Getting to Know Wolf Gnards: A Chicagoan with a Highbrow Approach to Lowbrow Cinema

See the schmuck behind Bill Murray in the photo above? That’s Mark Hing, the 30-year old behind the site Wolf Gnards – the blog that gained fame this summer from an ambitious study on the amount of time Murray’s weatherman endured in Groundhog Day purgatory.

Writer/director Harold Ramis contested Hing’s assessment on Heeb last week, but that doesn’t make Gnard boy a complete toolbox. He’s worth asking a few questions at the very least. After all, the Chicagoan applied a highbrow approach to lowbrow cinema that I would have never dreamed of, from the metabolic rates of Gremlins to randomly how to wipe your tush with seashells to the meaning of his blog’s name (a reference to the obscure Monster Squad movie that I was too scared to see).

You started this blog earlier this year, then all the dorks on Digg started blowing you this summer for your Groundhog Day study. Are lit agents calling yet?

My Twitter following has definitely grown, and I’ve met a lot of like-minded pop culture geeks, a few as geeky as myself. No stalkers, no cooked bunnies, no death threats though.

The reaction to Wolf Gnards has been unbelievably positive with very few haters. No literary agents yet, but a couple of porno sites wanted to buy links. They weren’t even the A-list porno sites. One was like “AdultFriendMeetup.” It’s Finder or bust for me.

Did you get picked on in school a lot?

I went to college in Chicago, but I was born and raised in New Jersey, where there’s really nothing else to do but watch movies. And, no, I didn’t get picked on much, but I went to a geek-heavy high school. The population was like 50 percent Asian and 50 percent Jewish.

I actually picked on more kids than I’d like to admit. I wasn’t bad or anything, a total Grover Dill sidekick to another’s Scut Farkus.

What’s your day job?

I’m in Internet marketing, marketing things I can’t afford to people who don’t need them. With Wolf Gnards basically I’m just marketing myself, and likewise forming answers to questions that weren’t asked to people who don’t care. At my job, I spend more time than I’d like having to make Excel files. So, it definitely feeds into things.

Are there different studies in pop culture that you’ve made an effort at, but, after many efforts at building charts/graphs, you’re left with nothing? If so, I’d like to see some of this half-baked work.

Nothing that I’ve kept. I definitely take lots of missteps, but I don’t dwell on them. I’m probably a little too eager even to hit delete.

I saw Inglourious Basterds twice. What was the last flick you saw multiple times in the theater and that made you mess your pants?

I think Kill Bill Volume 2 was the last movie I saw in the theater more than once. Quentin Tarantino: geek movies by geeks for geeks. The last movie that had me ‘Oh, snapping’ was The Machine Girl. Instead of returning to theaters, I wait for the DVD so I can get all the cut scenes and director commentaries. The movie’s not done until I get me some deleted scenes.

Do you feel like the identity of the fan boy has changed in the last five years (i.e. since the inception of Web 2.0)? Comic book guy on The Simpsons and Harry Knowles — they used to be the leading images for this group of sexless spazoids. Who is leading this pack of punk-ass bitches now? Is it Sexman?

Some of the negative responses on Wolf Gnards are from people who think I’m a virgin or a loser, so, no, that image is very firmly in place. Thank you, Harry Knowles. I hope that Sexman isn’t the leader. I can’t follow anyone who isn’t familiar with Boba Fett or his work. I see Seth Green as the modern fan boy, he’s definitely a geek, but I’m sure he’s gotten more play than can be calculated … even by me.

Since you brought up the bounty hunter, I have to ask: Who would win in a death match between Boba Fett and Predator, and why?

I want to go with Boba Fett. I have to go with Boba Fett, but then I think of how Boba died. Boba Fett, cool as he is, is the ultimate sci-fi punch line: Greatest bounty hunter, coolest armor, and, yeah, a rocket. But he gets killed because Han Solo accidentally switches on his jet pack!?

So, Boba Fett wins after a long drawn out battle, then slips on a banana peel and is impaled on the dead Predator’s claw.

Have you ever wiped your ass with three seashells?

No, and I don’t get how scrapping with a seashell will be the preferred mode of wiping. Especially if the only restaurant is Taco Bell, because I’m going to need something a little better than a sea shell.

What do you think?