By Ryan Riley, Contributor
If you attended the inaugural LB Comic Con last Saturday (and from the good turnout, you just might have), you may have seen a cowboy and Black Bolt wandering around the convention floor, playing guitar and singing a rather western-sounding song. If the song sounded familiar to you, then you must be a fan of Jonah Hex. The song is titled "The Ballad of Jonah Hex", written by Ian Frazier (Black Bolt), and it immortalizes a story arc from Jimmy Palmiotti's Jonah Hex comic. I haven't yet read any Jonah Hex comics (the closest I've come was seeing Jonah shoot Superman in Superman/Batman in the head with a Kryptonite bullet), but I was nonetheless intrigued by this passionate pair, so I just had to talk with them. As luck would have it, we had a friend in common: Mike Lerner of Pulp Fiction, who was also at the Con selling his wares. He introduced us, and after listening to them go through the entire song near the Pulp Fiction booth we got to talking.
Modern Mythology: For the record, gentlemen, what are your names?
Ian Frazier: Ian Blackwell Frazier
Rob Conrad: Rob Conrad
MM: How did the whole "Ballad of Jonah Hex" come about?
Ian: It came about from Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray. I started collecting Jonah Hex because I'm a big Clint Eastwood/spaghetti western fan, all of the Sergio Leone stuff, so I started reading the series. I was reading every issue and I got started writing the song about two years ago. The series came out in January '06, and then I started writing it about twelve issues in, and then they did that origin in that series based on the 1970's character, and so the third verse of the song is about the origin, exact to the continuity in every line. You can follow the series from issues 13 to 15 and it fits perfectly.
MM: Rob, how did you get involved with this?
Rob: He actually needed me to record the song, so we recently recorded the song at my place. I also played bass for him for a couple of the performances, and I'm playing acoustic guitar for the performances at the Con.
Ian: The live performance on the CD has Rob on bass and my buddy Jason Pataki on organ. It's the only time we had organ and bass on the song, which really added some depth to it. It was my big finale when I performed the song at DiPiazza's.
MM: Jimmy Palmiotti is here at the Con. Did you perform the song for him already?
Ian: I actually hit him up on MySpace, and he had seen the song on YouTube so he e-mailed me back and said it was great. I just met him face to face today, so when we found him we just busted the ballad out right there. It was such a culmination to play for the guy who inspired the song and reinvented the character.
MM: What's your take on the Jonah Hex movie and the actors that were cast for it?
Ian: I'm a huge Malkovich fan, so I'm really looking forward to that. I don't know much about the movie. I know they showed the trailer at the San Diego Comic Con, I didn't see it.
MM: With any luck they'll use the same story arc that you used for your song.
Ian: Here's hoping!
MM: How many comic conventions have you performed the song at?
Ian: This is the very first one. I've been performing the song at various venues, bars, clubs, you name it. It's a great party song, people get pumped up!
Check out the "Ballad of Jonah Hex" on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M64jPqFjrBY
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