It's Friday, reader. You know what that means - it's Queerty ReBUTTal time! Yay!

You guys did super with the comments. Really. Just super - lisp and all. While we have plenty of thoughts on your thoughts on our thoughts, we're switching it up these week. As you're well aware, we've just kicked off The Style Issue.

Before things go too far, however, we'd like to have a brief look back on some of our other issues and some of the bits that didn't make it. Take a look at some unpublished excerpts, after the jump.

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One of the lesser-known heroes of the Harlem Renaissance, Richard Bruce Nugent forever changed the face of black – and queer – art.

Though growing up in tumultuous, conservative times, Nugent made no secret of his gay ways. His writing, art and dance readily employed queer themes. In fact, one of his most famous short stories, "Smoke, Lilies and Jade," counts itself as the first gay-tinged story written by a black man.

His erotic sketches and paintings, meanwhile, left no doubt where Nugent's sexual loyalty lay. Learn a little more about Nugent's wild artistic style, after the jump...

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This image is a bit hard to pin down. Are you looking at photographic evidence of a synchronized ritual? Or are you taking in a painter's send-up of the pomp and circumstance? Does something seem a bit fabricated? Is this real? "Yes" to all four questions.

So who belong to that painted arm? Why, that's the artist: Alex Golden.

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Pancho Barnes didn’t make much of a society lady. In fact, people of her time may not have even described her as a lady at all. They describe her as “colorful”, “adventurous” and “wild”, but rarely does the l-word arise. Nor, from what we can find, does the word lesbian. But, believe it or not – we’re inclined to believe it – Ms. Barnes qualifies as both, as well as all the aforementioned adjectives.

Before we dive into this air diva's life, we'd first like to give a little background on this story. We must admit, we'd never heard of Pancho Barnes until two weeks ago. We're not sure if that makes us bad fags or if that's just history's iron jaws hard at work, but it's the sad truth. Another truth: we learned about Barnes from a dog. Well, the dog's owner...

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Frankie D is used to being seen as a wild man. Look at him: he's a hairy beast! Despite his follicular bounty, Frankie's not keen on being labeled a bear. In fact, it's probably best you don't label him anything. This New York City bartender and student's one in a million.

For full disclosure, we've been friends with Frankie since the beginning of time. Well, at least since editor Andrew Belonsky used to work at a now defunct Chelsea coffee shop. He was eighteen, Frankie was twenty.

Despite their history, Belonsky's never had a real opportunity to pick Frankie's brain. So, in the interest of The Wild Issue, we enlisted Interview's Lucas Lai to do a little NYC photo shoot, after which Belonsky and Frankie went to one of their favorite fag dives, The Boiler Room, to get a little wild with a tape recorder.

Read the grizzly results, after the jump...

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To describe Steven Cohen’s performance art as “shameful” would be true on two levels. First, the South African artist shames himself – for example, he caused a stink during 2000’s Limping Into The African Renaissance when he shat on the Dance Umbrella Stage. Cohen’s work can also be described as shameful in a slightly different, slanted way: it is, quite literally, full of shame. The 54-year old’s elaborate and highly personal pieces force the viewer to confront and digest shame.

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Homosexuality is punishable by hanging in Iran. In Moscow and Warsaw, marches by gay groups have been banned. There has been so much anti-gay violence in Jamaica, Time dubbed the island “The Most Homophobic Place on Earth”. No wonder American homos like to play it safe when they go on vacation: Provincetown, St. Thomas, Ft. Lauderdale!

But tour guide Dan Ware says there’s no reason why a gay guy shouldn’t see most of the world, if he wants to. Since 1990, Ware has been leading all-male, all-gay "Toto Tours" to places like Egypt, Poland, and Peru. Next year, he’ll add the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan to his itinerary.

Queerty correspondent Ilya Marritz recently sat down with Ware to chat about queer adventuring, gays in China and bullfighting with Richard Hatch.

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Danny Glicker has always been fascinated by costuming. Growing up on Long Island, he frequently traveled into Manhattan to see Broadway shows - sometimes up to three a week. "There was a time that I could tell you every designer on every show from the last thirty years. I was one of those kids." Those shows - and that attention to detail - informed his career path into adulthood.

Glicker entered the field at the tender age of seventeen, when he worked as a gofer at Barbara Matera - "one of the most extraordinary costume houses in the world" - and took time off from RISD to work on his first feature, Quiz Show.

After college, Glicker worked on a number of indie films and then headed to Los Angeles, where he had a stint at Bob Mackie, with whom he worked on a Vegas "tits and feathers show", called Jubilee! New York called him back, however, and he cut his teeth further on L.I.E. Since then, he's gone on to design for such films as TransAmerica, Pretty Persuasion and Northfork.

These films may not be spectacular blockbusters with outlandish, space-aged costumes. They do, however, deal with another wild, pioneering costume phenomenon: Americana. See what Glicker has to say about his cinematic sartorial philosophy, the cannibals in The Hills Have Eyes and working with Felicity Huffman, after the jump.

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New York's a wild town. Sure, it gets much of its reputation from the hustle and bustle of international culture, fashion, art and everything in-between, but the true meat comes from its fierce, uninhibited inhabitants. Take, for example, downtown darling Ladyfag.

Since moving from Toronto, this woman has taken the nightlife scene by storm, commingling with the freshest - and most made-up - faces in town. Ladyfag lives her life as she sees fit - taking chances, pushing envelopes and making no apologies for her love of the glittering game:

Most of the things I do, my parents would not approve of, but if you ever go out in queer nightlife, you know what wild’s all about. It’s just being over the top. Just meet me at The Cock one time and you’ll see wild styles!

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Rock and roll ain't meant to be tame. And no doubt Xiu Xiu frontman Jamie Stewart knows a thing or two about letting out his wild side. He may look like an angel, but boy's got the sonic spirit of a hell bound demon. In a good way, of course.

As with Matthias Herrmann, Stewart's all about the artistic message. He's aware, however, that there's a fine line between giving the listener a glimpse and shoving it down their throat. He tells Queerty contributor Jesse Finkelstein:

The point of making art is that hopefully someone is touched by it. It is not the business of the person making it to foist their preconceived notions of destination on a listener or viewer.

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Spring's about shedding winter coats and winter blues. It's a time when the world wakes from slumber and gets a little bit wild. Thus, we present to you The Wild Issue.

Over the next few weeks we'll take a look at some pretty wild people, places and things. We're not talking about drunken revelry here, we're talking about the primal, the adventurous, the outlandish, the untamed and the ferocius. Who better to start with, then, than German artist Matthias Herrmann?

Herrmann sheds more than just the winter coat - he sheds it all to offer the viewer an unadulterated view of the gay male body, the humor in morality and the risky business of exhibitionism.

This isn't the first time we've mentioned Mr. Herrmann here. The celebrated photographer first came up way back in September when we featured his "cum shot" shots. This is, however, the first time we've interviewed the former head of Vienna's Secession and we couldn't be more pleased with the results.

See what Herrmann has to say about changing the face of gay art, why HIV positive men are still sexy and the difference between taboo and a secret, after the jump. And when you're done with that, be sure to head on over to his website to see more of Herrmann's - er - body of work.

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