What a ride... the end of Cinema Sewer
So here I am at the end of a significant era of my life. Basically the entirety of my adult life, to this point. When Cinema Sewer started, it was 24 years ago, and I was 23 years old. It was just another zine/minicomic - I had done dozens up to that point already - getting started in self-publishing in the D.I.Y zine heyday of the early 1990s, when I was 18.
Today I announce that Cinema Sewer #34 is on its way back from the printer, and it will be the final issue of the zine. Not the final publication - that will be Cinema Sewer Volume 8, which will collect all the last issues and premiere in soft and hardcover this time next year, on the 25th anniversary of the zine - but the final issue of the zine itself.
I know you guys will ask “But why cancel it?”, so I'll do my best to explain. No, Covid-19 didn't kill it. The biggest economic downturn in a generation didn't kill it, either. Cinema Sewer has simply reached the end of its natural life, is all. I always said that I'd stop doing it as soon as it wasn't exciting to put out a new issue, and when I wasn't really all that enthused about doing it anymore, and guys -- I'm just about at that point. I desperately do NOT want to drive this thing into the ground - I want to go out at its peak, where every issue is better than the last, and I feel I'm still at that point. But not for long - not with my enthusiasm ebbing. I don't want to do this thing just for the sake of doing it -- yuck. Maybe I could muster up the nutjuice to plow ahead for another issue if sales had been better than ever, but frankly they've been getting worse with each issue for 4 issues in a row now, so that doesn't do much to invigorate and involve me beyond how much I already am.
So as Fozzie Bear once said, “Thank you, thank you, and thank YOU!”. To everyone who supported CS, and all the contributors who volunteered their time and skills in return for a stack of contributor copies, to Harvey Fenton at FAB Press -- my publisher, to the coolest people who pimped this shit like it was their own zine. You guys made this project SO FUCKING FUN, and I'm so glad I stuck with it for these two and a half decades. I'm also really excited to get to work on new zines, comics, art and projects that I will now be able to really immerse myself in without that annual CS deadline looming over me. It's sad to leave CS behind, but I am SO PROUD of what I accomplished with it, and the drive it took to stick with it this long. The potential for what the future holds after this point puts a big smile on my face, too.
In other news: Not only is there a new issue of CS to order in my online store, but today also marks the worldwide release of DIRTY DERANGED DOODLES 2 - a perverted porn comic I did with a scratch n' sniff cover and a full color centerfold! Dexter Cockburn and I worked on this one together over the last year, and we're so jazzed about you guys seeing it in print! Y'all would be coco-nuts to pass it up, and it's currently smelling up my living room and available in his online store:
https://thecomixcompany.ecrater.com
as well as mine:
https://cinemasewer.storenvy.com
Today I announce that Cinema Sewer #34 is on its way back from the printer, and it will be the final issue of the zine. Not the final publication - that will be Cinema Sewer Volume 8, which will collect all the last issues and premiere in soft and hardcover this time next year, on the 25th anniversary of the zine - but the final issue of the zine itself.
I know you guys will ask “But why cancel it?”, so I'll do my best to explain. No, Covid-19 didn't kill it. The biggest economic downturn in a generation didn't kill it, either. Cinema Sewer has simply reached the end of its natural life, is all. I always said that I'd stop doing it as soon as it wasn't exciting to put out a new issue, and when I wasn't really all that enthused about doing it anymore, and guys -- I'm just about at that point. I desperately do NOT want to drive this thing into the ground - I want to go out at its peak, where every issue is better than the last, and I feel I'm still at that point. But not for long - not with my enthusiasm ebbing. I don't want to do this thing just for the sake of doing it -- yuck. Maybe I could muster up the nutjuice to plow ahead for another issue if sales had been better than ever, but frankly they've been getting worse with each issue for 4 issues in a row now, so that doesn't do much to invigorate and involve me beyond how much I already am.
So as Fozzie Bear once said, “Thank you, thank you, and thank YOU!”. To everyone who supported CS, and all the contributors who volunteered their time and skills in return for a stack of contributor copies, to Harvey Fenton at FAB Press -- my publisher, to the coolest people who pimped this shit like it was their own zine. You guys made this project SO FUCKING FUN, and I'm so glad I stuck with it for these two and a half decades. I'm also really excited to get to work on new zines, comics, art and projects that I will now be able to really immerse myself in without that annual CS deadline looming over me. It's sad to leave CS behind, but I am SO PROUD of what I accomplished with it, and the drive it took to stick with it this long. The potential for what the future holds after this point puts a big smile on my face, too.
In other news: Not only is there a new issue of CS to order in my online store, but today also marks the worldwide release of DIRTY DERANGED DOODLES 2 - a perverted porn comic I did with a scratch n' sniff cover and a full color centerfold! Dexter Cockburn and I worked on this one together over the last year, and we're so jazzed about you guys seeing it in print! Y'all would be coco-nuts to pass it up, and it's currently smelling up my living room and available in his online store:
https://thecomixcompany.ecrater.com
as well as mine:
https://cinemasewer.storenvy.com