The Levi Interview!

Levi Combs, in his own words, is a 42 year old father, husband, son, friend and brother. He’s a traveler, an outdoorsman, an artist, a beardo, a crappy movie lover, an Urbexer, a geek, an extremely struggling writer, a martial artist, an Odd fellow. He loves a damn fine cup of coffee and he don't take no lip from jive-talkin' turkeys.

Seriously though, he’s a guy you’d want to have in your corner if worse comes to worse.

So, let’s look into the ol’ noggin of Mr. Combs AKA  @americanmythyos on instagram.

Tell us about yourself. Where did you grow up? 

I grew up in a little town in the south called Mena, AR. In the 80s, Johnny Carson once referred to it as the poorest place in the United States. It's definitely one of the most racist places I've ever encountered. As an aside, the town looks like something out of a Jason Aaron story, but the countryside is gorgeous. 

I was an odd bird from the get go, but I eventually learned that if you make people laugh and you're not too much of a huge dick, they'll like you. 

Even though I'm a people person the majority of the time, I still struggle with being introverted on occasion. My wife and best friends don't buy it, but I promise you it's the TROOF! I find that it's fading away as I burn through middle age though, so I'm alright with it. 

You seem to love to travel. What got you into that? Where was the first place you traveled to and how old were you?

When I turned thirty, I realized that I'd really never been anywhere I really wanted to go and I'd really never done anything to be proud of, aside from being a father. A few months later I was out chasing down stuff I'd always wanted to see or do, but always told myself that I'd get to one day. The only difference between then and before was that I was actually doing it now. 

The first place I ever traveled to was Iceland, when I was a baby. Let's be honest though - that doesn't really count. These people who claim to be world travelers because their parents hauled them around with them when they were babies or little kids are just blowing smoke up their own asses. To be a traveler you need to get out into the world and fall in love with it. Make yourself a citizen of the world and get out and see it. Not just the touristy parts either. Go hang out with real people in real places. That sounds kinda douchey, but it's the truth. I'll trade 100 tiki bars on the beach for just 1 authentic experience abroad.

So, with that caveat, the first place I ever went to that got me out of my comfort zone was India. I was 35. I'd been to other countries before, but that was the first one that caught me off guard. That was the one where I started to become a traveler instead of a tourist. That was the beginning.

When was the first time you played a role playing game and what was it that you played? Did you have regular group that you played with? 

The first time I ever played an RPG was with a friend who got the old school red box Dungeons and Dragon set with the big dragon on the front. It wasn't very much fun and he wasn't a very good person to play it with, but the idea sunk in and I ended up playing RPGs for years. I remember there where some goblins or kobolds and an evil wizard. There might have been a carrion crawler in there too. Either way, I got killed by a skeleton. So goes the sad story of Fenwick the Elf!

Later on, I hooked up with a couple of brothers who's dad had played D&D in the military. Those games were my real entry into the hobby, in a sustained campaign. We played together for years. Those games really informed my whole outlook on the hobby. 

Now, I play it from time to time with my kid. He loves it and we have fun. I like watching him discover stuff the way I did back then. Hits me smack dab in my cold, black heart. 

You seem to be a jack of all trades kind of guy. what all have you had in your travels around america? 

Jobs? I wasted a lot of my 20s being a slacker and not pursuing things that I loved. It's a great regret of mine, but youth is wasted on the young. I worked crappy jobs. Whatever paid. Eventually I fell into the bar business and have literally done every job there is to do in that industry. I bartended for 13 years. Made a lot of friends, made some money and had some good times, and it helped me to travel and live comfortably enough to introduce my son to travel as well. Hopefully he'll grow up to be a citizen of the world as well, embrace new cultures and not think that the town he grew up in is the limit. 

These days I've slowed down, and work a more reasonable and realistic job (for a man in his 40s at least) here on a military base in Alaska. There's a future working for the government, and I like what I do more than the average person, I'd imagine. 

What would be your dream job? 

Paid to travel. Hands down. Move over Bourdain.

When did you fall in love with oddities and freakshow culture/artwork? 

Man, I have ALWAYS loved weird stuff. When I was a kid it was Famous Monsters of Filmland and Fangoria. Starlog. Piles and piles of comic books. Star Wars. Those weird Saturday morning cartoons that only real geeks remember, like Thundaar the Barbarian. The Science Fiction Book Club. 

As an adult, I've let some real gems slip through my fingers over the years. Stuff that I'd kill to have now. Collecting is a weird thing, you know? If you let it, that stuff can kind of own you, but if you're collecting because you want to surround yourself with things you find beautiful or that inspire you, then I feel like you have a leg up on those who are out there trying to make a buck. 

I always try and bring something strange home from when I travel, whether it's something small like a can of potted armadillo meat from a roadtrip to Austin, TX or a chip off of Marie LaVeau's grave in New Orleans to bigger stuff like a battered medical skeleton I found in a hidden closet in an abandoned children's asylum in Maryland. Friends bring me strange stuff too, like a mummified llama fetus from the Witch's Market in LaPaz, Bolivia or a bottle of snake wine containing a preserved cobra from Vietnam. Add that in with strange skulls, Ouija boards, weird puppets, bizarre taxidermy, bits of geological and natural curiosities and an eclectic collection starts to take place. 

Why do you love it so much? What's the attraction to you? 

Collections should reflect their owners. I'm a weird dude and I like weird shit.

You have collection of dvd/vhs movies that you lovingly refer to as your "Alamo Shit House" collection. Can you tell me where you got that name from and why? 

Hahaha, yeah. My best friend - Lawrence Hernandez - came up with that name. Obviously I could never use it in any commercial fashion, but it's a nice inside joke between friends.

I love bad movies - especially the ones that aren't trying to be bad - and I have even more live for the bad ones that think they are masterpieces. 

The movies in the Alamo Shithouse aren't just bad flicks. I lump cult films in there too, along with Grindhouse-era flicks, exploitation films, Kung fu flicks, monster movies, weird foreign films, Pinky Violence flicks, most non-blockbuster horror and sci-fi movies and just about any low budget or b-movie. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the greatest horror movies ever made, but it's also a classic Grindhouse flick, so it's right there in the Alamo Shithouse collection alongside Revenge of the Ninja, Lady Snowblood and Destroy All Monsters. 

What movies started your love for this genre? Do you have an all time favorite of the b-movie class? 

The cornerstone of my love for bad movies is what I call the "holy trifecta" - Troll 2, The Room and Samurai Cop.

My favorite? That's like asking me to choose between my children, but I've got a few that I watch over and over again, like the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Superfly, the Beastmaster, Evil Dead 2 and They Live (which also happens to have the greatest quote in cinema history), not to mention the three I mentioned above. 

If you could start a dvd movie company like criterion or arrow that put out movies, what kind of special features your movies have? 

Oh man, I dunno. Better commentary tracks for sure. Some of them are just SO bad. You ever listen to a commentary track by Schwarzenegger? It's every bit as bad as you imagine it would be if you were literally writing a comedy skit about how bad Schwarzenneger's commentary track would be. 

Who got you into comic books? What was your favorite comic book when you were a child? What was the one comic that read over and over the most? 

I got into comics early on because my Dad would take me to the barber shop to get a haircut and we'd have to wait our turn. The barber had an old stack of 60s-era comic books - torn, coverless, dog-eared copies of World's Finest, Amazing Spider-Man, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, Fantastic Four and so on. I'd look through those the entire time and when I was old enough to read, I'd read and re-read them every time we went in. 

I started actually collecting comics when I was a boy because my Mom would take me to the book store with her and if I was good, she'd buy me a comic book or two. The first one I can remember actually having for my own was the Marvel Comics Treasury edition of Star Wars, which was awesome because like every kid at the time, I was a huge fan. After that, I read every comic book I could get my hands on. 

The one comic I've probably read over and over the most is Mike Mignola's "Amazing Screw-On Head".  It's perfect. Literally. It's obvious it came from the heart and it shows on every page. He signed mine in Baltimore. No, you can't have it. 

Marvel, DC or both when you were a child? 

Both. No doubt. 

Any indy comic book faves? 

Oh, for sure. Mignola's "Hellboy". Miller's original "Sin City". Bagge's "Hate". "Milk and Cheese". The first 23 issues of "MAD". R. Crumb's stuff, of course. I could literally go on and on and on. There's literally hundreds.

Guilty comic book pleasures? 

"Lobo's Paramilitary Christmas Special". Anything with M.O.D.O.K. Or the Composite Superman in it. Garth Ennis' "The Pro" or "Adventures in the Rifle Brigade" (or whatever it was called). 

G.I. Joe. When did it start for you? Did you always collect them or was there a resurgence when you were older? If so what made you start collecting again? 

First Joe I ever got was Breaker. I got him because he was the communications guy, and my dad had been a Radioman in the Navy. 

Shortly after, I got a Snake Eyes for my birthday in 82', but his band was snapped and we took him back. I got Stalker instead, as there was not another Snake Eyes on the pegs.

After that, I traded a bunch of Star Wars dudes to some kids for most of the rest of the '82 line.

BUT.....!

When Destro hit the pegs at the local Ben Franklin, I lost my damn 9 year old mind. Who was this dude with armor on his head? Wrist rockets? Holy crap, it's the dude from the comic!

After that, it was ALL ABOUT THE VILLAINS. Major Bludd Mail Away. Hooded Cobra Commander Mail Away. Then Zartan!!! OH MY GOD! This dude changes colors!!!!

When I finally got my hands on Storm Shadow AND Firefly on the same day, it was magic. It was at the height of the "ninja craze". I had watched "House of Traps" and had been reading the comic, so I set about making a full on ninja base FULL of traps, trap doors and ninja stuff out of cardboard boxes, toothpicks, tinfoil, etc. It was glorious.

As an adult, I have a pretty sweet collection of vintage toys. I'm absolutely, 100% uninterested in anything that isn't vintage or that I didn't have as a kid. I don't care how beat up they are or if they're incomplete. Every once in a great while I'll pull Boba Fett or Cobra Commander or someone out and be reminded of being a carefree kid, then get inspired and go do something cool. Plus... pew pew!

Do you have a grail piece that you are looking for? Or have you already found it? 

I've found a few. I have an unopened Manglor Mountain from Ideal Toys that is one of my all time favorites. I've got a '77 Shogun Warriors era Godzilla that brings back some great memories. Would love to get a mint and complete Kraken from the short lived Clash of the Titans line. How sweet would that be?

If you were able to acquire any toy out there, no matter what the price, what would it be? 

Oh man, I have no idea. Does Luke Skywalker's original lightsaber prop count? Maybe Darth Vader's original helmet? It's only fair to my 4 year old self. 

Thanks so much for participating in this man! 

For sure man! Thanks!