PrettyFakes

This is probably the last of the previews of the new Sandusky Review. The text underneath this says: Then up on one of the levees they found a little arm, the bones bleached dull by the sun, and in the muck and the sand a single line of prints marched away from the bones.

Finally finished the story yesterday, pending editorial comment from Prof. Fury (who is the best kind of editor—the one you can trust, who will tell you both “this is really strong work” or “this part makes me want to jam my thumbs in my eyes”).

I am also going to put the older Sandusky Reviews online, as downloadable .pdfs, as I make new ones. When I started making these little creatures, I insisted on calling them “artifacts,” as opposed to “zines” or “junk.” I wanted to emphasize that they were handmade pieces of art, each one unique (the first one has a unique Polaroid affixed to the cover, the cover to the second is hand-colored (if terribly)).

Yet the fact that each may have a little bit of me in it doesn’t take away from the fact that I want people to read them. I’ve become fascinated with the writer Cory Doctorow and the way he distributes his work. Which is to say: download it, buy it, borrow it . . . just read it.

Also, anecdotally, a “free preview” doesn’t seem to detract from people acquiring the physical copies. To the contrary, in my experience, it’s exactly the opposite. I encountered both Penny Arcade and Obsessive Consumption online, and read their content for free, although I also rigorously purchase both the bound volumes of the (free) PA comics and I have a sub to Kate Consumption’s beautiful zine, even though I’ve already read it online. Why? Because I want to have them on my bookshelf, and I want to support artists I like.

There’s also a flaw in the physical model, and that’s the ability to easily purchase it. So many kind people have asked me what my PayPal was, or if I was on Etsy, or—essentially—”is there an easier way to get this thing than sending you cash like this was Dischord in 1985.” And, you know, there’s really not. You can normally pick up some Sanduskys at Light + Glass Gallery, and for a while I wrung my hands about having it physically available at local comic and bookstores. There’s just so much dang work involved in keeping track of everything, contacting everybody, begging for shelf space and so on, that I abandoned the idea. And anyway, that didn’t reach the great bulk of people who are wonderful enough to support me, most of whom are from the Internets.

So long story short, I’m going to try to trick you into reading more of my little stories, and if you like them, hope that you consider buying a physical version or some original art from the artifacts. To all of y’all who have bought artwork or Sanduskys in the past, thank-you so much.

Update: download it here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 7:55 am and is filed under Gorjus, Sandusky Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.