Click on the picture to check out an interview with controversial and cutting edge heavy body modification artist Howie, and then come on back here afterwards if you’ve got comments or questions.
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Comments
84 responses to “Howie / LunaCobra Interview Posted”
SUPERARTMAN
that’s gold
Stunning. x
I know you will see this over and over but a shreiked when I saw the front page updated! I don’t know where to begin… I think I’ll start with the interview. :):):)
I loved this interview.
I loved how he talked about how he would do procedures for less money if he thought they would look good on the person. It’s nice to see a body mod artist that seems to honestly care about the way someone looks after they are done with them.
i wish there was a school to learn heavy mods. Or at least someones house I could crash at till they taught me everything they know 😛
Rad interview. I have been looking forward to reading it for a while. I especially enjoyed this mysterious “man-jaw” fello.
“SUPERARTMAN” – best shit ever.
didj: http://www.lunacobra.net – click on ‘mod school’.
It’s great to read another interview, especially one that covers so much ground. thank you
I think it’s only fair to point out that Justin’s “triple transdermal forehead implant” proudly pictured in that article rejected out and had to be removed within a matter of months.
I’m not even going to get into what an interesting take on the Jim’s implants situation that is, seeing that Howie wasn’t there and I was. Yep, two of them would’ve worked out perfectly, since the pointy implants were smaller than the half-dome implants used initially. The three new implants were removed by a general practitioner here in Darwin because all three rejected out through the skin – two of them were far worse than the far right side one, but it was breaking the skin at the time of removal. I have no doubt that Jim still supports Howie in every way, he was star-struck with Howie the first time he laid eyes on him and defended him to the end, even when my doctor was telling Jim that if they didn’t come out, he was going to die from the infection that had taken hold. “Pushing the limits” (as Howie puts it) is a very interesting spin on the situation. It’s all old meme and had been hashed out a billion times before, anyway. I just genuinely wonder if Howie sincerely believes in his version of history.
He’s certainly a polarising figure, that’s for sure.
Where would the bod-mod-world be without practitioners willing to educate themselves and try new things?
Enjoyed the interview!
Haha, freaking, badass outlaw of bod mod is what Howie seems to be. All in the name of ART and LOVE, nonetheless.
I don’t care if he did something evil as transdermaling an old lady into submission, he’s still a pretty cool dude.
good interview. seems like a good fellow. hah.
without trying to start something lori, who was it that you asked to remove that transdermal from your head? thats right, the man who’s work ethics you seem to hold so low. why is it everytime Howies name pops up you feel the need to focus on anything negative you seem to know about him.
Oh, look, I knew it was all going to get dragged out like this. Yes, Pete, I had a transdermal implant done by Howie and it didn’t end well, and after consulting with several plastic surgeons and doctors who would not even touch it, I had Howie remove it (as you know, as you were in the room mouthbreathing right behind me while it came out), as my options were pretty limited to either him doing it or me doing it, and I knew he could do it after seeing him remove (and keep, which is another story altogether) the transdermal implants out of Justin’s head, as I mentioned above. I also paid him $250 to remove it – a fee which when originally discussed was going to go to the owner of a studio we were supposed to be renting, but that fell through and it ended up happening in a hotel room. I was well aware of how the fees often change on the day, though, so it wasn’t surprising at all – I actually won a bet over it, several people couldn’t believe that he would charge to remove his own fucking-up-and-rejecting work. Good thing I packed the sterile dressing packs and stuff, and had the sense to organise a prophylactic course of broad-spectrum antibiotics, eh?
Why do I feel compelled to mention that Howie is not perfect and that some of his work has plain and simply NOT worked out? Uh, how about the fact that no one else ever seems to, and it just blows my mind sometimes? I really don’t get why nobody understands that. I get crucified by all of Howie’s cheer squad when I come out and say it, it’s not like I don’t know that his friends will get up me for writing it, but frankly, I believe very strongly that it needs to be said. Yes, Howie can be a very friendly and charismatic guy, and it certainly shows by how vociferously he is defended by those who know him (and those who wish they did), but my God, is it really that revolutionary to believe that it is important for mod practitioners to admit that they do, in fact, fuck up sometimes? Let alone to proclaim some of their more well-publicised bad outcomes are, in fact, successful – just because the client in question managed not to die and has come to terms with/settled for what they ended up getting?
“Where would the bod-mod-world be without practitioners willing to educate themselves and try new things?”
Indeed, and where would those practitioners be without guinea pigs/chopping blocks persuaded into paying thousands for procedures later touted as “experimental”, left to deal with the uncertain consequences on their own after the great experimenter has left town for greener pastures, not even sticking around to see the immediate outcome of the “experiment”?
Lori, I definitely appreciate your comments and experiences, but I think that you’re overreacting and perhaps personalizing this. First, at least in all of my dealings with Howie and what I’ve seen online, he’s been very willing to discuss complications with his procedures (more so than many), and we made a point of doing so in this interview.
Also, risks have been discussed at length independent of specific practitioners, and I would hope that everyone is very aware that transdermals are a very risky procedure in terms of eventual complications and removal. That said, it’s also quite important to recognize that the complication rate that people have with them is still much lower than the complication rate that people experience with accepted mainstream cosmetic procedures such as breast implants.
Howie’s complication rate is much lower than many practitioners out there, and is certainly lower than what most plastic surgeons have. It’s important to understand that complications will happen though — to everyone.
Moving into an arena that’s closer to home for you, it would be unfair to judge you for piercings that have gone wrong. I know you’re a solid piercer that acts extremely responsibly, but the fact is that piercing/mods are not 100% successful at the best of times.
So it my computer that won’t let me view his website or is it just not working?
Yeah I had similar problems getting on his site.
… Why isn’t he wearing gloves?
.. I’m not trying to imply that howie is dirty or anything(!), I’m just curious about this particular photo, and why maybe he would choose not to wear gloves to rig a suspension.
Ra – It looks he’s adjusting the rigging. That’s pretty standard if you look through the galleries.
It’s a slippery slope situation, since a lot of different body modification practitioners do things that fall into the grey side of legal matters. But I have to agree with Lori. My gut reaction to Howie’s work is worry and major discomfort. Pushing the envelope in the field on art is commendable, but when your so-called art is a human being (and the so-called artist never went to medical school), it’s not always worth the risk.
kleptesvirgo – My feeling is though that third parties should not be making that determination. If the client and practitioner are comfortable with the risk level, I don’t see the problem. It’s not as if there isn’t consent.
I feel that I am mature enough to make decisions about my own life, and I certainly do not want someone else’s sociocultural boundaries being forced on me.
Agreed. Not for me, but if I were involved, I wouldnt appreciate people looking askance at my choices. It’s hard enough for everyone, becoming themselves. Who is anyone to question another’s choices? I for one find automobile travel to be a far more dangerous concept than this guy’s bare hands being within the same frame as the opened skin. Cars are scary, Day Care for infants sounds like a surefire collapse of society, I could go on. This life choice seems fairly innocuous.
living legend. Knows exactly what he’s doing and is perfectly safe and within reason.
You can see my view on this (being the one their talking about with the blotched nipple removal) on my page…….
which is here
in my opinion him and the best in everybody…..
Soooo… What if someone decides they’re happy to be a guinea pig/canvas for an experimental mod, then later on realises that actually, they weren’t in a fit emotional state to make that decision & now have an irreversible, extreme mod? What would the legalities be in that situation? And what if it was REALLY unsuccessful, to the point where someone was hospitalised, or (gods forbid) died as a result of the procedure? Has anything like this ever happened? Would we get to hear about it if it did? It happens on a frighteningly regular basis with even the most common mainstream mods (liposuction, breast implants & the like); once you get into the realms of surgical mods,surely similar complications are going to arise sooner or later? What then? I’ve read the ‘personal choice/freedom, it’s your own body, do what you like with it’ argument many MANY times now & completely understand the reasoning; that’s not what I’m getting at. Where would the artist stand, legally & morally? Would we be praising the artist for pushing the boundaries then? Please bear in mind these are QUESTIONS, not opinions!
What can i say?
Howie rules. I’m so glad to have met him and i wouldn’t have wanted ANYBODY else to point my ears. They have turned out amazing!!
😀
what bothers me more than more than anything I’ve read in this article is that I feel that Howie is representing himself as a surgeon and I have a hard time letting that notion slide without mention.
“Sometimes I’ll be talking with doctors in my family, or another surgeon about something they did or learned that was new, and it gives me an idea”
another surgeon? then in a previous comment:
“Honestly, unless they are a surgeon they don’t know what they are talking about.”
To accept the notion that he is a surgeon, especially after such double speak, is ridiculous.
I’m all for art and I’m all for love and kudos to Howie for loving what he believes to be art, because we all know that there are a hell of a lot of artist out there in the modification world and beyond who hate what they do, but what Howie does, by his own definition, is art and this is not to be and should not be confused with medicine and I think this needs to be set straight.I believe what I’m trying to say can best be summed up by Mr. Douglas Adams:
“Present somebody with a questionnaire clipboard, and they lie. A friend of mine once had a job preparing a questionnaire for people to fill in on the web. He said the information they got back was enormously heartening about the state of the world. For instance, did you know that almost 90 percent of the population are CEOs of their own company and earn over a million dollars a year?”Right now I don’t believe that statement has ever held so much truth.
I agree some mod artists have messed up more then howie. then again I saw cere doin a guest spot at a tattoo shop. Alot of people do work out there but how many are really good or safe at what they do that are not surgeons. not too many. Some of these kids that have been piercing at the mall for 3 months need to stop thinking they are ready to do scars and implant work. i think him teaching people is a bad idea personally. Its like me teachin kids how to make bombs or the 10 top ways to slow roast fetus. it takes years to learn everything involved in doin this type of work. some dumb kid is goin to watch him for a couple hours and start thinking he is trained enough to do bigger and better. teachin this shit is just goin to make more hack mod artists out there.
I don’t think it’s at all unfair to judge me for piercings I’ve done that haven’t worked out, that’s one of the ways one judges the quality of a piercer – another way is to judge HOW the piercer handles it when they produce less-than-perfect work. I’m a human being, I freely admit that I’ve made bad judgement calls on surface work in the past or done the odd navel that wouldn’t settle down or exited a piercing on the edge of a mark. See, I’m ethical enough to stand behind and guarantee the quality of my work, and I absolutely provide one hundred percent full backup service to all of my clients for the life of their piercing at no charge. If they are not happy with the outcome of their piercing for any reason, I will re-do it after healing for free with a smile on my dial and no accusations or blame on the client. I’ve also never come even remotely close to killing someone with my work, what I do is inherently NOT as risky as what Howie does, and as we are all fond of pointing out, I am one of those “conservative” piercers who is much more inclined to talk clients out of bad-idea-long-term-risks piercing concepts and steer them towards something different and cool that’ll actually be healable and relatively easy to live with long-term. Which is probably another facet of my reputation as a solid piercer, eh?
My issues with Howie aren’t personal or emotional, it’s professional, although my experiences with him are certainly first-hand and personal, for sure. It’s not like I’m questioning how he’s handled bad outcomes without having had to deal with them firsthand, in the flesh. But I know people will slag me off personally for whatever I say that dissents from the going opinion, and that’s fine, I’m really not fussed. I will continue to objectively and unemotionally discuss the flip side of the coin when it comes up (especially when at least three of the bad outcomes I have personal experience with or know if in lurid detail are discussed cavalierly in his sales pitches) because as I’ve said, I believe that someone has to do so (especially when reading comments like #25/JohnBlake up there – “knows exactly what he’s doing”, I nearly choked reading that – there’s someone reading the sales pitch and not the risks, or even the client’s side of the story such as modifieddesign’s). Yes, Howie is a nice guy and he sure does make friends easily, he’s very funny and charismatic and everyone who meets him likes him. That’s not what I’m talking about. And really, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills sometimes when I find that people are unable to grok that. I’m not arguing for the sake of it, I’m not starting a flamewar, I’m calmly and rationally contributing to a discussion on the subject, and discussions often have differing viewpoints. I’m certainly not hysterical or “overreacting”.
Lori, having an alternative viewpoint is a concept that not many people round here are familiar with. It’s like waving a stick of garlic bread at a bunch of vampires. They’re going to start hissing.
Howie’s website hasn’t been working for the past 2 days. Has anyone else had this complication? I need info on his whereabouts.
…oh, for appointment information, not for any bizarre, or “weird” reasons, I swear.
lalala – Quite likely the artist would be fucked. In our nanny-culture victim society, those who offer people freedom are at constant risk, whereas those who counsel people away from freedom tend to be lauded.
OMFG.
This man, this man, wow.
I can not even begin to talk about how amazing and talented, and most of all personable he is. Once he jump started my car.
Heart Love for Life Howie.
xoxoxo
Lindsay
I really love the implant work he does,…nice interview.
The server has experienced a serious overload (too many god damn people going to the site).
Its currently being moved to a new (better) server.
Email howie for appointment info: [email protected]
I mean totally if he’s jump started your car, he must be a professional who doesn’t put a foot wrong!
Seriously. Too many fan boys and girls who blindly defend while donning rose-tinted glasses. There’s two unprofessionals in these comments, and I’ll leave you to decide who they are. *rolls her eyes*
(A hint, one is Howie)
Hmm, okay, begin at the beginning…
Shannon I thought the general tone of the interview was well done; friendly but not too friendly nor entirely easy. This despite the fact you know Howie well enough to let him ink your scelera, which still gives me the hinx to think about.
Regarding the comments for and against Howie, the pattern I see emerging is more of a problem with the perception of mod artists than with any one individual. Campbell describes him as a polarising figure above; from what I’ve seen personally mod artists seem to collect a following of somewhat blindly-adoring fans, and a base of no-nonsense pragmatists who routinely highlight the artists fuck-ups to substantiate they’re not so special.
I know Howie through having Lukas & Satomi work at my studio last November; he spent some time visiting and hanging out with them. From the conversations we’ve had he seems to take his work very seriously and do everything he reasonably can to ensure the safety and success of his clients. In my experience that’s about all you can ask of a mod artist, and more than you get from many.
After those few days we had a period of convincing staff and a few friends of the studio to slow down and make sure they wanted to get their eyebrows tattooed and sleeves of solid blackwork done. One of our piercers even decided he wanted Howie to tattoo the whites of his eyes black… yeah, connect the dots.
By contrast, my business partner was highly critical of both Lukas and Howie personally claiming to be ‘unimpressed’ because of the hype that surrounds them. We discussed it at some length later and my overall impression is that he was envious of their success. Despite not personally knowing either of them, he knew of less-than-ideal work they’d done and determined these failings made them unworthy of the notoriety and reputation.
The point I’m meandering round to is there doesn’t seem to be much middle-ground between being star-struck and being resentful. Truth is Howie’s just some guy, just like Shannon’s just some guy, just like your neighbor is just some guy. I’d put odds all three of them fuck-up and fall on their ass from time to time, and I’d put better odds there’s someone there to point and laugh when it happens.
So why all the drama?
PostScripts:
Lori: I’m not looking to imply that you’re envious or bitter about something; I don’t know you, and I do try to minimize being a bastard when I can… but if it’s an “old meme” as you say, wouldn’t it be better for you to let it go? Are you trying to keep people informed because you’re really afraid for their safety, or is it the lush gasping of the doe-eyed that keeps stirring your ire?
Baby Teeth: That comes across a bit like you’re arguing semantics… technically speaking he does practice surgery, but is not a licensed surgeon (nor doctor nor physician). Maybe an ‘amateur surgeon’ then? I can certainly see where you’re going, but I’d be pretty damn surprised if anyone meeting him in real life believed him to be an MD.
Have I mentioned Howie is one of my all time favorite people? No other practitioner today captures the spirit of heavy mod history like my man Howie. Like Jack Yount and our heavy mod forefathers, he has no studio, he does procedures well outside his legal right and he has made mistakes. Nonetheless, his love for the art and culture of body mods is so extreme, it humbles me. He works in less than ideal conditions. He does experimental and dangerous mods. OF COURSE there are gonna be issues. I have never once heard him pass blame for any of his mistakes and his clients are (or should be at least) aware of the risk and the conditions in which there procedures are being performed. Steve Haworth, Brian Decker, Pat Bartholomew and Howie are some of my favorite practitioners. They all do things different, they all have different traits I admire and our industry needs people like each of them to be well rounded.
Well outside his legal rights, huh? Don’t you think the law is there for a reason? Like, you know, to keep people safe?
Apparently not. Nice to know the body mod community endorses law breaking! That’s going to look so good next time the media decides to come calling!
Hey Dimruthien, this stuff is never going to be truly legal…I’m pretty sure those that get the procedures done know that…
dimruththien you seriously gotta relax and just let people live there lives. just because someone supports a certain person doesn’t make everyone fan boys and girls. i’m a major suppoerter of most heavy body mod artists purely because of what services they can provide for the people that want heavy mods and don’t want to have to do them at home on themselves. it’s not as if there forcing there work on people. you have to remember the client approaches them not the other way around. i can see what your getting at and don’t want to totally shut you down or anything like that but i really think this community is well past the point of return for the level of mods people are wanting. i’d support a mod artist who has studied what there doing and has done many procedures and gained experience in this field over someone trying to heavily modify themselves in there own bathroom because they couldn’t find an artist to do it for them.
Dimruthien, Suicide is a life threatening risk which also against the law, and you don’t often see people being prosecuted for it. More people die from fork-related accidents than from body modification.
Everything else I would have said about this whole situation, Shannon has already said.
As far as the content of the entry goes, I really liked this interview a lot. It was refreshing to read those points of view, and Howie is simply beautiful.
Nuffsaid.
I’m pretty sure it’s no secret that i’m certainly not a ‘fan’ of Howie and his work but nor am i a ‘hater’, i have just seen things how they are and feel the need to remind people that we’re not talking about him working on children here, we’re talking about grown adults with the capability to research their impending work.
Yes he takes risks and has had bad outcomes but to be completely honest it’s the nature of the beast. Anyone getting a surgical procedure by a mod artist has to be a complete idiot to not be aware that as a complication their ear might just rot off or they might die from a blood infection.
I completely disagree with the comments made about howie not knowing exactly what he’s doing.. i believe he really and truely does, but just doesn’t care enough about the individual hes working on to not do it… for the record i think this is an attribute ALL modification artists possess, but in varying degrees.
That isn’t HIS problem, it’s the problem of the person getting the work done who refuses to see that they’re allowing to be done to themselves.
I have had work done by various artists, some good and some bad.. but when it comes down to it i don’t blame the artist for what i end up with, i blame myself for not preventing it from going badly.
I enjoyed the interview and thought it was quite honest, he’s definitely a surgeon.. just an underground one that doesn’t practice in a conventional manner and if that makes him and majority of his customers happy then good luck to them.