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Is it cold in the water?
New year, new blog.Zines
Here, I present to you all of the zines I'd intended to make in 2018.
"5 MINUTES 2 LIVE"
A little cautionary tale, based off an idea I had at the beginning of my employment at Chicago's premiere comedy theater, the historic Second City, in the throes of my drinking. It was gonna follow me as a line cook after finding out that I had one week left to live. The story begins with me getting drunk at work, getting my prognosis, blacking out at a concert, being unable to get any of my shifts covered, getting called in to cover on the one day I was scheduled off, and falling asleep on the beach at high tide with only my Mang-O-Rita washing ashore the next morning. I'm coming up on 18 months sober, come to think of it. The stories I think of lately are less... Idk, self-pitying?
"No Stars"
Inspired by the Rebekah del Rio song featured in the third season of Twin Peaks and based in part on Clarice Lispector's The Hour of the Star, this zine was to be a collection of vignettes: small Chicago moments starring small Chicago people on a small starless night. The idea was that none of them died, but they were all experiencing undramatic bittersweet or disappointing or confusing evenings. This was conceived of at the beginning of my sobriety, when the simple fact of continuous, everyday existence seemed like a minor miracle to me. I don't think it'd make for a very engaging or profound story, but I managed to draw one of the vignettes, about a couple of kids catching lightning bugs in jars, and one of them accidentally freeing the other's bug into the night. Kinda... missing something?
"Cold-Water Coral"
Okay, this one's got an enigmatic title that's related to the title of This Very Blog, but it's actually the X-Men zine I've been dreaming of making for ten years now. :) On the coast of Scotland (where the X-Men offshoot Excalibur was set), a young Cancer is, y'know, coming of age. Her fight is twofold: against her closeted identity that's outed when she cross-dresses at a Halloween party, and against bottom-trawler fishing boats whose activity is destroying the cold-water coral reefs along the coastline. (In the climax, she's telepathically connected with Jean Grey's Phoenix force while the X-Men are battling Shi'ar Imperials in space during the conflict and repair of the M'Kraan Crystal.) She eventually goes by Diver, maybe falls in with a squad of mutant kids from Chicago who end up rescuing the X-Men a la the New Mutants, join up at Xavier's school but resist his inclusive message of respectability and coexistence, become ensnared in strange intergalactic political dramas, etc. But the first issue would just be a moody self-contained zine about water. I'm working on it!
Looking back, I realize that last year I actually completed my first painting and my first (tiny) zine! Both on Lindsay's behalf, as Valentine's Day and Christmas presents, respectively. If anything, my takeaway is how easy and uninvolved it can be to make something. You just have to do it! In my head, every misfire or false start is practice for what's sure to be my Grand Design. It's not realistic.
My sincere hope for 2019 is that I can keep the right perspective on my personal creative goals. Manageable and humble! I'm not making a magnum opus at 28, I'm not producing art for an imaginary awaiting public. I wish to complete some sort of story or series of images that helps me to process my trauma and exorcise some small tangle that's caught in my harebrained artist's mind. I hope you like it.
Anyway, this is my year to do the X-Men zine.
"5 MINUTES 2 LIVE"
A little cautionary tale, based off an idea I had at the beginning of my employment at Chicago's premiere comedy theater, the historic Second City, in the throes of my drinking. It was gonna follow me as a line cook after finding out that I had one week left to live. The story begins with me getting drunk at work, getting my prognosis, blacking out at a concert, being unable to get any of my shifts covered, getting called in to cover on the one day I was scheduled off, and falling asleep on the beach at high tide with only my Mang-O-Rita washing ashore the next morning. I'm coming up on 18 months sober, come to think of it. The stories I think of lately are less... Idk, self-pitying?
"No Stars"
Inspired by the Rebekah del Rio song featured in the third season of Twin Peaks and based in part on Clarice Lispector's The Hour of the Star, this zine was to be a collection of vignettes: small Chicago moments starring small Chicago people on a small starless night. The idea was that none of them died, but they were all experiencing undramatic bittersweet or disappointing or confusing evenings. This was conceived of at the beginning of my sobriety, when the simple fact of continuous, everyday existence seemed like a minor miracle to me. I don't think it'd make for a very engaging or profound story, but I managed to draw one of the vignettes, about a couple of kids catching lightning bugs in jars, and one of them accidentally freeing the other's bug into the night. Kinda... missing something?
"Cold-Water Coral"
Okay, this one's got an enigmatic title that's related to the title of This Very Blog, but it's actually the X-Men zine I've been dreaming of making for ten years now. :) On the coast of Scotland (where the X-Men offshoot Excalibur was set), a young Cancer is, y'know, coming of age. Her fight is twofold: against her closeted identity that's outed when she cross-dresses at a Halloween party, and against bottom-trawler fishing boats whose activity is destroying the cold-water coral reefs along the coastline. (In the climax, she's telepathically connected with Jean Grey's Phoenix force while the X-Men are battling Shi'ar Imperials in space during the conflict and repair of the M'Kraan Crystal.) She eventually goes by Diver, maybe falls in with a squad of mutant kids from Chicago who end up rescuing the X-Men a la the New Mutants, join up at Xavier's school but resist his inclusive message of respectability and coexistence, become ensnared in strange intergalactic political dramas, etc. But the first issue would just be a moody self-contained zine about water. I'm working on it!
Looking back, I realize that last year I actually completed my first painting and my first (tiny) zine! Both on Lindsay's behalf, as Valentine's Day and Christmas presents, respectively. If anything, my takeaway is how easy and uninvolved it can be to make something. You just have to do it! In my head, every misfire or false start is practice for what's sure to be my Grand Design. It's not realistic.
My sincere hope for 2019 is that I can keep the right perspective on my personal creative goals. Manageable and humble! I'm not making a magnum opus at 28, I'm not producing art for an imaginary awaiting public. I wish to complete some sort of story or series of images that helps me to process my trauma and exorcise some small tangle that's caught in my harebrained artist's mind. I hope you like it.
Anyway, this is my year to do the X-Men zine.
Takes on 2018
"It's Charli's Baby"
I try to uncoil Vox Lux. I collide the movie's articulation of trauma at a national and intimate level with the pop music of Charli XCX and the dis-possessed soul of Charlie in Hereditary.
URL
Now Screening
Vox Lux (2018, dir. Bradey Corbet)
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