MEGAZEEN #13

When Megazeen hit about issues 6 & 7, the concept of doing something in that spirit with comics came up and the infamous Lust issue came into being. While not every issue since then has had a theme, most have, and when Joey wanted to line up themes for future issues, I had somewhat of an epiphany. Issue 13, I felt, should be devoted to the theme of Failure. Not only was the number associated with all things unlucky, but it was something that everyone could relate to. I mean- who hasn’t failed? And I also looked around at the people I knew personally from the Christian comics scene and realized that many of them did comics about that theme on a regular basis anyway. So, excited about the idea I had for the issue, I went to Joey and told him about my great idea.

The results were somewhat underwhelming.

It wasn’t that he thought the idea sucked. He just didn’t see it like I did. We kicked it around for a while, and it basically came to two points- I would have to be the editor for the issue, and as such I would have to get other artists to buy into doing stories about Failure. No problem, I thought. That would be easy…

As Joey has alluded to many times in discussing the different issues of Megazeen and the history behind them, originally everything basically was just Joey and Joseph. Where Joseph was more of an idea man who often knew more about what he didn’t want in the book than what he was looking for, Joey quickly became the nuts-and-bolts guy, making sure things like the website got updated and figuring out how people could order and get Megazeen. He and I spent many a night folding, sorting and stapling books- somehow it was fun, but I’m glad we could move on from that. As for me, while I don’t think that most of my actual comics from Megazeen will ever be remembered (except maybe Tales from the Womb, but that was on the web), what I can say with surety is that my impact on Megazeen was in the area of Fellowship. My goal from day one wasn’t to do some crazy comic or to get my “vision” out there… it was to make some friends that I had something in common with. Comics were a necessity to that end- I kept doing different stuff to keep myself current and to not seem like a hypocrite when I encouraged other creators not to be lazy and to make more comics. To me, the fellowship was the goal, not the books. It took Joey a while catching on to that- eventually he saw it like I did and now it’s second nature to him… but getting to know people was my gig from the beginning. That’s why I figured it wouldn’t be a hard sell to get people to kick something in, because the overwhelming majority of people who have appeared in Megazeen are actually my friends…

Well- it wasn’t as easy as I had thought, but what little struggle there was to it made the final outcome all the more special. As I remember it, this is how it came together:

Kneon and Jeremy Zehr allowed me to use a piece they had done for a Megazeen issue on Science Fiction that never happened (which is back on by the way- but who knew?) which took the story of Adam and Eve and told it with Robots. I love both those guys like brothers, and I was SO jazzed to see how well their collaboration worked out.

"godman" By Ross Lawhead was one of those weird things- Joey heard from Ross and forwarded me one of his strips. I followed up with him & we corresponded for like 2 years, just chatting… and when the day came and I needed something for the Failure issue, he kicked in 2 pages that killed me with laughter, while kicking up the potential for controversy about 50 notches.

Keith Stone and I became friendly though one of the message boards, and I asked him to kick in something. He pitched me this story which had “big old piles of lame smelling cheese” written all over it, but I really wanted him to do a comic for the issue. He told me that the only other thing he was working on was a story about a goth chick who chops up zombies with chainsaws, but that he couldn’t figure out where the “failure” would be in that. After a few back and forth e-mails, "A Simple Explanation" was born. While I can’t take credit for it, I’m glad we talked it through and he came up with a killer piece, pun intended.

Daniel Allen was another guy I met online. His gig was doing photo manipulated strips using faith healers and televangelists as his sources of material. He turned in a strip where Benny Hinn goes to Taco Bell. Very funny stuff!

Jeff Slemons is one of those guys who is seriously too talented for the room; I met him in a CC.net chat and we became friends, and when I saw his stuff I freaked out. I sheepishly asked him for a piece for the Failure issue, figuring he’s a talented, working pro artist and would never have the time. In a few days, he turned in to me "Frankenbeenz!" which is seriously the highest quality strip Megazeen has ever printed.

"Them Crazee Bible Stories" was a result of Uncle Schlomo calling me and asking what he could contribute. He and I kicked around some different ideas, but when I mentioned the story of David and his “dowry” of Philistine foreskins, he decided that was not only a good idea for a comic, but for a chance at writing poetry as well…

As for "Paladin: Nail Marks on the Palm", the longest entry in the issue- Well, I have a confession to make; Ann, aside from being my sister, is one of the few people who will always have an open door with Megazeen. That’s not because of nepotism, mind you, it’s because her art freakin’ rocks at a level that makes our collective heads spin. When Ann sent me an e-mail about the piece, all I knew for sure was she promised it would be among her best work. Looking at it now, she was right.

Dean Ranke is one of the nicest and most generous artists around. When he agreed to do something for the issue, I started getting stuff from him on a regular basis. He actually did 2 pieces especially for the book, but we went with "The Tijuana Bible Society" because it fit so nicely with the theme and worked with the flow of the book much better than anything else. Go to his website and marvel at his stuff. You’ll thank me later…

Jamie Cosley was the first person to give me something for the book. In fact, he gave me several things for it, and probably would have kept on giving me stuff had I asked for it. If you know Jamie at all, that won’t surprise you…it’s just the way he is. Waaaaaay back in the early days of Megazeen, I found a few small, low res examples of Jamie’s work on the web and I fell in love with his stuff. Immediately I contacted him & got Joey to do the same- the rest is a huge piece of Megazeen History. Jamie’s stuff has been somewhere in almost every issue since then. "Sugar Pig" was the piece that made it into MZ13- mostly because it’s about pigs farting. How can you beat that?

As for the opening editorial, lovingly know to all at “The Poop,” this was the third time I had a chance to write one for an issue of Megazeen. The first time I did it was for our first Convention special- for that book, I decided to hit people with a quick, concise version of the Gospel, because the audience of that book was mostly non-believers. My second opportunity was for issue 6, and that was basically a call to Christian artists to do comics that didn’t suck so much… With Megazeen 13, however, every attempt I made at saying something about the topic at hand just sounded either fake or stupid. At the point where I almost was about to give up, I found Hebrews 11: 35-39 and decided to print that basically as it stood. I think that was my favorite part of the book, because it put everything we did into perspective.

As things stand right now, Megazeen 13 is somewhat of a failure. So far, it’s sold the least copies of any issue- honestly, it’s not even close. And that’s too bad; Not for my sake- As I said before, I never did Megazeen for some selfish reason… but I hope as time goes on, more people get to see the amazing work that’s in this book.

So unless you want to be left out... buy it here.