This is a new distributor in Chicago, started by Billy of the zine Proof I Exist. The site is still in development, but this guy's heart is definitely in the right place. Seeing that there was no local zine distro, Billy has taken it upon himself to create one, devoted to promoting the many indigenous underground pressers of the midwest. Check out the site and help support the scene in Chicago!
Greg Gillam is a Chicago writer, and he can be found haunting all the open mikes and spoken word events in the Windy City. His Fengi web site is a great resource for material from local poets and other writers. You can even go there to read My Afterglow by me, Matt Fagan, and be sure to stay around to check out the other great stuff.
The legendary zine shop located in Chicago's Wicker Park area, Quimby's is like an underground press Mecca. If you're in the area, missing out on this store would be unforgiveable, but if you are foolish enough to not be in Chicago, the web site is the next best thing. Look in the "Live Recordings" section to hear me read some of the Declarations of War from the 7th issue of Meniscus.
The lovely and talented Davida Gypsy Breier has been in the biz for a long time. Her perzine (formerly Slow Leek, now Leeking Inc) has been a standard setter, and many of you must remember her recently-deceased Glovebox Chronicles. These days she is the driving force behind the review zine Xerography Debt. Despite the pressing financial and emotional costs of maintaining such a zine enterprise, and threatening correspondence from the shadowy forces at Xerox when the title was originally launched under the name Xerox Debt, Davida has turned this zine into a great new voice of the independent press. A review zine authored by an assortment of zine writers, every issue of Xerorgraphy Debt offers a variety of personal and interesting responses to a multitude of publications. You can find these reveiws on-line and enlarge your reading list, but you should definitely rush out and buy a copy to keep as a handy reference - not to mention the fact that your purchase will help sustain the enterprise. Visit her site for information on ordering copies, making contributions, or writing some reviews for her. While you're there, you can check out Leeking Inc, as well as the wonderfully talented Androo Robinson's Ped Xing Comix and William P. Tandy's Eight-Stone Press, which has several well-written and appealingly-designed publications of its own.
Francois runs this great site that promotes queer cartoons of all stripes. You can link to creators' pages, browse through on-line art, view galleries, or get in touch with the artists themselves. He has been very supportive of my efforts to find an audience for my Love comics. He put a link to my gallery on his site, and within two weeks my 30 cartoons had been viewed a total of more than 600 times. Almost all of the traffic came from Francois' readers. Go on over to his place and sample the queer comics being made all over the world!
All aboard! Don't miss this train! Our conductor John Solo takes us on a wild ride with his wonderful zine OK Commuter, and recently an electronic counterpart has pulled into this online station. The zine offers everything from cultural anthropology, "randumb" thoughts and seatmate reviews, to neologisms and a history of John Solo's ass. It's more than just one gay punk's attempt to pass himself off as a corporate schlub; OK Commuter is a handbook of culture clashing and the politics of commuting. If you haven't been fortunate enough to find a copy of the zine, get your ass to this web site and find out what you've been missing.
Bobby Tran Dale is a California-based artist, and his annual publication is fantastic. Fantastic, I mean, in a very literal sense: a sick and perversely sexy carnival inspired by Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, childhood trauma, pulsing club-life, and all those other sources of archetypal terror. He's a terrific artist with a great appreciation of classic horror films; he also contributes to Xerography Debt and many comic zines. This web site (and of course this goes for the publications too) is not for the timid. Here's a tip: If the name Homoeroticon causes you to shift uncomfortably in your chair, this is probably not the place for you. But if it makes you smirk, come on in! The pictures are good, there's fun stuff to read, and Bobby (A.K.A. Scarylin Monroe) is quite a character. You just might have a good time.
It's a magazine! No, it's a community service project! It's a magazine! No, it's a community service project!
Fellas, fellas, please, Thought Magazine is both a magazine and a community service project!
Based in California, Kevin Feeney's organization does not just solicit and publish a variety of fiction, poetry, interviews, and essays. Thought is a project designed to bring the arts into people's lives. With reading series, workshops, and discussions with authors, Thought Magazine may still be finding its footing, but it is an emerging force for good in the universe. Visit Kevin's site to get the latest news on what the magazine is organizing in their area, buy a copy, read selections, or submit some of your own work.
Even though Crimewave/Meniscus relations have a war-torn history, the fact is that Crimewave USA is still one of my favorite zines in the whole world. Reading Crimewave is one of the things that encouraged me to keep doing Meniscus and to make it better. It's a zine by Mark Maynard and Linette Lao, a couple (now a husband-and-wife team!) in Ypsilanti Michigan who have been publishing since 1994, and I think most folks in the world of the underground press have at least a passing familiarity with this great rag. Well, Crimewave doesn't have a website. But leave it to a swell guy like Mark to be sure to get one for himself. Why be sad that you can't view Crimewave on line, when you can go to markmaynard.com and read to your heart's content? I'm sure he'd be the first to tell you, he's the most important half of the team, anyway. (But personally, I know it's Linette who really matters!)
Quimby's
Gay Comics List
