Behind-The-Zines
This is a new thing I'm going to start with Action Geek #10
in that I'm going to do some "aside" commentary on stuff that went
into making each specific issue. It may sound like me really going into
minutiae, but to some it might be interesting to hear where some of
inspiration or ideas came from to make certain pages...
The Cover (AG10)
After being told that I'm a self-promotion maniac on the Message Board
of Wormtown.org far too many times than I care
to mention, I decided to play up on the idea that my comics are seen
as a big whopping load of crap. Self-deppreciating humour has usually
served me pretty well in the past so...
There were actually SEVERAL covers that were conceived of for the 10th
issue. In fact, I find it's much easier to do covers than the contents. 2nd
place goes to doing INSIDE covers, for which there were at least 3 done
before the final one was concocted...
The Inside Cover (AG10)
I had made up a REALLY angry inside cover around the same time that I
made what was to be the "official" front cover, but I scrapped it, in favor
of something that teetered the delicate precipice of anger & reality.
Post Toastie (AG10)
I got the distinct impression from being on the Wormtown Message Board
that those who were actually IN bands got more respect from eachother
than those who aren't (or maybe it's just me they don't like). Regardless,
I heard one crack from someone about how I shouldn't have said something
about her stupid friend who she respects simply because he has punk rock
hair, whatever THAT means. And then there are some digs against the
Message Board, that I hold near & dear to my heart... yeah, right...
And there's even a brief quasi-mention of an all-ages juice bar place that
used to be a Chinese restaurant on Rt. 20 in Shrewsbury. Well, this is one
of the punk rock hangouts these days, 'specially for the "kiddies". If you
look carefully in the background of page 6 in the upper right, you can
barely make out the stone wall near another Wormtown holy of holies
The Lucky Dog.
Shooting Stuff, Warning & Comic (AG10)
The warning is a sarcastic jab at mealy-moused people who way over-react
to news events like school shootings and office shootings and the like and
then take it to their work and get all paranoid about even the slightest thing
non-conforming to their code of normalcy and decency. The comic itself was
drawn while I was still living on Tahanto Road above the noisy, obnoxious
Indian (subcontinent) Worcester State College professor bitch lady. Maybe
she was another source of inspiration.
G.I. Fred (AG10)
Fred is actually a good friend of mine who sent me these Rambo-
like photos for no apparent reason. Right before posting this issue on-line
and printing up scads of copies, I e-mailed him the page and got his approval
first, before joking on him for all to see. The lovely creator of certain disparraging
promotional stickers for Wormtown.org should consider this to be standard
practice (prior-approval/consent) before doing again what she did... hint hint.
Doug World (AG10)
This actually started as me wanting to do a serious take-off on Daniel Clowes'
comic that was turned into a movie, Ghostworld, but just as I was trying
to find all of his comics that I had in my collection, I ended up wasting tons of time
trying to find them only to realize that I had lent them to my father to check out.
And even after I reclaimed the comics, I still can't find a whole bunch of them...
Doug World could have gone a tad longer, too, but the 2nd page was done
right around "crunch time" and I had to get the issue done... I guess I could easily pick
the "story", what there is of it, in a future issue... Incidentally, I drew this comic
while having a really nast sinus infection & laryngitis...
Axis of Evil (AG10)
Dad wrote this, I threw it together, people read it and I've heard nothing but good things
from people about it. One person said that he thought Dad should be writing for
The Onion, but I won't let the ol' guy out of his contract here at Action Geek...
The Robot & The Blob (AG10)
No real background story on these two fellers, but I guess you could already tell that
it's a very introspective piece, one that I did while sick and I'm sure that these two
guys will be back in a more substantial story in the future. Oh, and YES, those are
actual photos of the cast from Seinfeld.
The Contest (AG10)
Enter. That's all I can say. Participate. Whoops. I've said 2 things now.
The Pin-Ups (AG10)
Look... This is not me shooting a sexist wad of pictures and publishing them just to be
exploitive. I like women. I like drawing pictures and taking photos of women, so it's only
natural that they should appear in Action Geek. The Luba Kogaru pictures were
drawn quite a while ago, but only recently colorized. The name came from an article in
Giant Robot which talked about Ko-girls or these overly sexy, renegade school girls
in Tokyo. Well, I know Luba ain't no school girl, but I'm going to eventually
have her in some detective/Bladerunner-ish story... Oh, and Isabelle is
probably my favorite grrrl to gaze upon at the wonderfully weird website of Super Cult... I only hope she doesn't
sue me for merely placing her in front of a photo of a cool concrete walkbridge off
Cantebury Street in Worcester (not the safest of neighborhoods)...
