I’ve had this zine that I’ve kinda been workin’ on for a long time. It’s called Weird Schmeird (2) and before I drew the zine, I made a set of cut-out toys that would fit inside a plastic package along with the comics. The problem is, I’m trying to produce content to match the form. What exactly will this zine be? I can never decide.
When I conceived the package and printed the toys, I was working in the mailroom at my art school right after graduating. I enjoyed the job because it wasn’t stressful, I got to walk around campus and talk to anyone and everyone, and the small insight into the mail system was kind of interesting. Actually, all the insight I got was in the comparative costs and advantages of the different services of UPS, FedEx, the USPS, and DHL. They all had different prices for similar things so we punched the information into our computer and we figured out which was cheaper or faster. Maybe we did our own brain work, but I don’t remember. It wasn’t a big deal and none of that stuff really mattered to me, but it was something I thought about while I waited around on slow days in the mailroom. How many human hands touch this package? or What cities will this go through? Somehow those thoughts turned into a set of cut-out toys that fit on small USPS stamp packaging, and machinations for some kind of zine to go with them. And anyhow that hasn’t gone anywhere in over a year!! I’m still putting it together!!
Actually, Two Eyes of the Beautiful was supposed to be one of the stories that went inside, but I decided to make it its own book. If I hadn’t done that, maybe I would have finished WS2 by now. Today I finished a small horror story in a similar vein that’ll go in the zine. There’s also another story about bicycle racing. I also think I’ll put in some sketchbook drawings, a couple of Dan Clowes old-guy-style interviews with mail carriers, and another short story. I don’t know. I can’t figure out how to wrap it up. Everything should relate to each other in one way or another, through a certain kind of matrix, and I have to figure out what is, so I can make the stuff, and put it there. This is how I think about drawing comics and making books.