The OblivionSpin Occasionally

cover from what would have been a minizine circa 2018 One of my small pleasures of the Oh Es Oh is that it is a reciprocal for all sorts of things I never did anything with.   No matter how much dust, how many sloppily folded rejection slips, no matter what misgivings or whatever else- there is a potential home for everything I have ever done in this zine. It's home to parts of projects I am still working on, along side ones long abandoned.  For issue 3 one of the things I tried to revisit to breathe some new and fresh life into was a short story I wrote late 2017 based off a journal entry from late 2016 which I had tried, and failed, to illustrate back in... 2018 (and 2019, if we're being honest).  I determined back then that I just could not get the words and the pictures to work. Something didn't click.  I was excited to include the short story in this issue because, well, I always liked it. On premise at the very least. And thematically, it fit quite well ca...

I am only finishing up the 3rd issue now, so I guess I cannot confidently say I have a "way" or "method" of making the zines yet. Hell, even starting a sentence with "usually" seems a little odd, because again, the zine is just starting to take its first wibbly wobbly steps. So let's go with a semi scientific classification and say that early experiments suggest-  the first thing I do when I start an issue is make a big dumb document for all the content. If not multiple documents within a folder.  I pick and choose and cut a lot before I even make my first print out. Then I make a print out and do some laying out by hand. Then I go back to the computer. Then I go back to the scissors and glue stick.  then it's a mystery. I end up with weird blank pages due to layouts, sometimes I can pull in more content or collab for a spread. But when you have just one stray blank page what do you do with it? no idea. I did this.  I just started typing double spa...

Issue 3 has erupted across my living room floor. Erupted. And this is my favorite thing about the Oh Es Oh so far, it simply erupts. It comes into being the same way I draw a circle on paper, off kilter near circles whisping around and around until a confident darker circle emerges.  Issue 3 wobbled into being with the idea of time.  Time. Time like grains of sand. Sand in a Sieve.  Beaches I've been to. Painful memories. Diary entries.  Late summer diary entries. One of each from the last 8 years- because the journal purge of 2012 (which I swore never to commit again) makes that the mark of making marks. But what day did I write an entry and not miss a year? Because I didn't start journaling "daily" again until 2015 and even then some days I draw or novel or blog or... August 22nd. And what happened on August 22, 2012? [Spoilers] A squirrel died.  Rodents. The passage of time. Memory Tourist part 8 was about cheese in a maze... Passage of time. Rust. Rodents ...

Volume 1 Issue 2 of the Oh es Oh features 2 special guests. The first of which is Soraya the Great, who lends his universal knowledge in a long chat and his art skills to the center spread of the zine. My printing set up being what it is (charmingly crappy), the original triptych "Stay Dope As Fuck" appears somewhat faded- here is the original artwork in full color. STG lives on instagram  @theexperimenthouse  and is moving in to their home on the web  theexperimenthouse.com

As I sit in the corner of my living room where I would put a papasan chair if had one, black nail polish chipped on my pointer finger from pulling staples, printer slowly grumbling away, I'm struck that I owe an apology. Dear people who make full-size zines, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the times I sassed about how much more exciting half sized zines were. Sorry I sassed about stapling instead of string. Sorry for sassing about formatting on the computer. I never sassed to your face, and the sass was always in good fun- because there are SO MANY THINGS you CAN do with a zine. But good fucking gravy- I get it now. Full-size zines are no joke. Now, please excuse me while I get back to jamming these guys into my too small stapler and dreaming up ways to make issue 3 more difficult on myself.

Since people are starting to get their copies of vol. 1 iss. 1, here's a little extra. The Memory Tourist series are all based off of my memories, sometimes flawed. "The Dinosaurs", however, is not flawed in the slightest. After about 5 minutes on google maps, I present to you all... well, the dinosaurs. I still do not have any answers as to "what the fuck?"

I sent out some 22 copies of the first issue of The Oblivionspin Occasionally on Monday. Just 5 days ago, although it seems like 50. The interest and support has been overwhelming, even though only one person besides myself has seen it yet. I'm fiddling with content for the second issue, really hoping people enjoy the first, and I already ran into a major issue. My life is not lighthearted. Anecdotes I thought would be charming need content warnings. I'm quarantining upsetting conversations to companion minizines. Sitting here anxiously wondering what planned features I need to scrap. I am the creator, editor, marketing, distribution and everything for this teeny tiny magazine. Any expectations people have for it so far are purely based on their perception of my personality. It isn't a question of who this project is for- nah that's easy- people who are interested in what I have to say, people who see what I do online and like what they see. I've just got ...