bucks, but for that you get a bottle of champagne, a fruit plate, and chocolates. They’ve got TVs in them that show erotic movies, these snazzy deco couches, wall-to-wall carpeting, the whole nine yards. You can bring as many people as you like in there, and anything goes. (Coughs) I mean, if you just want to go in and relax, that’s what they’re there for.
eXile: Wasn’t there supposed to be a striptease scene?
EM: Yeah, well, there are male strippers in “Three Monkeys”, and the original text I had written opened up with a frame showing a naked stripper from behind in the foreground, with Roundeye, barely noticeable in a large crowd, cheering in the background. But that scene didn’t get drawn.
eXile: Why not?
EM: Well, again... Look, I don’t want to complain about Roman. We have a great artistic relationship, we always have. But he was always squeamish about drawing scenes he considered pornographic. He didn’t like drawing naked bodies. As I understand it, he and Ames nearly came to blows once over some other comic, one not involving me.
eXile: What was it about?
EM: I don’t remember. I think Ames wanted a comic depicting Ames himself kneeling in front of some girl with a completely limp penis, and a violent grimace on his face. Roman thought the whole thing was just too much, I think. I don’t remember the details.
eXile: So why didn’t the “Central Station” comic ever make it into print?
EM: Well, as I said, there were many reasons. In the end, I think I felt that the comics didn’t quite capture the atmosphere of the place. And that Ramirez character seemed to think the love story I’d written wasn’t convincing. At the time, I thought he was just a homophobe. Then I found out about six months ago that he’d come out.
eXile: He’s gay?
EM: Well, he’s living with some waiter in Miami, apparently. I don’t what he’s calling himself, but we all get the picture.
eXile: Will these lost Roundeye strips ever be published?
EM: Roman and I are working right now on a Roundeye compilation. It’s going to include a long graphic novella, “Roundeye’s Story”, that follows the superhero from childhood through his teen years. It ends with him discovering his super powers on a beach in Cancun. The second half of the book is going to be a compilation of the other strips. The ones you’re referring to will be included.
eXile: So we’ll see the notorious “banana” scene?
EM: (laughs) You’ll see it. It took forever to convince Roman to do it, but he did. I’ll tell you, he might hesitate from time to time, but when he gets down to business, he’s really a professional.
eXile: Thank you for your time.
EM: Thank you.