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The
third issue has been out of print for almost a year now, so I had to
dig my one remaining copy out of the attic. Now, looking it over, I
think it's time for a reprint.
By the time the third issue was wrapping, we came to the conclusion
that neither of us could afford another 1000 issue print run, particularly
since issue 2 had sold about 75% less than issue 1 so far. So, pooling
together the proceeds from the first two issues so far, Tom and I did
a trip to Staples and photocopied the whole issue, then sat on my living
room floor with a saddle stapler and collated and stapled each copy
ourselves while we watched The Fifth Element.
We got several letters complimenting us for the improved production
quality. I laughed.
Some of my all-time favorite Megazeen comics appeared in this issue.
I had noticed Kneon Transitt's work on the web so we approached him
about doing a comic, and were astounded that he responded with "The
Lord of the Ring-Dings". Since then Kneon has continued to provided
some of the most unique, striking work we've carried.
We had approached Mark Melton about doing a comic previously in issue
2, but at the time all he had was a quick 2-page teaser about his comic
Angeldreams. While we supported Angeldreams as a project we didn't just
want to run what amounted to an ad.for a yet-incomplete comic (we learned
out lesson after wasting so much space on Axis Grafix in issue 1). But
for the third issue Mark teamed up with New Jersey writer John Finlay
for "The 6th Seal of Revelation" which would run through issue
5. This comic featured a graphic birth scene that riled up a bunch of
people. A classic Megazeen moment.
Tom Hall also kicked in the next installment of the Life of Fred, which
was wrought with violence and as much offensive humor as you care to
ever look for. In my opinion, Tom, Kneon and Mark set the pace for Megazeen
from this issue on.
The comics were rounded off by two pages from me- one based on a true
story of a trip I made to a comic book store, and one that was sort
of my tribute to Father Mychael Judge, who was my pastor growing up
and who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11.
We ran an article about the Megaunity Challenge that I co-organized
with Community Comics editor Ben Avery. Joseph Crossett ran some reviews
of other comics in the back of the book. We also printed a round-table
interview on the state of Christian comics with Avery and Chris and
Erica Well.
The big behind-the-scenes controversy this issue was Aaron Richardson.
In hindsight it was probably even dumber than the FartHand Book fight
from issue 2. Aaron had an online comic that Joseph wanted to run in
this book. I had two problems with it- while visually awesome looking
I didn't think it was a great story, and it had nothing to do with Christianity
other than the fact that Aaron was a Christian. I don't know how to
describe it, it was like an ultra-violent sci-fi organized crime thing.
Anyway, it wasn't worth fighting over. Here's a page of it for old times'
sake.
 To
make up to Aaron for the mixed messages, we interviewed him (he was
also guitarist for a band called Callibretto 13). We also had him do
the cover, which we printed on four different colors of neon paper just
to spice things up and because it was on sale at Staples.
You can buy it here,
just recently back in print for a limited time..
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