The Archiving Continues

I've been busy organizing PDF's of articles I scanned last year. Most of them have finally been added to my main website for archiving purposes. Trouble is, the Writing section of my website is getting a bit bloated, with the recent links only viewable if you scroll to the very bottom.

I'm going to have to divide it up like I did my In Print page, but that will take some time. For now, I'll provide easier access with this post.

The never-published-until now photo up top is of Vermin Supreme himself, selling his vintage 2000 campaign material at the fourth Beantown Zinetown back in March 2001. That article was published in Eyeball Magazine.

From my Lollipop Magazine days, I have my interview with James Kochalka and a lesser known cartoonist and funny man known as benjones.
 

My Jordan Crane Interiew from Eyeball Magazine Now Archived

The late nineties (and early zeroes) was an exciting time to be into independent comics. This was when then-Million Year Picnic employee Tom Devlin had started Highwater Books. It wasn't before long that he had a collaborator in cartoonist on the rise Jordan Crane.

Crane moved to Massachusetts around this time, and his self-published anthology NON started showing up in stores. I interviewed him in the summer of 1999. As per my usual, insane method back in the day, I started interviewing subjects before I even had a guaranteed place to publish the article.

One of the main zines I was writing for, Robert Young's The Comics Interpreter, had already published a pretty detailed interview of Crane. I tried The Weekly Dig and even gave  issues of Non to my editor to look over and possibly scan for the article. Nothing came of it, and I ended up losing the first issue to the back and fourth. Too bad, since that comic was a rare find even back then.

Enter Eyeball Magazine, a short-lived but fun journal I covered a while back when I archived my Rich Mackin article from that first issue. Editor Christopher Sharpe was happy to take another piece from me for the second issue.

Despite the article's lackluster title (replacing my proposed title, which was worse), I'm still happy with the piece when I look through it today (though I have to squint when I go over certain passages).

I sat down and talked with Crane just as he published the fourth issue of Non. By 2001, when this article saw the light of day, the fifth issue would be published along with his mini-graphic novel Col Dee.

An ad for Col Dee as it appeared on the back cover of Eyeball #2.

Col Dee (an underrated gem of Crane's) was published both as part of the anthology and on its own. In fact, it's inclusion in Non 5 was basically the book inserted (along with Kurt Wolfgang's Where Hats Go) into a special cut-out section of the book.
 

The inside of Non 5, with Col Dee (blue) and Where Hats Go (brown) from the special insert. Image taken from Gnus.

I was proud that I was perhaps the first to ask Crane about the meaning of his anthology's name. Unfortunately, I think the comics anthology Stalagmite had an interview with Crane in its first issue by Editor Craig McKenney, who asked Crane the same thing. Worse, I'm pretty sure his interview came out before mine. Well-played, Mr. McKenney.

In the article, there's a lot of talk about "Floating," a story serialized in Non. That story, to the best of my knowledge, was never finished. Sad, but Crane has produced an amazing amount of comics work since then, both long spanning/ongoing tales and short vignettes. "Before they Got Better," from his one man anthology show Uptight, remains one of the best short stories I've read in recent years.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Crane.

My "Stalking Rich Mackin" Article Now Available Online

With the Church of Euthanasia documentary soon becoming a reality, I have decided to organize and archive my journalism work which focused on Boston and Cambridge's small press and performing arts scenes. This will give me a chance to go over old notes in my file cabinets. With luck, I can revisit and write about a few topics I wanted to cover before finances, the dwindling small press market and life changes forced me to stop.

I re-published my first piece on the Church of Euthanasia a while back, but today I'm linking a PDF to an article on a figure in the scene I wrote the most about.

Though he would likely be the first to argue this, Rich Mackin was clearly an influential figure in Boston over a decade ago through his Book of Letters series as well as his zine Protests are Your Best Entertainment Value (PAYBEV). The third issue of the latter zine had documented the Church of Euthanasia's previous attempt to infiltrate the WBOS Earthfest at The Hatch Shell, where Mackin passed out his "Litter a Park for The Earth" pamphlets.

I first interviewed Rich  for Lollipop Magazine back in 1999. I would continue to cover him in various ways with various levels of success. I will repost the Lollipop article eventually, but I wanted to start with what could be described as a tribute piece to Rich, something I wrote as a way to give props to the person who got me involved in all the smaller and richer stories of the city.

Eyeball Magazine was published by Christopher Sharpe, writer, director and publisher who was ambitious in his scope. Originally called Indymedia, he had to change the title quick before going to print due to the emergence of the Independent Media Center/Indymedia organization.

Presto chango!

My essay "Stalking Rich Mackin" (who eventually signed my copy of his book Dear Mr. Mackin with the added note, "Stop following me!") appeared in the first issue of Eyeball in late 2001 and was my first small press writing gig that paid me and did so promptly. I am grateful to Sharpe for giving me a venue wile Eyeball lasted for the too-few issues that it did.

So without any further ado, click to read "Stalking Rich Mackin."

Rich Mackin at the April 24, 1999 Earthfest, posing for me 
while Ian MacKanon addresses passersby in the background.