The Infamous Comic-Con Loft Party

The most insane, completely out-of-control Comic-Con party ever.

In 1993, The Loft at 624 Broadway was only occupied by Hypno magazine and when we moved in, it was a trashed and abandoned warehouse.  I got talked into taking on the editorial reins for the mag as it grew and I just closed my screenprint art studio and punk rock shop, The Store That Cannot Be Named and I was all-in. It first became an incarnation of “The Loft” in 1992.

Our magazine headquarters was a 10,000-square-foot, wide open space that was originally a bowling alley back in the sailor heyday of WW2.  It fell into deep disrepair and languished into an occasional storage space until the elevator gave up.  We were just about to go national, international actually, with our print magazine and moved there to save money and live communally.  It was a wreck, but we punk-rocked it and slowly built out a cool space in between putting out issues.  It was an all-encompassing life, but it all started with 3 guys and some occasional helpers.

This story takes place in 94, when it was actually starting to build some momentum, both the mag and the Loft project. The Loft lasted for damn near a decade and evolved and devolved into a lot of things, ultimately ending in a catastrophic mess, the mag is a story for another time.  The part about the Loft history that many people don’t pay much attention to is that the whole absurd project was funded by the business conducted by Hypno Magazine.  I was one of the publishers, as well as Editor in Chief, and our ad sales dudes Shifty, Chris, and Tobin hustled their asses off to bring in enough revenue to pay the rent, keep the lights on, pay the print bill and buy ramen and beans.  We paid the bills for 4-5 years, also paid for most if not all of the build-out, and provided some stability since most of the staff actually lived in the loft, and we were basically the grown-ups.  But grown-ups with an absurd artist collective mentality and a deep desire for an experimental life.  When we were able to put together a deal with the odd SD yoga cult, Circle of Friends, to bring in a bunch of their computers and equipment; it was only with me personally guaranteeing their safety and willingness to replace them if any went missing.  It was when the magazine (and me) left that the place really spiralled into madness.

Anyhow, we can get back to that, this is about the party.as

Hypno magazine was one of the earliest adopters of comics as “cool.”  We had great relationships with all the cool-ass underground comic publishers and had collaborated with Fantagraphics books during the 1993 San Diego Comic-Con and had a party to culminate the HateBall tour. It was a hit and generated a lot of good buzz and benefits for both Fantagraphics and Hypno, not to mention, we had such a blast that we all decided to do it as an ongoing thing.

So I started putting together the 2nd Annual Insanely Secret Comic-Con Loft Party.

A lot of people were still talking about the previous years event, and even though at that time there were fewer stars at Comic-Con, pretty much all of them showed up to the party.  So everyone wanted to be involved.

Fantagraphics gave me a budget and I put it together.  In the years following Last Gasp became a primary sponsor too, in fact, Ron Turner who was in attendance discussed it with me the night we are digging into here. I started moving the wheels of progress and it took off.  A record label wanted to bring in a couple of bands, Wool, Throttle, and then I asked my old roommate Mitch whose band No Knife was getting a lot of notice, to be an opener.  So now, I needed sound systems, amps, all that shit.  So, I asked JXL from Crash Worship, who was fully involved with the development of the Loft recording studio we were building (again, all as bootstrap and punk rock as anything ever was.) I also asked Steve Pagan, a DJ that was becoming a permanent fixture there.  He may have even been living there by then.  Hundreds of people lived there from time to time, I gave up on trying to keep track. But everyone there chipped in, I mean it was gonna be a night of unlimited free beer for them! A dream come true! Branden Powers of Evel Pie and Golden Tiki fame helped stuff congeal too. Although back then he was famous for being the original CA mega-rave promoter.

Then I got call from a rep at Roger Corman’s office and they wanted advice on doing a Comic-Con party, my advice was to join us.  Corman is a legendary B-Movie monster maker and I was thrilled that he wanted to come on board since he was launching a comic book imprint.  Also, I needed a bigger budget.  So they threw some money in the pot, and I negotiated with our downstairs neighbor that had a 5,000-square-foot photo studio, to use as a stage for the bands.  

THEN I get a call from Glenn Danzig, who was launching his Verotik comic book company.  He wanted the same advice and I gave him the same response.  He wanted to bring in 10 cases of champagne and a couple of strippers.  Okay. Why not make it weirder.  It was 1994, we were all dumb as hell, thoughtless, obnoxious, and in need of the evolution we sought.  I recommended he use the shell of the music studio we were building. Make it the Verotik Stripper room.  He agreed.

Then I got to put together a side stage for a lounge singer we covered named Harvey Sid Fischer who had a series of Astrology Songs that were stunningly kitschy.  Plus Fantagraphics artist Dame Darcy was gonna play and sing with an old-timey saw as an instrument.

Frank Kozik, another artist we frequently worked with even did a poster!  (He had finished it before Danzig came on though.)

We rented a hundred chairs, brought in 30 kegs, a couple of cases of whiskey and I realized from the buzz, that we needed even more room.  So I went to the boxing gym and paid the manager to let us use the 4th-floor gym as a hang-out lounge.  I think I gave him 500 bucks. He figured it wasn’t gonna be a problem since the gym’s owner lived in Vegas and hardly EVER came by.

Yeah, more to come about that.

So now it wasn’t just the 10,000 sq. ft. Hypno Loft, it was most of the building, 25,000 sq. ft.  Nuts!   

August 6, 1994 we flyered every cool person at the Con.  At about 7 we opened the doors at the entrance on Broadway, we had security dudes all over and ran it rave-style.  BUT it was too much of a success.  I have pictures somewhere that I’ll add when I find them, but it went way off the rails, in a good way.  Thousands of people showed up!  Every floor was packed!  Lines to the stripper room, people chilling and messing around in the boxing gym, me constantly assuring the Vice cops that kept coming by it was private, under control, and ending soon.  Those were lies of course.

There are many stories to tell about that night and the people sleeping on our dozen couches that were still there in the morning, some never leaving.  There was even a story about the party that came out in Murder City Comix cuz they felt it was life-changing!  People are still talking about it almost 30 years later. 

But my fave is about Danzig, or rather his bodyguard. I forget his name, I think it was Dennis, we’ll call him Dennis, but anyhow Danzig was getting a bunch of death threats so he hired this guy.  Glenn was pretty huge then and everyone clamored for him.  Having him and his crew at the party was a wonderfully surreal addition.

I was making the rounds, going from space to space, checking kegs, mopping slop, doing all the showrunner shit you gotta do and I went in to check on Glenn.  Everything was going good, then I get a message on the headset, a total emergency on the 4th floor, they needed me NOW!  So I shot up there.  There was the damn gym owner.  Smoking a giant stogie, this big, fat, suit-wearing, thug of a man was exactly as you would imagine a boxing gym owner to be, and he was losing his mind.  Berating his manager, yelling at all the party people to get the hell out, and me coming up to meet him.

“Aah, sir, I have been looking forward to meeting you.  I just want to assure you we are only using this as a decompression area (lie, beer everywhere).  My name is Rex Edhlund, I run the magazine downstairs.  We should talk.”

“What?!?!?  I don’t give a fuck who you are!  We’re shutting this down, I’m calling the cops, I’m gonna sue your ass for trespassing… @*(#*, swearing a blue streak*&$%) ”  he replied.

So now I’m trying to get him to calm down, and as he is royally chewing me out, I see that he is looking past me into the gym, and doing it more as he is also slowing down his attack.  Dennis comes up next to me and says, “Rex is there a problem?  Anything I need to handle?” He saw the look on my face when I left and decided to follow.

The gym owner says, “Are you Dennis (last name?), World Kickboxing Champ?”

Dennis responds in a super friendly way “Yeah, I am!  Did I hear you say this your gym?  It’s so cool for everyone to be able to hang out here.”

Gym-guy puts his hand on Dennis’ shoulder and says, “I’ve always wanted to meet you, here, let me show you around.”  He then slaps me on the back and says, “If HE’s with you, I’m not worried about it.  Have a good time.”

He walks off with Dennis, and I silently disappear. Like Homer Simpson backing into the bushes.

The party went on for a few hours more until the Vice Squad demanded my attention for the last time.  They were a dozen officers looking at the building from across the street.  I went over for what was the 4th time that night.  I just wanted it to go past 2am.  It was 2:15, I DID IT!  I gave them all of the then-standard assurances, but this time there was a look of not-buyin’-it.  And for the second time I notice that they are also looking past me, but not in a good way.  I slowly turn my head to see what they see and as I do, I see that there are a dozen people on the roof (that have no safety rails), there is a person actually dangling by one arm on the 3rd floor fire escape, and perfectly on cue a beer bottle flys out the window and smashes on a payphone across the street.

“Yeah, I’ll shut it down.” I humbly responded while shaking my head in defeated acceptance.

“Uh huh, we’ll help you do that.” the officer added.  

And they did.  Many people narrowly escaped going to jail, me included, and we all collapsed.  When the cleaning crew came in the next morning, they had to work around the bunch of sleeping people I mentioned earlier, many of which are dear friends to this day.

That was ONE day at the Hypno Loft.