Nix Update! March 3 2025

I feel an urgency these days. An urgency to get my various artistic endeavors completed, out the door, and into your hands. I won't drag you down with my cynical doom spiral much, but my day job is in the grants department at Columbus State Community College. A lot of the grants I work on focus on supporting under-served communities here in Columbus. I can't help but think that Orange Mussolini and/or Apartheid Guy with his Twittler Youth are coming for us sometime soon. My wife also works in education, so DoE changes scare me too. So hey... What's to do but try and get as much art published as I can before the other foot drops?

Thank You Roostercow and Eight-Stone Press!

Luckily, while I was fumbling around with Nix publishing ideas and efforts, serendipity played a happy part in my work. Last year I took a trip to Portland, Oregon and Powell's Bookstore. At that famed retail outlet I picked an issue of a zine titled "Used Records & Tapes" published by Chris Auman's Rooster Cow Media. Used Records & Tapes is a collaborative effort by assorted music writers, retailers, and fans from across the country. I believe based on the record reviews contained, most of the writers are in a Generational X sorta way. Loved it!!

I ended up dropping Chris a line to tell him so. One thing led to another and he asked if I wanted to contributor some art for the upcoming issue #5. I hadn't been asked to do such a thing in a long minute, so I jumped on the offer. As the reviews for the issue were all already written I was given a list of records to choose from. (My interpretation of the album cover, that is.)

I ended up picking the Eddie and the Cruisers soundtrack, which was to accompany an essay on the record by William Patrick Tandy of Eight-Stone Press. I'll confess that John Cafferty is outside my normal genre preferences, but super honored to have been asked. Also, I've been a fan of Michael Pare since the Greatest American Hero when he played the world's oldest high schooler. I'd check out the review. Patrick's love of the record is infectious!

Nix Publishing Updates: As I mentioned last month, I am prepping for two issues of my own record collecting zine "Tales from the Crate" and a third volume of collected "Sketchbook Picture Sleeves." For the former, I have the text complete and am now working on some cartoons to fill in some of the page gaps. Issue #8 will feature a panel or strip of each of the record/horror hosts shown on the cover. The latter is actually all laid out and could probably head to the printer shortly. I just have to decide how much I want to fuss with some of the rougher picture sleeves. Anyways, watch for info on a pre-orders launch party or something like that locally here in Columbus.

The Record Swami will return!

12" Sketchbook Picture Sleeves: I have about 1/2 a dozen 12" records without sleeves that I want to do larger versions of my sketchbook Picture Sleeves for, but that has been a stop start sort of project for a few years now. Lately its been a little more "start." That has to do in part with the pieces taking longer and in part with my grandiose ideas about what those projects should look like. Basically, I have to talk myself down from doing four sided 12"s with a gatefold diptych. That's too much work and costs too much. I need to just pick a song title and do one image, like I do with 7"s. In that spirit, I just finished this Fleshtones image for the Roman Gods 12" single. Well, almost finished I need to mount it on a 12x12 piece of colored cardboard. (Came out pretty sweet, if I do say so myself. If you're interested, I'll make it available when I launch the pre-order sale.)