This Roland, this Ysabel!
Vera Brosgol tackles the man in the green tracksuit, and the woman in the mushroom slip.
Just hours before that fateful date at the Virginia Café.
—posted 6640 days ago
A. Becker.
Kris Dresen draws Arnold Becker:
Now get back to work.
—posted 6642 days ago
Somepossible Jo.
Here’s Bill Mudron’s Jo.
Doesn’t have any idea what’s about to hit her, does she.
—posted 6644 days ago
Some possibles.
Once I’d recovered from the roomful of people leaping out and yelling “Surprise!”, I sat me down on the couch with sushi and bull’s blood and a big smile.
“Are we ready for presents?” said the Spouse then. I blinked. She and a bunch of other cartoonists went into the room that had not too long ago been full of people waiting to yell “Surprise!” when I came through the door. There was some ominous rustling, and then they came out with these:
This is the first one, by Kevin Moore. —The next will be along in a bit.
—posted 6647 days ago
6th Annual Portland Zine Symposium
a Snapshot
—posted 6681 days ago
Glitchlaunch.
So of course today is the day Feedburner decides to hiccup.
The opening of the first fit is there, all right, but I’m using Feedburner to generate the syndication feeds for rss and atom and LiveJournal, and Feedburner isn’t showing it, and all the pinging in the world (well, several frustrated early-morning pings) hasn’t changed that fact. So what should have been a “look, here we are!” post is instead a “well, let’s try adding a brand-new post and see if that kickstarts them since they aren’t answering the email I sent over ten minutes ago” post.
Sigh.
Anyway: the Feedburner feed is here, and has the advantage of working with anything. When it works. If you’d rather, here’s the direct links to rss 0.92 and atom. The LiveJournal feed is here, though of course that depends on the Feedburner feed, which, see above.
But we are set, otherwise. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until I run out, which is slated for sometime in early October, unless I get a move on no. 5 here. Assuming also I get this Feedburner problem licked. —Further bulletins as events warrant.
—posted 6683 days ago
The Kip Farmer.
Random observations, day two: people are much less likely to buy zines from someone in a seersucker suit, judging from a modestly decent sample size of Zine Symposiumeers, and comparing with the previous day’s outfit of black jeans, black T-shirt, and porkpie hat. That’s it; tomorrow I’m wearing the fez.
It was wonderful seeing Chris Baldwin again, and Bethanne, who broke her ankle skydiving with some kickboxing swing-dancing villains. I think. Also, Kevin, and Owen, who did not mind at all that I kept trying to impede his progress with my walking stick. And even though dinner with Indy and Jesse and everyone else was more about Stumptown than the Symposium, still, Stumptown this year is going to rock, so that was all to the good. And Ivan Bilibin at Vera’s after was icing on the cake. Or metaphors to that effect.
It was cool meeting the 24-Hour Church of Elvis, and even though she doesn’t have physical space yet she’s looking. I might just give in and put her in her old building downtown, just off Broadway, there near Mary’s. It’s the least I can do.
I got a cool print with a tiny city in it for eight dollars and you didn’t, because it was the last one. I also picked up a(nother) copy of Applicant. But trade of the day has to go to Mykle Hansen’s Eyeheart Everything. I gave up all four chapbooks for it, and I definitely got the sweet end of the deal.
Final bonus email, from Kevin, quoted in toto:
Jenn: Did you like playing with Kip?
Owen: I like Kip’s hat. He’s a farmer!
He now refers to you as The Kip Farmer.
Pictures to follow.
—posted 6684 days ago
First impressions.
Actually, I haven’t done much wandering around yet. Mostly, I sat behind the table and tried to come up with a sales pitch. I hate pitching sales. Especially when it’s me I’m selling. “I hate to impose, but wouldn’t you really like to give me some money for the privilege of reading these things I wrote?” But a few words makes the difference between politely smiling at what’s on the table from the middle distance and actually stepping in to pick something up and look at it, and you’re going to be saying those few words a lot, so it helps to figure out a simple and easy-to-remember, sigh, sales pitch. —Corina Fastwolf was sitting at the library table just to the other side of me; she co-edits Sugar Needle, which is all about candy. “Have some candy!” she’d bellow at the polite smilers, there in the middle distance. There was a bowl of mildly obscure candies right there in the middle of her zines. I got a vanilla Tootsie Roll. “I do Sugar Needle, which is a zine all about candy and sugar.” See? Simple, direct, effective.
“I don’t eat refined sugar,” whispers a woman in a flippy brown miniskirt, leaning forward apologetically.
“What’s wrong with you?” says Corina, laughing. —So it doesn’t always work.
Erika, meanwhile, on the other side of me, has a winner of a pitch: “Wanna star?” she says, offering up an origami star. “I can show you how to make one.” In no time she’s got four or five people standing in front of her, peering at strips of paper as she shows them how to make the folds and tucks and pinches.
Me, I’m settling on a groove. I’m lucky: the covers do half the work. “It’s a serialized fantasy,” I tell the polite smilers. “Set here in Portland. Each chapbook is an episode in the story.” That’s usually enough.
“Ooh! Zoobombers!” more than one person has said.
“They, ah, put in a brief appearance,” I tell them. Let’s dance delicately around the whole I-never-actually-went-on-a-bomb thing, shall we? —I printed extra copies of number 1, because I figured more people would buy the first one; I’m going to have to print extra copies of number 3, too.
“Ware the good neighbors?” says the older guy, peering at the Elevator Pitch card I put up in an attempt to have something other than me explain what it’s all about. “At least you have an idea what that means.” At least I thought that was what he said. And I was laughing that somebody got it, so it wasn’t until he was walking away that I parsed the rest of it: “So long as you don’t try to sell me any insurance.”
I, um. Oh.
“It’s a fantasy,” says the guy with the unwashed hair to his similarly unkempt friend, who hasn’t been paying attention. “Oh,” she sneers, eyebrows curling. ”Fantasy. In that case.” She marches down toward the table with the used paperbacks on 9-11 and anarchist cookery. He trails in her wake.
“It’s a, uh, serialized adventure,” I say to the next polite smiler. “Set here in Portland. Only with more swordfights.”
I can’t remember: did I promise not to make any Blue States Lose cracks? Whichever—I’ll be wearing the seersucker today, and the boater and the walking stick; all the better for walking aound. There’s some awesome silkscreen posters to check out, and Jesse Reklaw has a whole table of ziney goodness, and I’ve got to find out what’s up with the guy with the cardboard Alhambra.
—posted 6685 days ago
It’s about time.
So the fourth fit (or chapter, or issue, or episode) was finished at lunch today, taken out and rejiggered a bit during an overlong, I admit it, afternoon break (the stinger needed cutting, and I hadn’t the heart at lunch), marked up once more after the first printed copy hit the hopper (she ends two exhortations in a row with comma here? Jesus), and, finally, run off in bulk on cheap white paper. It’s sitting on the living room floor now, along with various covers and the innards of the first three. The cats don’t know what to make of it. Neither do I.
It’s slated to start here on the 25th of September, after the first three have re-run their course. —If you’d rather read it sooner, well. I could always mail you a copy. (I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out that there’s a bouquet available, as well: the first four chapbooks all in one go for the price of three. And to remind you that the pieces of paper currently befuddling the cats will be assembled and stapled and neatly stacked on a table at the Portland Zine Symposium next weekend.)
But hell: it’s done. Now for sleep, and then a plane flight to an undisclosed location near the Canadian border, and three or four days of lakewater and front porches and “Palmcorder Yajna” on heavy rotation. Just the thing to prime the pump for five.
—posted 6693 days ago
There’s many a slip ’twixt theory and praxis.
Yes, it’s true. City of Roses is returning. What you’re seeing if you’re seeing anything right now is the assembly process, as I work out the kinks and the design and the organization. I’ll have a table (with the redoubtable Erika Moen) at the Portland Zine Symposium, August 11 – 13, with paper chapbooks of the first four chapters available for purchase (price yet to be determined, but probably three bucks a pop).
Yes, four. The big news, then, is probably that the 4th chapter will be done by the end of the month, and you can get your very own copy on paper at the Symposium, before it makes its appearance online.
After the Symposium, on Monday, August 14th, I’ll start re-running City of Roses here at its brand-new home. “Prolegomenon” will start on the 14th, “Fidessa” on the 28th, and “Zoobombing” on the 11th of September. Which means the 4th chapter, “a-Hunting,” will premiere online on the 25th.
Gives me plenty of time to finish the 5th chapter, “Freeway,” slated to appear on October 9th.
Such is the theory, anyway.
—posted 6709 days ago
