[28pages, full colour, digest size, Steve Steiner www.probeersel.com/steves ]
Okay this was the comic inside the envelope (below) that had the 'Missent to Barbados' rubber stamps on it. I had sent a Blackguard #1 to Steve to trade for one of his comics that I read about in Xerography Debt, but that comic was called Nobody Can Eat 50 Eggs. Steve wrote that he stopped doing that one about two years ago (it was an old XD though), and doesn't have any copies left, but this Crocodile Man comic is his new one. What we got here is basically different gags along the lines of, 'Ohmygawd! It's a crocodile, man!' Crocodile man gets a job in an office so we get gags about him in relation to his co-workers. He also has a flatmate, and the funniest gag with that was when the flatmate has a friend over and offers him some pills he scored from hanging out near an elderly person's garbage can for hours, so of course soon enough Crocodile Man walks in, at which point the friend says to the flatmate, 'These pills are awesome!' The only other strips are at a bar where Crocodile Man has a drink after work, and that location provided the funniest strip for me (see above). The drawing is okay but the main problem was most of the strips just weren't funny. Well, different things are funny to different people, so I'm sure Steve has got an audience out there, and best of luck to him I say! Plus I still got those 'Missent to Barbados' stamps!

 
Great news! Hugo has got a website at long last! It was worth the wait. When you visit just make sure you've got some free time because you'll be there for a long while checking out his totally awesome comics and illustrations. Go and look now! Or bookmark it and look later! But look! Pop your eyeballs out and give them a treat!

This arrived in my mailbox yesterday. See the rubber stamp notifications on the left and right sides of the envelope? 'Missent To Barbados'. What? How? Any ideas how this happened? And isn't it a terrific rubber stamp? This is so wonderful and mysterious! Yet another thing to add to the 'Why Real Postal Mail Totally Rocks' list.

[The contents, Steve Steiner's Everyone Laughs At The Crocodile Man comic, will be reviewed here real soon. It totally deserves to be bumped up the list.]

 Chris Mikul (Bizarrism) sent me a link to a short doco about Sydney's *UFO Man*, Alan Philp (Chris is one of the interviewees, being as he is an authority on Sydney 'eccentrics'), it's really great and absolutely worth your time (it's just under 10 minutes) but the only thing is it seems you need to be on FaceBook to see it. (Sydney zine queen Vanessa Berry is in it too.)
[Note: This doco reminded me that I took a photo of this guy, years ago one day when I went out with my camera loaded with B&W film and walked around the Sydney CBD taking photos, using up a roll of film.
[Next day: I found the photos and here's the man himself, taken on George Street Sydney near Wynyard Station, June 1999]

UFO Man

[24pages, digest size, $2.00ppd, written by R. Lee and illustrated by Dug Belan, rleemail@gmail.com PO Box 1421, Oshkosh WI 54903, USA]
This illustrated story can only be autobiographical, so it's about R. Lee when he was 17 and got a job in a landscape gardening gang. The thing is is that he is a 'particularly rotten and mean-spirited kid' who has some weird kind of Tourette's Syndrome. Hard physical work is the only thing that can alleviate this, but even that mostly doesn't work. The story relentlessly drags you along since you are just waiting for one of the other landscape gardening dudes to snap and punch his lights out. Will it happen? Something has to happen, and does. This is worth your time. Email this madman and get a copy now.

Late last Saturday night while entertaining a young lady in my rooms I somehow managed to drop a Wile E. Coyote drinking glass which shattered on the edge of the sink, and a shard of that glass struck my naked left foot just behind the big toe. To my consternation I saw blood start coming out so sat on the floor to examine the damage. I told Jojo that I had cut my foot, she came over and I demonstrated my theory that a paper towel should stem the blood flow. That didn't do the trick so a few more paper towels were applied. They turned red pretty fast too. Jojo went to the bathroom and brought back some facewashers and we soon had those bloodsoaked in no time. They were shortly followed by a bath towel, and even that wasn't up to the job. It was obvious what the next stage of treatment must entail, so we got to it: bandage toe with ten sheets of paper towel followed by wrapping generously with GladWrap, then a few plastic shopping bags taped to the leg with two-inch packing tape. The whole thing turned bright red in seconds, so in defeat an ambulance was called.
We ended up in Prince of Wales hospital where professional examination revealed that the glass shard had severed the big toe tendon but stopped at the bone. So luckily my subconscious attempt to sever my big toe proved unsuccessful. But microsurgery was called for to reconnect that tendon so some powerful anaesthetic was administered and before I knew it I was in the recovery room with a half cast.
At last I was supplied with crutches and free at last. The crutches were fun for about five minutes. Using them to get to the outside of the hospital (via endless corridors that reminded me of a Cold War underground nuclear war defense facility) was fucking exhausting.
So anyway, the past week has been spent trying the patience of new girlfriend and nurse Jojo, alternately hopping and crawling around my (fortunately) small room, watching Flight of the Conchords,  and chasing antibiotics with beer. I find myself envying people who can walk normally. I could do that only a week ago! Now I am a cripple. This Wednesday I return to the hospital to get the bandage and cast off and stitches removed, and find out what happens next, but I was told I couldn't walk on that foot for six weeks. Updates will follow.
Blackguard #2 is so close to completion it's not funny, but will be further delayed only a little bit I hope. If anybody out there wants to get their Father-themed comic strip in there, you still have time. You can email me, Crippled Stratu at sstratu@gmail.com

[Jojo and I took some awesome gore photos of the *crime scene* when we returned to my place Monday morning and it was gorier than we even remembered. Photos forthcoming...]

Something a little different here: The Sexy Men of Australian Comics calender. 'But it's already almost halfway through the year!' you say. Ah! Well this is the 2009-2010 Financial Year Calender!
What we got here is a calender full of Aussie comics dudes drawn by Aussie comics chicks (like Carol Wood, Susan Butcher, and Komala Singh). Most of the hunky stars are comics dudes I've never heard of or whose stuff I'm not really into, but there are a few in there I'm 'down with' (ugh, sorry about that) so those are reproduced above. What you also get in this calender are birthdays of all our comics superheroes like Robert Crumb, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Jim Woodring, plus a whole bunch of Aussie comics dudes the American ones have never heard of. If there's been a more desirable calender released this year, I haven't seen it.
[To get a copy contact David Blumenstein through his website >>> www.nakedfella.com ]

  [28pages, digest size, Kris & Lola, Calle Obispo 4B, Plasencia 10600, Caceres, Spain]
'Extranjero' is Spanish for foreigner, Kris called it that because he lives in Spain with Lola, his Spanish wife. Their zines are usually about life in Spain mainly from Kris's point of view, but Lola seems to contribute bits and pieces here and there, to get the 'insider' point of view I guess. But this issue is about their April 2008 trip back to the US and Kris's birthplace (he hadn't been back to the States in three years). Kris's writing is terrific, he's a very good storyteller. Lola's observations on how different the US is to Spain are also cool, like when she is dumbstruck by the excess of an American supermarket (and a morbidly obese woman leaning on her shopping trolley loaded with junk food), and how much sugar is used in food there. They also visit a massive hunting, fishing and outdoor store called Cabela's (I've heard of Cabela's myself, but only knew it as a videogame where you shoot wild animals) that is 250,000 square feet in floor size and contains multitudes of stuffed animals, not to mention a four-storey fake mountain dotted with stuffed bears, elk, deer, goats and foxes.
Elsewhere, Kris writes about some of the stranger foods enjoyed in that part of the States, like 'scrapple' which is pig offal mixed with cornmeal and flour (which strikes me as a cross between haggis and hash browns). Also 'pickled watermelon rind'.
My favourite story in this zine however is the one about Ed, a neighbour of Kris's parents. When Kris was a kid, he and his friend would climb a tree near Ed's house, Ed would come out and tell them to be careful, then go off mumbling and talking to himself about conspiracy theories, he would burst into song, and he would often grab his sketchbook and 'sketch all sorts of bizarre fantasy worlds (which usually included lots of large-breasted, topless dancing women!)' From Kris's description of his house he was also a textbook hoarder (see also the Collyer Brothers). And one time he ate some pizza out of a neighbour's bin then went and complained to them two days later because the pizza had made him sick.
Well, this is another great zine discovery for me so I'll be securing back issues as well as forward issues.

Something pretty cool happened recently. I was on the bus flipping through a zine I had just received, The Hungover Gourmet, and lo and behold I saw that Tom Crites had written something for it! Back in the Sick Puppy days one of my favourite zines was Crites's Paniscus Revue. But I lost touch with Tom because of my five-year publishing hiatus/deepfreeze, so it was joyus maximus to find out he is still doing his thing, although sadly no longer a print zine. (Somebody will have to convince him to get back to it, won't they, heh heh..) Anyway, check his website out here >>> Paniscus Revue and click the various links near the top (seems to be alphabetised, had me confused for a while where to find his zine reviews), there's even an Atomiser review I'd never seen! Plus reviews of Cinema Sewer, Fuck (the Dr Randall Phillip zine, not some other imposter 'Fuck' zine I read about recently), Human Dog Pound, ... so much good stuff your brain will totally orgasm hard.
Well, that was about a week ago so naturally I sent Tom a copy of Blackguard #1 immediately and yesterday got an email from him. This was one more example of goddam great and wonderful reconnects that have happened since I got back into the 'garage publishing' scene. For some reason I am reminded of something a wise man once said: 'Against the ruin of the world there is only one defense: the creative act'.

 
[48pages, B&W, magazine size, 

 
[32pages, digest size, edited by Mr. Slime, sam_drane@hotmail.com ]
It's always great to see a new comics anthology pop up (especially an Aussie one) and this looked real promising, with a front cover by Ross Radiation and back cover by Glenn Smith. Alas,what lies between. Since the comic is called Yuck!, editor Mr. Slime no doubt instructed his contributors to come up with something YUCKY! Something to make the reader squeal, 'Eww, gross!' Sad to report, the only people this stuff is gonna gross out will be Girl Guides and your grandmother. It's not all lame though. 'How I Met Your Mother' by Ed Traquino is excellent, featuring a Lovecraftian monstrosity seen by all as a perfectly charming and handsome young man. The other is Matt Emery's strip 'Rapist Rapist', where the punishment fits the crime.
Well, it's only the first issue. It can only improve. I hope to report that result when Yuck! #2 appears.

  [40pages, digest size, Brent Moore, PO Box 7182, Bend OR 97708 USA]
Human Waste #3 is a comic about an old man, Mr Emmons, who tells his story beginning with the death of his wife, and his resulting depression. He muses on his life, his body that is failing him, but his mind remains sharp so when his son puts him in a nursing home he resents and rebels against the staff who treat him and other residents like babies and idiots. The drawing is simple and naive, which is fine with me. It works well with the story. The writing is strong and I was impressed with the way Brent seems to have got inside the head of this old man. (Maybe he has worked at a nursing home, I wouldn't be surprised.)

[40pages, digest size, Brent Moore, PO Box 7182, Bend OR 97708 USA]
Human Waste #4 isn't a comic, but a collection of single-page illustrations of people accompanied by statements and comments by those people (and it's printed on REALLY heavy paper stock, almost cardboard!) Some of the characters are musicians ("I brought a bit of barefaced honesty to music, which I don't think was there before.") or related to the music industry ("Radio airplay is still the most powerful and vital element needed to break new bands."), others are drug fiends ("I smoke weed and drink syrup all day, to tell you the truth.") and some I can't figure out what they're about because they say such strange things (" I should be driving the Grave Digger.") Reading these pages one after the other had an interesting effect on my brain and perceptions, I spent half the time wondering where these people came from, and do they only exist in the mind of Brent. Still, I enjoy his comics more, so hope this format is nothing more than an experiment or one-off. (I should have copies of his first two issues soon so will report on those then.)

   

[36 pages, digest size, biguglyrobot@gmail.com]
Adam lives in Japan and teaches English, he's married (to Ami, a Japanese) and has a young son, Nimo. Every day Adam draws a three-panel strip about the highlights (or lowlights, as the case may be) of his day. Personal comics and zines can be good or bad. This one is good. I read these on the bus and found they made the bus arrive at my destination too damn soon. Day-to-day life for Adam includes stuff like band practice (it seems like it's only Adam and his friend Bob ... well, until they get a drummer), playing with his son Nimo, bicycling to different parts of the city to teach his Japanese students, hearing weird or creepy stories from said students, getting strange leg rashes, visiting hot spas (onsens) with Ami and Nimo, staying up until dawn drawing, or watching episodes of The Wire (Adam, thanks a lot, now I am addicted to that show), enjoying a refreshing beer or six, hanging out with in-laws, and all kinds of other stuff, but always fascinating too the observations of Japanese life and culture, like holidays and food etc. Having been to Japan myself, I know that that place is about as different as you can get from a Western country, so it's great to read about life there from a Westerner's point of view. Another thing that impressed me is that Adam has this thing where he will forego some *vice* for a month. I say 'impressed' because one of those months he vows to abstain from alcohol. I have enough trouble doing that for two nights in a row. One strip during this month shows Adam and Ami visiting Ami's parents. Ami's dad brought out all these bottles of beer from different countries. Did Adam say to hell with the monthly vow and chug some foreign suds? Better get a copy of Sundogs #6 and find out!
These comics are really great. I've gotta ask Adam what 'Sundogs' means ... and get copies of Sundogs #1-5!

[52pages, magazine size, $5.00, chipmunksandsquirrels@yahoo.com www.cartoonflophouse.com ]
Greenblatt the Great! is a bellboy at the Rondovian Hotel. In this wonderfully absurd comic by Michael Aushenker, we follow Greenblatt in his daily dealings with such characters as big-headed drunk Mr Genesee; mysterious crane-fearing and lobster-collecting Van Dyke, who insists Greenblatt's imaginary schnauzer Shem is his own long-lost dog Somerset; gym-junkie Maurice who develops a big crush on Greenblatt; and many others, and as great and unique as these characters are, the best part is the way they behave and interact with one another, and details expanding and mutating from one strip to the next (these are all one- and two-page strips). In 'Greenblatt Takes in an Old Flick', our hero visits a movie house to watch an old movie, The Matadors, then in later strips now and then we see the facade of the cinema advertising this movie. Is it the only movie playing in the town? Yes, probably! In another strip, 'Greenblatt the Great's Journey Into Fear' each panel reveals the private fears of Mr Genesee, The Flower Peddler, Mr Vulva (Grenblatt's boss), Mr Sweet (the hotel owner), Mrs Beachfront, Van Dyke, Greenblatt's imaginary shanuzer Shem, and Greenblatt himself! Then about sixteen strips later, we get Mr Vulva's nightmare come to life! My personal favourite though is Greenblatt's 'Typical Weekend' (see below). As you read strip after strip, this world expands and develops in the most wonderful and absurd ways, it's impossible to stop reading. Well, it certainly was for me! I found myself thoroughly absorbed and fascinated by Greenblatt's bizarre world. Heartily recommended!

Today I went to the second annual MCA Zine Fair (at the MCA - Museum of Contemporary Art down at The Rocks). This was the zine fair that Chris Mikul and I waited too long to book tables at because they sold out so damn quick. Next year we will be better prepared, although at this one we still managed to sell our stuff. I'll get to that in a bit.
The journey there was a total cock-up. I walked around to the bus stop between my place and Five Ways to get the 389. I sat down to read Sundogs (awesome comic by Adam Pasion, review coming up soon!) and wait for the bus, which never came. Actually it did come, twenty minutes later, but it was full so it didn't stop. I said to hell with this shit and walked up to Oxford Street to get a bus from there. Amen to the 333 (limited stops Bondi to Circular Quay, pre-pay only)! I got to Circular Quay in no time at all, then walked over past the didgeredoo dude playing his wooden tube over a blasting trance techno cacophany, to the MCA. The room was packed. Just inside the door were Steve and Antoinette (SCAR) with their twin tables creaking under the weight of their millions upon millions of mutant lesbian dinosaur comics, so I had a friendly chat with them. Then Cath rolled up and said hello, shortly followed by her fella Chris Mikul. We went over to a table shared by Ross Radiation, Ben Hutchings and David Blumenstein, those chaps very generously allowed Chris and myself to display and sell our wares (Bizarrism and Blackguard respectively) at their table. Before I knew what was happening Chris told me that they (he and Cath and Dann Lennard and Helen and their kid Jones) were going of to eat so would I care to join them. I said hell yeah since all I had up to that point was a small coconut cake and a coffee for breakfast. We walked up to the Australian Hotel and shared three pizzas, one of which was made with crocodile meat. A first for me! (Next on the list: kangaroo and emu.) We also drank some beer which was very refreshing. Then it was back to the zine fair. Ross told me that all the Blackguards had sold and did I have any more. Hooray! Yes I had some more. Then I walked around the place and bought some zines, and traded one or two Blackguards. I said hello to Leigh Rigozzi and bought his split comic with Vanessa Berry (ooh la la! it's called The Time You Were in Paris!). At one table I was so engrossed with examining the wares I was surprised to hear myself halloed. It was Komala Singh, so I had a chat with her, and she gave me a comic she had completed only the night before, a short 8-page Iron Chef-type story. (I hope Komala will forgive my bad joke!) I asked Komala if she had any must-get zine tips so she told me about Speakeasy, a zine Lee Tran Lam has been doing for a million years because it's up to #10. They were all sold out though but Ms Lam offered to take my dough and she would post me a copy. The room seemed to be packed all afternoon, at least it was both times I was there. The only down side if you ask me was the inclusion of craft tables, something I'm not at all interested in. Knitted pet rocks and that kind of stuff? No thanks. Sure it's handmade, but so are cakes. You have to draw the line somewhere. Anyway, it was a fun day and like I said, we'll definitely make sure to get in early for a table next year.

How wonderful it was to recently learn about Gianni Simone's zines Orga{ni}sm and Call & Response (thanks to Xerography Debt!). In 1992 Gianni moved from Italy to Japan and has been living there ever since. He is a language teacher, teaching Italian to the Japanese. In 2004 he started up a zine, or two zines (not sure which came first since both are at #3) as a means to share his experiences and opinions of life in Japan. Gianni generously sent me Orga{ni}sm #1 and 2 plus the split Orga{ni}sm #3/Call & Response #3. His covers are very nice, with obvious handmade touches. When I was reading one on the bus I had people giving me curious and envious looks. All they had was a crummy iPod. Inside I read about Gianni's history and explanation of how he came to move to Japan, as well as his involvement with *mail art*. He rides an old streetcar line and documents the journey. Elsewhere he writes about food, like that available at Techno Sushi, a sushi restaurant where they blast deafening techno music to make you eat fast and leave quickly, and Strictly Ramen, a ramen joint ruled by the iron fist of Tokyo's answer to Seinfeld's Soup Nazi. On the grimmer side, his split zine focusses on prison and state-organised punishment of all kinds. Most fascinating in this issue was the details about life in a Japanese prison and the accompanying illustrations by Kazuichi Hanawa, a manga artist who spent time in prison and drew a manga about it. The zine also contains contributions from actual prisoners.
All three zines are fantastic and highly recommended.  [Email Gianni at jb64jp@yahoo.co.jp to order copies, he is up for selective trades.]

[cover price $4.00, 44 pages, standard comic book size, www.cinemasewer.com mindseye100@hotmail.com ]
I got this at the end of December last year so why has it taken so damn long to write about it? Well, every time I picked it up to get started the amount of content knocked me out. I like to read a comic or zine in one sitting so it's all fresh, and every time I flipped this one open I thought, 'Fuck. This is gonna take two hours!' Well, today at last I sat down and ploughed through it, and it did indeed take two hours, or more, because I kept jumping up to check something from it on the internet.
This issue is jam packed with good stuff.
The story of porn star turned white supremacist Bianca Trump.
An incredible expose of The Adventures Of Milo And Otis, a 1989 Columbia Pictures movie targeted at kids but including real scenes of animals being abominably treated (throwing cat after cat from a cliff into a fast-flowing stream until one survives so the filmmakers can use the shot, for example).
An in-depth report on grungy Vancouver porn theatres the Venus and the Fox. This piece really gets into details, even describing the rules for cruising at the Fox Theatre. Also hilarious anecdotes like the one about a sleazy old regular who forgot to put his dick back in his pants when he walked outside.
There's a great piece on the 1982 movie Vice Squad (brutal exploitation cop movie) including an interview with Gary Sherman, the director. Bougie gets some great anecdotes out of Sherman, like the one about Martin Scorsese almost coming to blows with another film dude after the screening because Scorsese loved it and the other hated it. (I MUST see this movie but goddamn it it doesn't seem to be available in Australia and to order a copy from the US looks like it's gonna cost 35 freakin' dollars.)
There's also an awesome review of Evel Knievel movie Viva Knievel. This is really great, done in comics form by Ted Dave. The movie sounds so bad it's good, and Evel Knievel comes off as a big jerk. Some hilarious lines too like when Evel takes a big box of toys to orphanage kids but gets scolded by the head nun for waking the orphans, so Evel charms her by giving her a box of fudge:
Nun: You're wicked! You know I'll get fat.
Knievel: Nobody will notice.
There's even more stuff in here but if you're still reading that probably means you're gonna contact Mr Bougie right now to order your own copy, which means I've done my job. So go get it!

[One more thing: Any zine that constantly makes you jump and grab a pen and paper to add something to your must-get list, or jump online to order a copy, or to research further or whatever, is highly recommended in my book.]

[Yet one more thing: I just found out that Cinema Sewer is up to issue 22. WTF?! Bougieman have you found a way to function without sleep?]

Stratu Blackguard and Chris Bizarrism do not have organisational skills at a high level. We both left it too late to reserve a table at the MCA Zine Fair coming up at the end of this month. But at least we are on a waiting list now in case somebody drops out. Either way we're gonna be there with a pile of our zines/comics, maybe even wearing trenchcoats. "Psst! Got some good stuff here, man. High grade shit, guaranteed. You interested?"

What a great mail day it was today! Haven't had a mail day this good since way back in the Sick Puppy days. Here's what I got:

Sprak! Vol 2 #4 - [cammy@arcom.com.au ] - Kami's movie review zine. In this issue he reviews Abducted By the Daleks, District B13, Stone, Rattlers, The Veebees (Aussie ocker scum rock), Shakes the Clown, Booby Trap (aka Wired to Kill), Action Jackson, Boxing Day, London To Brighton, Young Warriors, Thunderground (Busted Up 2), Death Ship, Howard the Duck, Drive-In Massacre, and Vampyros Lesbos. It took me an hour to read, I read it cover-to-cover and I enjoyed it immensely! (In-depth review to appear in Blackguard #2)

The Inner Swine Vol 15 #1 - [ mreditor@innerswine.com ]This is Jeff Somers's zine. Through intense research of recent zine review zines like Zine World and Xerography Debt, Jeff's name and zine have popped up time and again. His zine sounded good, and I liked the way he wrote so I asked if he would be up for a trade. The rest is history. I had a quick flip through this tonight and just about flopped onto the floor in a fit of acute joy because this production is really text-heavy. Great steroidal blocks of the stuff, which totally gives me a bone. I'm so there.

You Don't Get There From Here #9 & 10 - [ cmcninch@gmail.com ] - These are the cutest little minicomics (14cm x 11cm) but boy do they contain a big fat hook that gets deep into your brain. I started #9 and didn't stop until I finished it. Carrie draws these great three-panel strips each day, each one summing up that day. One day she might note the rattlesnakes and tarantulas she sees on the fire trails in her area, the next day will illustrate her battle with her brain and beer. It's so great to read comics done well by somebody you can relate to.

Comix zine anthology production activity has been at a high level here at Blackguard HQ the past week, mainly as a result of receiving my copy of Zine World #27. It's like this: Blackguard #1 was rushed because of the fast-approaching annual Newcastle zine fair, that was one factor. Another factor was that I had just returned to the comix zine anthology-producing life after being frozen at the bottom of a lake of fire for five years, so I was somewhat out of touch. (How suicidal-thoughts-inducing all those years of finding the mailbox empty, even after WEEKS of not checking it! Such bottomless depths of despair and misery!) So a comics and zine reviews section was something that would have to wait. But only until Blackguard #2! Yes, that's what I'm getting at here! ... Hello! Hello! You still there?! ...  What many, including myself, loved so much about Sick Puppy Comix and Atomiser (as short-lived as it was) was, apart from the wonderful comix (that "turned adults into children and children into adults", as one esteemed reviewer put it), it was the comics and zine reviews section. In a subculture that feels like a subculture of a subculture, it's important to have a forum, or directory, or whatever you call it, that serves to introduce the Reader to other like-minded, straight-acting perverts... I mean aficionados of alternative literature! We have all had our lives saved at one time, whether it was by a DJ, a radio station, a book, a record album, or a comix zine anthology. At that magical, life-saving moment we realised we were not the tragic, lone freak we may have suspected. I mean, that is to say, we were still that, but we realised there were other tragic, lone freaks. You understand. Despite my wretched assembly of the facts here, you know what I'm trying to get at. So! Just to say, that from this wonderful Zine World zine I have been contacting other comix and zine people in order to get some good stuff to review for Blackguard #2, and it has been going very well indeed. You will soon bear witness to the fruits of these pursuits, no doubt. You lucky devils!