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Curated, non-profit comics-sharing site zco.mx (zee comics) launched this week. You can read and download minicomics and give money to their creators there, and one of those creators is me! I’ve uploaded Square Dance #6 to start with. Heidi McDonald finds zco.mx “exciting”.
Managing and Sustaining Long-Term Collaborative Zine Projects:
A round table discussion about the challenges and rewards of publishing collaborative zines. Hear from old pros including Colin Tedford, who has produced a slew of collaborative comix zines around themes like “water,” “shelter,” seeds,” “woods,” and “time,” under the Trees and Hills imprint, and Victoria Law, the driving force behind Tenacious: Art and Writings by Women in Prison and others. Share your own ideas and experiences!
Tomorrow I’ll be at the Pioneer Valley Zine Fest in Easthampton, MA (details), workin’ the Trees & Hills table from 10 AM to 3 PM. After that I’ll be giving a talk/workshop about collective zine projects, based of course on my experience with TnH. Later, Flywheel will host some featured speakers/performers including TnH stalwart Anne Thalheimer.
PVZF is happening in conjunction with the Easthampton Book Fair, so if you like readin’ you best come on down!
My mysterious animal photos receive analysis in this guest post from leading pseudocryptozoologist Bruce Fort. — Colin
What we have here today are photographs of what Colin believed to be “bunny rabbits”, a creature that surprisingly many people believe in. For those who may not have heard of them, bunny rabbits are supposed to be like a cross between a mouse and a frog, but much bigger than either, with strange elongated ears like antennae. They have a reputation as the bane of gardeners, with a voracious appetite for vegetable crops (especially carrots, for some reason) and a virus-like rate of reproduction.
Stories about bunny rabbits have been with us from time immemorial in many places around the world. Proponents of bunny rabbit theories use this fact to bolster their claims, but of course there are plenty of old stories about things that aren’t real. Often these reflect some sort of universal experience or common societal concern. In the case of the bunny rabbit, their crop-devouring symbolizes our anxiety about the destructive whims of nature. Their rampant fecundity connects to that (tapping into the same fears of epidemic plagues that zombies do), and to our culture’s repressive attitudes toward sexuality.
But with so many stories about them, it is inevitable that some people are prepared to think they have seen bunny rabbits. These reports can be hard to debunk because there is usually little evidence to work with, but when a determination can be made it is not unusual to find that the witness has merely misidentified a groundhog.
Could these be bunny rabbits?
This photo is pretty typical in that regard; it is blurry enough that no one can say for sure what it shows. I can’t make any positive identification from such an image, but if I had to guess I’d say we are looking at some large snails.
Colin thought the “bunny rabbits” were foraging for birdseed in his driveway, but this is clearly incorrect; the driveway is paved with gravel. Birdseed is found in bird feeders and is not used as a paving material.
This creature appeared in the heart of a bustling town.
This next photo was taken on the rail trail in Northampton, MA. Again, the blurriness makes positive identification impossible, but look at the eyes in this one. There is no mention of glowing magenta eyes anywhere in global bunny rabbit lore, so clearly we are looking at something else. Most likely it’s a mischievous goblin or imp, or a secret government cyborg designed to play on people’s mistaken beliefs for some unknown reason. It could also possibly be a UFO alien or some kind of spirit.
I hope you have found this informative and interesting, and that it has helped clear up some erroneous beliefs. I’d like to thank Colin for inviting me to share my knowledge.
I just learned that John Platt included Square Dance in his list of “Five Mini-Comics Series You Like That Have Gone On For More Than Five Issues” at The Comics Reporter last July (it’s the next-to-last list). Thanks, John! Those of you who’ve missed out so far can still buy copies of Square Dance #4, 5, and 6.
