Gave away a “Cheesesteak.” A friend at the café wanted me to meet a master wood craftsman (and repairer of musical instruments), who, he said, was from Philadelphia. The craftsman turned out to be from Far Rockaway, but he had lived in Philly for 10 or 20 years, some at 48th & Baltimore, which is near where I grew up, so I gave it to him anyway.
Then I shamed an ex-bookstore clerk/current graphite artist into buying an “Outlaws, Rebels…” We had been discussing Crumb and Wilson, both of whose work he admires, and I said, “Everything I’ve been telling you is in my book. You ought to read that.”
In other news…
1.) None on “Messiahs…”
2.) The envisioned documentary film on Dan O’Neill and the Air Pirates, about whom I and my book are source material, has reached the gofundme stage. I have done my part by requesting contributions from (a) 50 selected friends and acquaintances; (b) 30-plus people in my high school graduation class; and © a bunch of guys I played pick-up basketball with. So far, four or five people from group (a) said they’d contribute; one woman in group (b) said she “got” my request and one fellow, with mild dementia, thought the email came was from our alumni class representative and thanked her for her years of service; and one fellow in group © said he’d never been a fan of the counterculture and was less of one now.
3.) My article on Victor Cayro, which I wrote last year, has appeared in the latest issue of the print “Comics Journal.” It’s a good article, but since the issue costs about $20, I can’t say I expect anyone I know to read it. (I wrote more about this experience and my reaction thereto in my last blog, which I FB-linked and to which I refer the curious.)
4.) Some instructive, recently culled statistics: (a) in these days of self-publishing, only 20% of all books sell more than 100 copies and only 6% sell a thousand; (b) it is exceedingly rare for a serious literary graphic novel (or art book) to sell more than two or three thousand copies.
A hellova way to make a living.
The Cartoonist That I Want to Be
My article on Victor Cayro is in the newly released “Comics Journal,” #311 (Winter-Spring 2025) $22.99.
I couldn’t help noting that my Contributers bio was the bulkiest, as well as the only one to give a DOB, sufficient to make me feel the esteemed, ancient relic I appear to be. Accept and appreciate, I tell myself.
Here is a sample:
“You might like Victor Cayro,” the editor said.
Another cartoonist I had never heard of. I might be into my second generation of them. Or third.
But I was always up for something new. Well, at 83, not always. My next heart surgery, for instance.
It was hard to find Cayro or his work. He did not have a website. I found a t-shirt he had done about mustard but it was sold out.
“Try Instagram,” someone said.
Cayro responded in a friendlier manner than I expected of a guy who did not have a website. He did not sound like he dwelt in a cave, keeping company with bats. He seemed to like the idea of being written about, even. “I am 43,” he volunteered. “In the last 10 years, it’s been mostly pin-ups for other people’s books, spot illos for stories, shirts, some album cover work, small gallery showings, drawing and painting.”
Cayro sent me a zip file containing three stories and a link to a fourth, which “Vice” had published. He said he’d had a long story in “Kramer’s Ergot” 6, so I bought that. I found two anthologies which had stories by him at Bookfinders, one of which I could pick up cheap on eBay, so I bought both. The editor, once I was on the job, sent me more stories. No on-line site had Cayro’s only stand-alone comic in stock, but one had it available to view.
“If you are going to sue, warn me,” I e-mailed Cayro, “so I have time to read it.”
“I am surprised someone liked it enough to print it,” he said.
I couldn’t help noting that my Contributers bio was the bulkiest, as well as the only one to give a DOB, sufficient to make me feel the esteemed, ancient relic I appear to be. Accept and appreciate, I tell myself.
Here is a sample:
“You might like Victor Cayro,” the editor said.
Another cartoonist I had never heard of. I might be into my second generation of them. Or third.
But I was always up for something new. Well, at 83, not always. My next heart surgery, for instance.
It was hard to find Cayro or his work. He did not have a website. I found a t-shirt he had done about mustard but it was sold out.
“Try Instagram,” someone said.
Cayro responded in a friendlier manner than I expected of a guy who did not have a website. He did not sound like he dwelt in a cave, keeping company with bats. He seemed to like the idea of being written about, even. “I am 43,” he volunteered. “In the last 10 years, it’s been mostly pin-ups for other people’s books, spot illos for stories, shirts, some album cover work, small gallery showings, drawing and painting.”
Cayro sent me a zip file containing three stories and a link to a fourth, which “Vice” had published. He said he’d had a long story in “Kramer’s Ergot” 6, so I bought that. I found two anthologies which had stories by him at Bookfinders, one of which I could pick up cheap on eBay, so I bought both. The editor, once I was on the job, sent me more stories. No on-line site had Cayro’s only stand-alone comic in stock, but one had it available to view.
“If you are going to sue, warn me,” I e-mailed Cayro, “so I have time to read it.”
“I am surprised someone liked it enough to print it,” he said.
Adventures in Marketing: Weeks 479 — 480
A cartoonist in the Balkans, about whom I have written, proposed a swap of an electronically transmitted copy of his new comic, “The Nineties,” for an electronically transmitted “Bob on Bob.” Once this miracle had occurred, he e-mailed: “Long live technology!”
After initiating a conversation with a fellow in the café who seemed to be writing dialogue on his computer, I learned he had been a “career” public defender, who now wrote fiction based on his experiences. I also learned he was a director of a theater group where ex-prison inmates perform their own work. I gave him a copy of “The Schiz,” my “lawyer” novel, and he invited me to a performance – but did not comp me. (We wouldn’t’ve gone anyway. It’s at night and we’re not big theater fans. “Too theatrical,” I like to say.)
I’d been prepared to give an IWKYA to a woman I’ve known for about 40 years who irregularly stops by the café. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been upset because her heart was misbehaving, and she was looking at a pacemaker. I hoped the book might re-assure her, and I was giving, not selling, it because I had previously sent it, personally inscribed, to a fellow I’ve known for over 70 years. But he has dementia and, for reasons known only to him, had sent it back leaving me with a book whose dedication suited no one else. But she hasn’t been back.
A couple other transactions didn’t achieve completion. One involved the father of a little girl in the ballet class which meets every Saturday across the street. He looked at my books, took my card, and said he would be back. Then two fellows from my old pick-up basketball game, which held a reunion at the café, both said they wanted a “Bob” and asked when I would be there next. (One even said he got a kick out of reading about the people who say they will buy a book and are never heard from again.) None of these people have been seen or heard from again.
In other news…
1.) No new word about “Messiahs…” I will give it a couple weeks.
2.) Finished a piece about the novels of Han Kang. When the FOM editor suggested the topic, I thought it well beyond me. But I have written something whole and true, which no one else could have, which is what I aim for. Once Adele finishes her twice-over, I will submit it.
After initiating a conversation with a fellow in the café who seemed to be writing dialogue on his computer, I learned he had been a “career” public defender, who now wrote fiction based on his experiences. I also learned he was a director of a theater group where ex-prison inmates perform their own work. I gave him a copy of “The Schiz,” my “lawyer” novel, and he invited me to a performance – but did not comp me. (We wouldn’t’ve gone anyway. It’s at night and we’re not big theater fans. “Too theatrical,” I like to say.)
I’d been prepared to give an IWKYA to a woman I’ve known for about 40 years who irregularly stops by the café. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been upset because her heart was misbehaving, and she was looking at a pacemaker. I hoped the book might re-assure her, and I was giving, not selling, it because I had previously sent it, personally inscribed, to a fellow I’ve known for over 70 years. But he has dementia and, for reasons known only to him, had sent it back leaving me with a book whose dedication suited no one else. But she hasn’t been back.
A couple other transactions didn’t achieve completion. One involved the father of a little girl in the ballet class which meets every Saturday across the street. He looked at my books, took my card, and said he would be back. Then two fellows from my old pick-up basketball game, which held a reunion at the café, both said they wanted a “Bob” and asked when I would be there next. (One even said he got a kick out of reading about the people who say they will buy a book and are never heard from again.) None of these people have been seen or heard from again.
In other news…
1.) No new word about “Messiahs…” I will give it a couple weeks.
2.) Finished a piece about the novels of Han Kang. When the FOM editor suggested the topic, I thought it well beyond me. But I have written something whole and true, which no one else could have, which is what I aim for. Once Adele finishes her twice-over, I will submit it.
Headline News
Yesterday, for reasons I needn’t go into here, I developed a yearning for a book of newspaper front pages from World War II, which I recall looking at, crayoning in, and reading from about 1946-50. (My big take away, as I recall, was learning of the bombing of St. Lo, which I knew as the home of the Cardinals and Browns, and wondering why news of that hadn’t reached me before.)
Anyway, I googled and there it was. One copy available at eBay for $25. I scooped it up. It is being packaged as we speak.
The Internet is amazing!
Anyway, I googled and there it was. One copy available at eBay for $25. I scooped it up. It is being packaged as we speak.
The Internet is amazing!
Fore!
https://www.firstofthemonth.org/fore/
Above is a link to my latest article.
It begins like this:
Golf had been his father’s game, so Goshkin never played it. Adolescent rebellion, he supposed. In 1950s Philadelphia, football, baseball, basketball were the only honorable sports.
In recent years, though – 70-some and 3000 miles later – he had come to enjoy golf on TV, while his interest had faded from football, baseball, everything athletic in fact, except the Warriors, who continued to drive his blood pressure up 20-points, and the exercise he deemed necessary to keep his own surgically-enhanced heart pumping.
“What do you think your dad would say,” asked Ruth, his wife, a former therapist, “about your seeing the light?”
Goshkin snorted. Not his story. Left behind with the Liberty Bell.
Above is a link to my latest article.
It begins like this:
Golf had been his father’s game, so Goshkin never played it. Adolescent rebellion, he supposed. In 1950s Philadelphia, football, baseball, basketball were the only honorable sports.
In recent years, though – 70-some and 3000 miles later – he had come to enjoy golf on TV, while his interest had faded from football, baseball, everything athletic in fact, except the Warriors, who continued to drive his blood pressure up 20-points, and the exercise he deemed necessary to keep his own surgically-enhanced heart pumping.
“What do you think your dad would say,” asked Ruth, his wife, a former therapist, “about your seeing the light?”
Goshkin snorted. Not his story. Left behind with the Liberty Bell.
Class Notes
I graduated a coed Quaker high school outside Philadelphia in 1960. We had 60 – 70 students a class. Twice a year we receive an alumni magazine in which I turn immediately in search of names I recognize among the dead or those contributing to the class-by-class news. The former grows while the latter slides.
The latest issue reported the passing of seven people with whom I was acquainted. (More than one-third of my class is deceased.) Of those who bothered to bring the rest of us up to date on their activities, one has moved into a retirement community near Philly and five have retired to Florida. One woman has returned, after 13 years off, to school administrative work and one fellow “still buys and sells antiques here in the north.” One, me, has a new book “Messiahs, Meshugganahs, Misanthropes & Mysteries,” coming out from FU Press.
What a peculiar thing to be doing? I thought.
The latest issue reported the passing of seven people with whom I was acquainted. (More than one-third of my class is deceased.) Of those who bothered to bring the rest of us up to date on their activities, one has moved into a retirement community near Philly and five have retired to Florida. One woman has returned, after 13 years off, to school administrative work and one fellow “still buys and sells antiques here in the north.” One, me, has a new book “Messiahs, Meshugganahs, Misanthropes & Mysteries,” coming out from FU Press.
What a peculiar thing to be doing? I thought.
Adventures in Marketing: Weeks 474 – 478
No sales but…
One morning, S. came up to me. He had his usual stuffed shopping bags, two in each hand. He had been a fine tenor player. He has an MA in Theology. But all the time I’ve known him, he has slept on the grounds of a church whose minister slips him a few dollars each week that allows him to call himself a security guard.
The reason for this visit was that he had come across a copy of “Best Ride” with the first few pages torn out but my cover photo intact. The content had thrown him. “Crazy stuff,” he said. “I thought, I know that guy, but he never talks like that. Where did that voice come from?”
I asked if he’d like an in-tact copy.
He shook his head. “If only you’d written about handball.”
Another morning a woman with long brown hair said, on her way out “Your sitting here working is an inspiration.”
“Wanna buy a book?” I said.
She threw me a thumbs-up sign.
Another morning still, a grizzled fellow in his early 70’s sat down across from me. He said he liked the table because you could see all the good-looking women. “I wonder the origin of the word ‘muse.’” His voice was Spanish-accented.
“I’ll look it up,” I said. After I had Googled, I asked where he was from.
“I’m a ‘tourist,’” he said, “native-born.” He had lived in Brazil and in Portland but, for seven months, had been in a Berkeley shelter waiting on a list for low-income housing. “Have you heard of Walt Lucas, the unofficial Poet Laureate of Portland? He was a friend of mine.”
I hadn’t heard of Walt Lucas.
“You can look him up too.”
There he was. He even had a Wikipedia page. “I’ll buy one of his books. Can I give you one of mine?”
He ran a skeptical eye over my display. “I like Bukowski.”
“I’ll have to give that some thought,” I said, “and get back to you.”
Now I’m thinking “Most Outrageous.”
Later that very same morning, a Chinese man came over. He had close-cropped grey hair and wore grey sweats. He asked in heavily accented English if I was a writer. When he said he was too, I suggested a swap. He looked at “The Schiz” but detoured to “I Will Keep You Alive.” I don’t know why. And all I can tell you about his book is that it has 54 chapters, is 215 pages long, and comes from the Dixie W Publishing Corporation of Montgomery, Alabama. Everything else is in Chinese. I don’t even know anyone who reads Chinese.
During subsequent conversation, he showed me his proposal in English for a 450,000 word book about dictatorship and individuals, lessons from China for the US.
Seems timely.
In other news…
My publisher says the fact that we haven’t heard further from China may mean my book is printing. Whether my changes were accepted won’t be known until the advance copies arrive in about a month.
And the tariffs don’t seem to apply to printed material.
One morning, S. came up to me. He had his usual stuffed shopping bags, two in each hand. He had been a fine tenor player. He has an MA in Theology. But all the time I’ve known him, he has slept on the grounds of a church whose minister slips him a few dollars each week that allows him to call himself a security guard.
The reason for this visit was that he had come across a copy of “Best Ride” with the first few pages torn out but my cover photo intact. The content had thrown him. “Crazy stuff,” he said. “I thought, I know that guy, but he never talks like that. Where did that voice come from?”
I asked if he’d like an in-tact copy.
He shook his head. “If only you’d written about handball.”
Another morning a woman with long brown hair said, on her way out “Your sitting here working is an inspiration.”
“Wanna buy a book?” I said.
She threw me a thumbs-up sign.
Another morning still, a grizzled fellow in his early 70’s sat down across from me. He said he liked the table because you could see all the good-looking women. “I wonder the origin of the word ‘muse.’” His voice was Spanish-accented.
“I’ll look it up,” I said. After I had Googled, I asked where he was from.
“I’m a ‘tourist,’” he said, “native-born.” He had lived in Brazil and in Portland but, for seven months, had been in a Berkeley shelter waiting on a list for low-income housing. “Have you heard of Walt Lucas, the unofficial Poet Laureate of Portland? He was a friend of mine.”
I hadn’t heard of Walt Lucas.
“You can look him up too.”
There he was. He even had a Wikipedia page. “I’ll buy one of his books. Can I give you one of mine?”
He ran a skeptical eye over my display. “I like Bukowski.”
“I’ll have to give that some thought,” I said, “and get back to you.”
Now I’m thinking “Most Outrageous.”
Later that very same morning, a Chinese man came over. He had close-cropped grey hair and wore grey sweats. He asked in heavily accented English if I was a writer. When he said he was too, I suggested a swap. He looked at “The Schiz” but detoured to “I Will Keep You Alive.” I don’t know why. And all I can tell you about his book is that it has 54 chapters, is 215 pages long, and comes from the Dixie W Publishing Corporation of Montgomery, Alabama. Everything else is in Chinese. I don’t even know anyone who reads Chinese.
During subsequent conversation, he showed me his proposal in English for a 450,000 word book about dictatorship and individuals, lessons from China for the US.
Seems timely.
In other news…
My publisher says the fact that we haven’t heard further from China may mean my book is printing. Whether my changes were accepted won’t be known until the advance copies arrive in about a month.
And the tariffs don’t seem to apply to printed material.
Death Facing
https://www.firstofthemonth.org/death-facing/
My latest piece has gone up online in the April 1st issue of “First of the Month.”
It begins: “Recently I was preparing a talk about my experiences as a former heart-surgery patient, who visits people in the hospital who’ve just undergone one. For my talk, I was asked to detail my heart history, its impact on my life, and how it influenced my visiting.
When I am writing or, in this case, preparing a talk, occurrences in my daily life may walk on like a horn player joining an improvisation. In Muriel Spark’s Momento Mori I read, “I would practice, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other practice which so intensifies life.” And then in Han Kang’s Greek Lessons, I found the observation that one who faces death at every turn is best able to think about life. Both Kang and Spark were 40-ish when they wrote their sentences. I don’t know that either’d had a health crisis. Imagine, I thought, what an 83-year-old who’s had several could contribute.”
My latest piece has gone up online in the April 1st issue of “First of the Month.”
It begins: “Recently I was preparing a talk about my experiences as a former heart-surgery patient, who visits people in the hospital who’ve just undergone one. For my talk, I was asked to detail my heart history, its impact on my life, and how it influenced my visiting.
When I am writing or, in this case, preparing a talk, occurrences in my daily life may walk on like a horn player joining an improvisation. In Muriel Spark’s Momento Mori I read, “I would practice, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other practice which so intensifies life.” And then in Han Kang’s Greek Lessons, I found the observation that one who faces death at every turn is best able to think about life. Both Kang and Spark were 40-ish when they wrote their sentences. I don’t know that either’d had a health crisis. Imagine, I thought, what an 83-year-old who’s had several could contribute.”
Last Ten Books Read — xxix
In order of completion:
1. Lawrence Weschler. “Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees.” When a nephew asked me to recommend a book which had been important to me, I named this for its influence on how I view the world. I had read it when it was a “New Yorker” article, then three times in book form over a decade or so. This expanded edition contains Weschler’s writings about Irwin after the first one came out.
2. Muriel Spark. “Memento Mori.” I read this after it appeared on a Best 100 Novels of the 20th Century list. I couldn’t remember anything but that I enjoyed it, and since I was getting into Spark (See previous “Last”), I read it again. Wonderful macabre humor, primarily among octogenarians. Death lurks, natural and un-. Deep, entertaining and philosophically sound.
3. Han Kang. “Greek Lessons.” Of the Kang four novels I have read, this story of a mute woman and a nearly blind man, comes closest to a happy ending. It is not easy to get there, however. You have to keep your mind alert and, maybe, your fingers flipping back pages to keep clear on whom you re reading about and where they are and when.
4. Muriel Spark. “Not to Disturb.” An odd little book. Again, humorous and macabre. Five people end up dead, all off-screen, in less than 100 pages. All the action is related basically through dialogue. A minor contribution to the author’s oeuvre but a fetching one.
5. Muriel Spark. “Symposium.” This time the characters assemble around a dinner table. Subsequent scenes establish what has occurred earlier in time, establishing relationships, and other scenes occur later, advancing them. Conviviality and criminality combine.
6. Lawrence Weschler. “True to Life.” While Weschler was writing about Irwin (See above), he became engaged with David Hockney. Thirty years of their meetings and conversations are reported in this volume. I found neither Hockney’s ideas, nor his person, as engaging as Irwin’s, and this one I won’t re-read. Others may differ.
7. Muriel Spark. “The Girls of Slender Means.” An early work. (I think my mother read it.) Set in a residence hotel for single women in 1945. A Chekhovian “gun” is hung unobtrusively on the wall early on, but is easily passed over, and by the time it fires, the number of victims is in doubt. Amusing characters and amusing lives throughout.
8. Joe Sacco. “Palestine.” A graphic (comix) account of Sacco’s visit during the first infitada and much better than I had expected it to be. It is deservedly sympathetic to the Palestinians but not entirely so, and, to a lesser degree, an Israeli POV is represented. The conclusion, expressed by one Israeli, that there is little hope as long as mad men control both societies, makes sense to me and seems borne out by subsequent events.
9. Rodrigo Fresan. “Melvill.” Recommended by my pal and co-conspirator Milo. (The footnotes reminded him of me.) Deep stuff, deserving a second reading, but not now. A “novel” about Herman Melville and his dad, fathers and sons, life and death, fiction and reality. It would have helped if I knew more about Herman going into it.
10. Alan Goldfein. “Friendship’s Friendships.” A 750-page biographical novel by an 85-year-old café friend, which takes “Al” from adolescence into his 30s. It would have benefitted greatly from editing and fact checking (Cole Porter had nothing to do with “Guys and Dolls” and Big Daddy Lipscomb did not play offense) but is tremendously impressive. Alan has been writing professionally for a long time, and he has put a lot into this, much of which may have actually occurred: life in Hollywood and Germany; stints in jail and mental hospital; relationships with men and women, experiences with sports and jazz. He studs his account with everyone from Foucault and Chomsky to Dean Martin and Pee Wee Herman and has opinions – usually negative – about it all.
1. Lawrence Weschler. “Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees.” When a nephew asked me to recommend a book which had been important to me, I named this for its influence on how I view the world. I had read it when it was a “New Yorker” article, then three times in book form over a decade or so. This expanded edition contains Weschler’s writings about Irwin after the first one came out.
2. Muriel Spark. “Memento Mori.” I read this after it appeared on a Best 100 Novels of the 20th Century list. I couldn’t remember anything but that I enjoyed it, and since I was getting into Spark (See previous “Last”), I read it again. Wonderful macabre humor, primarily among octogenarians. Death lurks, natural and un-. Deep, entertaining and philosophically sound.
3. Han Kang. “Greek Lessons.” Of the Kang four novels I have read, this story of a mute woman and a nearly blind man, comes closest to a happy ending. It is not easy to get there, however. You have to keep your mind alert and, maybe, your fingers flipping back pages to keep clear on whom you re reading about and where they are and when.
4. Muriel Spark. “Not to Disturb.” An odd little book. Again, humorous and macabre. Five people end up dead, all off-screen, in less than 100 pages. All the action is related basically through dialogue. A minor contribution to the author’s oeuvre but a fetching one.
5. Muriel Spark. “Symposium.” This time the characters assemble around a dinner table. Subsequent scenes establish what has occurred earlier in time, establishing relationships, and other scenes occur later, advancing them. Conviviality and criminality combine.
6. Lawrence Weschler. “True to Life.” While Weschler was writing about Irwin (See above), he became engaged with David Hockney. Thirty years of their meetings and conversations are reported in this volume. I found neither Hockney’s ideas, nor his person, as engaging as Irwin’s, and this one I won’t re-read. Others may differ.
7. Muriel Spark. “The Girls of Slender Means.” An early work. (I think my mother read it.) Set in a residence hotel for single women in 1945. A Chekhovian “gun” is hung unobtrusively on the wall early on, but is easily passed over, and by the time it fires, the number of victims is in doubt. Amusing characters and amusing lives throughout.
8. Joe Sacco. “Palestine.” A graphic (comix) account of Sacco’s visit during the first infitada and much better than I had expected it to be. It is deservedly sympathetic to the Palestinians but not entirely so, and, to a lesser degree, an Israeli POV is represented. The conclusion, expressed by one Israeli, that there is little hope as long as mad men control both societies, makes sense to me and seems borne out by subsequent events.
9. Rodrigo Fresan. “Melvill.” Recommended by my pal and co-conspirator Milo. (The footnotes reminded him of me.) Deep stuff, deserving a second reading, but not now. A “novel” about Herman Melville and his dad, fathers and sons, life and death, fiction and reality. It would have helped if I knew more about Herman going into it.
10. Alan Goldfein. “Friendship’s Friendships.” A 750-page biographical novel by an 85-year-old café friend, which takes “Al” from adolescence into his 30s. It would have benefitted greatly from editing and fact checking (Cole Porter had nothing to do with “Guys and Dolls” and Big Daddy Lipscomb did not play offense) but is tremendously impressive. Alan has been writing professionally for a long time, and he has put a lot into this, much of which may have actually occurred: life in Hollywood and Germany; stints in jail and mental hospital; relationships with men and women, experiences with sports and jazz. He studs his account with everyone from Foucault and Chomsky to Dean Martin and Pee Wee Herman and has opinions – usually negative – about it all.
Adventures in Marketing: Weeks 470 – 473
Sold two books. Swapped one.
The first sale (“Lollipop”) was to a young woman from Southern California who is at UCB studying “corporate sustainability,” which was not, as I’d feared, means of sustaining corporations but, rather, guiding them toward policies protective of the environment.
The second sale (“Messiahs…”) came through the mail. This was the first order for my not-yet-on-hand work (See below), and came from a friend from my lawyer days. If I remember, he will get a big “No.1″ on its dedication page.
The swap (“The Schiz”) went to a fellow who publishes books from India. I received “Things We Found During the Autopsy,” a collections of short fictions by Kuzhali Manickavel. The first is set during an apocalyptic flood and occurs on a raft made from the bodies of lashed together whores. Lest you get the wrong idea, these are funny stories.
In other news…
1.) Received a group email from a “Comics Journal” editor checking on contributors’ addresses, which implies an issue with a piece from me (“The Cartoonist that I Want to Be”) about Victor Caymo will be available soon.
2.) No news from the People’s Republic (See previous “Adventures”) on “Messiahs.” I queried my publisher, but he was at a convention and hasn’t gotten back to me.
The first sale (“Lollipop”) was to a young woman from Southern California who is at UCB studying “corporate sustainability,” which was not, as I’d feared, means of sustaining corporations but, rather, guiding them toward policies protective of the environment.
The second sale (“Messiahs…”) came through the mail. This was the first order for my not-yet-on-hand work (See below), and came from a friend from my lawyer days. If I remember, he will get a big “No.1″ on its dedication page.
The swap (“The Schiz”) went to a fellow who publishes books from India. I received “Things We Found During the Autopsy,” a collections of short fictions by Kuzhali Manickavel. The first is set during an apocalyptic flood and occurs on a raft made from the bodies of lashed together whores. Lest you get the wrong idea, these are funny stories.
In other news…
1.) Received a group email from a “Comics Journal” editor checking on contributors’ addresses, which implies an issue with a piece from me (“The Cartoonist that I Want to Be”) about Victor Caymo will be available soon.
2.) No news from the People’s Republic (See previous “Adventures”) on “Messiahs.” I queried my publisher, but he was at a convention and hasn’t gotten back to me.