illustration by jemiah jefferson
please do not reprint without permission
yes, I am a hypocrite
BIRTH NAME: Sheldon Sherman Boyd
AGE: 18
BIRTH PLACE: Norman, Oklahoma
HEIGHT: 173cm/5'8" WEIGHT: 63.5kg/140lbs
FAVORITE ACTIVITIES: Getting pierced, coloring his hair, sex, smoking grass, stealing, dancing, black&white movies, cuddling, reading questionable fantasy novels
INSPIRATION FOR LOVELY:
This sketch at right.
I made this drawing at work on a stray piece of white copy
paper (the tape I used to "laminate" it onto a notebook has
yellowed ofer the years, hence the pleasing flesh-tone color
of the background) during a lull of downtime on the Library
of Congress online database. I was 23 and experiencing a
pleasant, if brief lull of mania in the crushing depression
that San Francisco had evoked in me. I wasn't even thinking
actively about the vampire story at the time; I was just
doodling because e-mail was down. When I finished with the
sketch (several minutes after the 'net was back up), I knew
immediately that he was called "lovely", and that he was not
a vampire, but instead a gay goth street punk in Hollywood
as imagined in a Japanese anime cyberpunk movie (eyes way
too big, absurd hair). I have come to love him more than any
other character with a flame that burns straight and true
(yes, all of the others!). He is a pastiche of all the
fabulous queer boys who were foolish enough to let me fall
in love with them - you know who you are: Richard, Justin,
and especially the sublime Jeremy, who was not the first boy
I ever kissed, but with whom I felt an incredulous
excitement that has not been and can never be
duplicated.
