Painting the town red

The music turns up. The duelists pick up their weapons. As the crowd cheers on, they fight a long, bloody struggle all over the stage.

This isn’t a Roman gladiator fight or an action movie or a professional wrestling bout. This is Super Art Fight, where the weapons are markers and the fighters are artists from around the mid-Atlantic region and beyond.

Best described as a mix of pro wrestling, punk rock, Pictionary and “Iron Chef,” Super Art Fight is the brainchild of a group of local webcomic creators. It sprang out of the “Iron Artist” competition at Katsucon, an anime convention in Washington, D.C. Artists Jami Noguchi and Nick Borkowicz enjoyed facing off with each other so much that they wanted to do it more often.

“As we had a working relationship with the Ottobar from art shows like ‘Ultimate Kaiju All-Star Barrage’ (a show in August 2007 which featured many SAF talents), it was a natural pairing,” Marty Day, the writer for “Dead of Summer” and “Art Fight High School,” who co-hosts the bouts, said in an e-mail.

The rules, often adjusted depending on the venue or the show, include a time limit and potential tag-teaming. Beyond that, there are few rules. In recent shows, a referee has been on hand to enforce what rules there are or just act as a punching bag.

But the true arbiter of Art Fight is the “Wheel of Death.” A computer program projected onto the wall spins through fan-submitted topics artists must incorporate into their work. Topics in the past have been as innocuous as ninjas or as out there as Orthodox Jew Pirates and countless other topics not fit to print here, as it’s a family blog and all.

Artists continue to riff on their topic and vandalize their opponents’ works until time is up.

“I think at one show we finished our topics early and were looking for something else to draw,” Noguchi said in an e-mail. “Someone yelled out ‘COCKS!’ so I ended up drawing a bunch of penises with hairy scrotums all over the place. Someone actually bought one of those pieces!”

At the end, the audience decides the winner.

To Noguchi, Super Art Fight is more “Super Art” than “Fight.” The fight is more to give the audience something to connect with.

“But the artists don’t take that aspect too seriously,” Noguchi said. “We’re all more interested in creating something new by pushing ourselves to do something really unique.”

The very first Art Fight was held in the cramped, dark upstairs bar at the Ottobar in Baltimore in June 2008. Day knew they were on to something right away.

“You took what was traditionally a rather ruckus upstairs bar, and turned it into an environment where you could hear a pin drop. People just watching the art so intently, trying to figure out Nick and Jami’s next moves,” he said.

Since its humble beginnings in the Charles Village rock club, the Art Fighters have traveled up and down the East Coast, doing shows at anime, comic book and science fiction conventions. They’ve even broken out of the niche and into the Baltimore arts scene, playing at the anniversary party for Pazo, a trendy restaurant in Harbor East.

“We’ve gone from about a hundred people not really knowing who we are or what we’re doing, to hundreds of fans around the country following our moves,” Day said.

Despite the growing fan base, there are no plans to seek out much larger venues. Super Art Fight thrives off intimate crowds.

“Honestly, half of what makes Super Art Fight work is our artist’s ability to feed of the audience, and the audience feeding back off the art,” he said.

For Noguchi, it’s been a heck of a whirlwind to be at this point in popularity.

“It’s been a pretty wild ride to see what started out as an off-the-cuff remark balloon into what’s it’s become today,” he said. “It’s surprising to hear how much buzz the show gets from people we’ve never met. We couldn’t be more pleased. And we’re just getting started!”

The next Super Art Fight is January 23 at The Ottobar. Tickets are $10 and aren’t quite on sale yet.

Check out our pictures and show report from the art jam at the October Protomen show and this entry on Super Art Fight 5.