By Zac Neulieb
Outside of Morse & Company we all lead pretty normal lives, taking a break from saving the world from bad advertising. My nights usually consist of two things: food and tv - pretty run-of-the-mill schedule, right? TV tastes run the gamut too – from reality shows about housewives and the exorbitant amounts of money they think they have to what’s happening around this third rock from the sun we call Earth to men dressed in drag competing against one another. One show I like to indulge in is a little gem on the MTV Canada/LOGO channel aptly named, 1 Girl 5 Gays.
Let me paint a picture for you: 1 girl, an MTV Canada
personality named Aliya-Jasmine Sovani, and 5 gay guys sit around in a circle
and are posed questions about life. The questions range in a “what would you
rather do” scenario to more deep insights such as what it is like growing up
and living as a gay man in our current day society. They are all from Toronto,
one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world, and you have all shades of
gay represented on the show which shows true in their interactions with one
another.
Through the wonders of social media I’ve come to befriend a
panelist, Mike Yerxa (yurk-sa), and our love for one particular contestant on
LOGO Channels’s, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has spanned hundreds of miles (or
kilometers if you’re Canadian), birthing an opportunity for me to design a
t-shirt for our much beloved drag queen contestant, Sharon Needles (clever
name, no?). He needed an illustration for a shirt he was going to have printed
at one of those express shirt print shops to wear for a taping of an upcoming
episode of 1 Girl 5 Gays. Inspired and thrilled at the opportunity, I drew up
this illustration of Ms. Needles for Mr. Yerxa to print out and wear.
He was so delighted with what I had designed for him that he
took a picture of it to share with his growing fan base before the taping of
the show. Well, a couple of weeks later the episode with him and the shirt
aired on MTV Canada and is now in line to air on LOGO, a sister station of MTV
global. It’s quite the exciting experience to see something you’ve designed on
the television we all seemingly worship after work. Plus, Mike’s a great guy
and has credited me each time he’s mentioned the shirt, indirectly creating a
buzz around the design. Who knows, maybe Sharon Needles (who ended up winning
the whole competition) will want the design?
A boy can dream.
Look for the episode to air in a couple weeks on LOGO. New
episodes air on Tuesdays at 11/10c or you can check the show and full episodes
out on their website, www.logotv.com.
