Gentle Readers-

You now have before you a remarkable document - the collected works of Jeffrey Marzi. In the pages ahead you will embark upon an amazing journey. Not simply a flight to Paris or a sailboat race to Alcatraz - yes, such adventures do await the lucky reader, but there is much, much more. Like Dante you stand at the foot of a great mountain, your path blocked by a cyborg velociraptor, your ultimate destination one of the most unusual creative visions of our time.

While the reader might well marvel at the tales about to unfold, know ye well that there is a story behind the stories, and my discovery of this remarkable body of work was in this wise:

Distinctly, I remember: it was in the bleak December and I was at Liza's New Year's Eve party in the Hamptons. The old Year had been a royal bitch and I was eager to bid it farewell. An aunt, an uncle, two underage fiancées, several neighbors and my cat had all died of consumption, and my agent had of late developed consumptive fits. So I found my way to the bar and had every intention of ringing in the New Year Baltimore style - and you know how that can be. However, my plans vis-à-vis a drunken stupor were cut short by the incessant chattering of Jerry Hall on the stool next to mine. Jerry was just yammering on and on about Mick THIS and Mick THAT and Mick and Bowie and that cute little Filipino boy THE OTHER.... I was giving serious consideration to luring Miss Jerry into the basement on the pretext of sampling a particular cask of fine new amontillado and then walling her up in Liza's media room. However, murder soon proved to be nearly unnecessary, as I was roused from my tedium by a friendly voice from the other end of the bar.

The Venerable Bede and I have been tight since we were working together at the old Vanity Fair (ante Tina). In the years since he has referred many promising manuscripts to my several failed publications. I, in turn, have refrained from making him the object of an ironic revenge scenario. I also fixed him up with his fourth wife, Debbi.

"Edgar, you old sonuvabitch!" he laughed as he drew nigh upon me. (The Bede might well be a doctor of the church, but thirteen hundred years of obscenities course freely through his brain.)

"Venerable!" I exclaimed, loosening my grip on my swizzle stick and averting my gaze from Jerry Hall's protruding right eyeball.

"Are you still publishing that soft core rag...what was it?...Vampire Lesbians Gone Wild?"

"If you are referring to Necromancer: A Journal of Gothic Erotica," I said through clenched teeth, "the answer is No, it folded last year. After my backers died of consumption."

"Geez, Eddie," the Bede snorted, "don't get all House of Usher on me. Hey - I brought you something."

Something turned out to be a manila envelope.

"Open it," the Venerable urged.

What I found inside was not so much a manuscript as it was a multi-vehicle pileup involving several Rose Parade floats, a Sherman tank, a convoy of Shriner mini-cars and a circus bear on a bicycle. The Venerable read over my shoulder, almost giddy with excitement.

"Is this...real?" I asked, nearly struck dumb by the words arrayed on the pages before me.

"All too," replied the Bede.

The cover letter - nine pages of it - screamed at me entirely in capital letters, demanding that I hearken to its tale of anguish, redemption, and Michael Crichton's lust for money. And then, as promised, were thirteen illustrations, numbered one through thirteen. A thought came to mind: What if Goya had created the Flintstones? And then, at long last, I came to the thing itself - Prehistoric Park. I struggled to find a label for what I was reading. Science fiction? Fantasy? The Adventures of H.R. Pufnstuf as retold by David Lynch during a bout of food poisoning? No matter - if the truth is to be told, I couldn't absorb it all in a single sitting.

"Wow," I stared wide-eyed at the Venerable Bede, "This is perfect. It combines my two favorite things - cyborgs and dinosaurs. Kids'll go nuts for it! I've got to publish this guy."

So I prepared to publish Prehistoric Park in the next issue of Mello Yello Presents: Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Unfortunately the suits at the Coca-Cola Company decided to cut our funding in favor of more youth-oriented events, most notably a personal appearance tour by former cast members of Parker Lewis Can't Lose. I decided to publish it myself but I came down with a slight touch of consumption and was laid up for most of that spring and the following summer. Still, I never forgot Mr. Marzi's amazing story, and I kept that manila envelope in the drawer of my night table. Now and then I would read a few pages when the commonness of this mundane existence became too much to bear and it was too early in the day for scotch.

I greeted the Information Age with an unaccustomed good humor. I had founded one of the first webzines in 1847 and was eager for the arrival of a technology equal to my vision. However, the Internet proved to be both Blessing and Curse! I was able to publish Prehistoric Park with no overhead - save beer money for the Venerable Bede - and in the years since I have been lucky enough to publish two of Jeffrey Marzi's unique stories detailing the adventures of Pterodactyloid Man, a postal employee turned cybernetic aviator. But I quickly discovered that I was not the only editor with a penchant for robotically enhanced dinosaurs. Mr. Marzi had, of course, sent his manuscripts to other publishers and his work began to appear here and there across the world-wide web.

But was it his work? In many instances his writings are merely excerpted and few if any of his illustrations are made available to the curious reader. In one particularly grievous instance the story of Pterodactyloid Man's flight around the world is reduced to a mere third of its original length, and stripped of Marzi's characteristic syntax and punctuation. And an exchange in which Osama Bin Laden gets shot in the nuts with a staple gun has been struck altogether. Only I - Poe! - have presented these works intact, and it is in their whole, unbowdlerized form that I present them here for your erudition and consideration.

There are some who have attempted to heap scorn upon me for bringing these works to my gentle readers. The dastards! While I have indeed found great enjoyment in the unique content of these pages my intentions have been neither hurtful nor hateful. Mr. Marzi himself sent me notices regarding (my personal friend) John Malkovich's treatment of the Cover Letter, and he is not a stranger to internet discussions of his distinctive creativity. Jeffrey Marzi wants people to read his stories, and so do I.

And so, gentle readers, I leave you now to your reading. You may see these tales as quirky science fiction, unpretentious outsider art, or a literary Plan 9 From Outer Space - or, like your humble editor, you may find all three at once on every page. The Venerable Bede has brought me numerous manuscripts since that momentous New Year's Eve at Liza Minnelli's beach house, but nothing as special as Prehistoric Park and Pterodactyloid Man. I pray that you may enjoy these works at least as fervently as do I, and if Providence wills it so, some day I might present new tales alongside the old. Until that time I am

yours humbly,

Sausalito, California
August 8, 2005