Two New Columbus Zines.

Two new zines are out in Columbus - "Black Cloud" and "Candygram." Full blogger disclosure: I am indirectly involved with both. Bret's "The Black Cloud #3" is a community affair that has a pretty classic Brian Deller story, a State of the Neighborhood address from present and future politico Miles Curtiss and contributions from Nick Crane and Meg O'Malley. Ana from Painkiller provides a sweet illustration reproduced below. There is also a reprint of my "When the Students Are Away..." poster.

More on Candygram, buttons, a bad story and something about editions after "the Jump."

                                                       Buy something of Ana's here.

  In Black Cloud #3, which is supposed to be the Columbus issue, there is a preponderance of getting drunk stories. At least that is how it felt as I finished it. Objectively looking at it, that makes up roughly half of the zine. I don't necessarily dislike that. I don't necessarily like it either. Bret admits as much as far as the number of drunk stories go. It's pretty fitting for a Columbus themed zine I guess, but isn't that a little depressing? You can get "Black Cloud #3" by sending two dollars to The Black Cloud, 369 E. 15th Ave., Columbus, OH 43201 or by going to Wholly Craft or Microcosm.

Eric Sweazy's comic in "Candygram."

Candygram is a contributor-based zine of a different stripe. Its content is widely varied, much like many art/literature journals. In general, it should be one or the other - art or literature. And hopefully narrowed down from there into a specific field of art or literature. But it is so difficult to start something like this and actually garner submissions that immediately going to a haiku-only, koan-only or tweet-only format is next to impossible. So maybe some future winnowing is in order or maybe not. Eva Ball has the best piece here called... 

"Untitled"


I am very foolishy wearing your t-shirt.

To make something clear, not that anyone cares, I wrote my article about Candygram without initially knowing the editor, Shannon Byers, or what the journal was. After the article I submitted a piece to the magazine in support of the idea of it being a community generated thing. Anyway, I did not write the article knowing I would eventually be in the zine nor, I hope, did I get published because I wrote the article. After the fact I asked for it to be put under a pseudonym but at the zine-release party (I love zine release parties) it seemed like a lot of people knew I had something in it. So I felt I should make that clear. Here is what I wrote, drunkenly, five minutes before deadline. It is about my neighborhood, "The Pocket."

                                                                  


LAST THING! Both Black Cloud (500) and Candygram (120) are numbered. I'm glad this is becoming a standard practice for zines in Columbus. I think that Weedsteeler and Vile Gash are to blame for its popularity. After I got Weedsteeler's "Complete Dickography" numbered in an edition of 12, I knew I would number things from then on - which I did for both Punk Zine and This is a Comic Book. It's less about adding worth to the object and more about the admission of its highly finite nature, of the lilliputian (lol) circles we run in. It's also a little reminder that while they are printed ephemera and basically without redeeming monetary or cultural worth, you shouldn't exactly be willing to throw it away. For art prints editions are only supposed to run to 125 and the idea of editioning something that is Xeroxed is ridiculous, but there is something worthwhile in doing so. The personal touch on a machine made object or a little high art/low art joke. Whatever it is (what is it?), it's good.

Plus more new Buttons: