MEGAZEEN #8

    Without a doubt, this remains the single most fun I had putting together an issue, and it remains my favorite to this day.

This was the first 100% comics issue- there were no articles, no interviews, no reviews. It was also the first issue that ran 32 pages long, exceeding our 28-page standard, so the price tag hiked to two bucks. And it was our first regular issue with a theme, outside of the con specials.

And what better theme than Lust I ask you?

Let's deal with the elephant in the room first, shall we? The cover was a point of controversey right from the start, and it continues to this day. Rob Schwager had become a huge fan and supporter of Megazeen since our early days. When we approached him about doing a cover, he one-upped us and recommended we use Jonboy Meyers, a great guy he was trying to promote in the industry and who would later go on to do one of the Spiderman books among other work. Well, Jon drew the cover and Rob colored it, and it came in for our approval.

I'll come right out and take the full 100% blame for this one- it was my editorial decision to run this cover. Joseph and Mark had doubts and Tom tried to talk me out of it. But this cover (which, let's be honest, is not even CLOSE to as racy as many others out there) speaks volumes. It's demonic. It's sexy. It makes you uncomfortable. It makes you want to look inside, it makes you embarassed to look inside. It's intriguing but you know it's bad for you.

It... is... lust.

Joshua Warren did the perfect complimentary back cover with the conspicuously missing angel wing band, with all the range of emotion and offense that I listed above. We didn't reveal the cover until it mailed out- images of it were obscured with black tape or a paper bag.

We did get complaints, though far fewer than we did with the famous "birth scene" in issue 3 or "Tales from the Womb". Even one of the involved artists was a little angry that we hadn't given him the heads-up on the cover content- I apologized, and we worked it out over email. I still believe it's the right cover and I'll stand by that till I die.

Now that THAT's done with, it's important to note that the chick on the cover appears NOWHERE ELSE IN THE BOOK. Every fanboy that picks this puppy up at a con flips through looking for her. She ain't there.

Daniel Bradford anchored the book with a ten-page story called Truly Godless:absolutely passionate. Bradford displayed the kind of work (pure pencils) that tells me he's in it for the long haul. He is a truly talented guy with amazing dramatic timing.

Following that was Tommy Flick's Hard Questions. I like this style for Tommy even more than his Children of Light work, it just looks like it's more natural and fun for him. Veli Lopenon produced a silent story called Grocery Store. Jamie Cosley addressed some powerful questions in his usual way with Everybody Struggles...EVERYBODY. It had my favorite line from the whole book. I won't repeat it here.

I introduced a new character in Dwayne Crisco Goes to Stuff Mart (I got the name from a customer at work. Joshua Warren did two more comics, Lust Figuratively and Treasure Inside. Psycho Ann Neko turned in her three-page short called Fleeting. Joe Klambert gave us some work based on Philippians 4:6-9. Jeremy Zehr and Doug McClain teamed up for the first (and hopefully not the last) time for Temptation Towards the Tawdry and Tedious. And Tom Hall turned in my favorite installment to date of The Life of Fred.

In the inside back cover we directed people toward some sites that could help with the issue of Lust, and I'll present them here now. These are not paid advertisers, they did not endorse Megazeen or ask us to do this. But I personally dig the work they're doing and appreciate the help that they've given me and a number of brothers I know that have struggled.

www.xxxchurch.com, www.porn-free.org, www.purelifeministries.org, www.exxit.org, www.cleansingstream.org, www.settingcaptivesfree.com

And that's it, the big bad Lust issue. Which you can still buy here.