Vegas, Graphic Artists and Michael Chabon on Vegas

March's Las Vegas Life has an article about Vegas and graphic artists. The "Drawing Inspiration" column highlights some of the city's emerging comic book/graphic novel artists, like Scott Johnson and Alex Getchell. Additionally, James Hudnall, creator of "Espers", "Age of Heroes", "Shut Up and Die", and "Stalker", calls Vegas his home.

Author Michael Chabon detailed the lives of two comic-book artists and their creations in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The fictional duo created a collection of titles, and now Darkhorse Comics has issued Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist #1, based on the fictional comic book series in the book.

But before publishing "Kavalier & Clay", Mr. Chabon made his way to our fair city, and chronicled his trip in The Casino in the Crypt, originally published in The New York Times. His personal website has that story, along with other collected thoughts, articles, and literary ephemera on his phrenologically-themed website.

His take on the Luxor, "...The great Vegas hotels have generally had great signs, have often--strung, beaded, and tattooed with bulbs and tubing--merged with their signs, been transformed into immense advertisements for themselves; but with the Luxor, the hotel-structure component has been boiled away, reduced until nothing is left but a single immense Sign--one that, as if to emphasize its radical nature, breaks with the most ancient of Las Vegas traditions and disappears completely at night. Only its apex, where the eye would be on the back of a dollar, glows in the darkness, sending a pure cool colorless beam of light into the sky."