Yes, I’ve been a bit sparse with the blogs. I’ve got a lot going on.
One thing I’ve been working diligently on is BURRITO Magazine. BURRITO is my humor magazine or ‘zine’ (which just pretty much means it’s a self-published, shoestring budget type of thing). But things are coming along nicely. BURRITO issue #15 just came out and it’s looking pretty good, I must say.
So what does BURRITO have to do with “Perk at Work”? Well, way back in late 2003 I created something called “One Lump or Two” which was, at the time, just a one page publication. The only thing I knew I wanted on the page was “Perk at Work” so I stuck it at the bottom and filled in the space around it.
You can click the image to see a bigger version or click here for a PDF download.
I had never really done much writing before then. I figured it really didn’t matter – after all, the publication was just a place for me to put my comic out there. I sent out this little one-page publication to friends and relatives. It gave me something to do and something to give out to people to show them that I could do some graphic design (I needed a job). I found myself enjoying the writing and I just kept on doing it. After a while, the one page turned to two pages then to a little magazine. I really enjoyed the process but gave it up when I actually did get a job at the local newspaper. There I helped create another publication but that’s a story for another time.
“Perk at Work” was always a staple in the publication. Even when I started introducing more and more different stuff, Perk stayed in there. Of course, as noted in earlier blogs, all the characters used to be animals. But the writing stayed pretty much the same and people always seemed to gravitate toward the bottom of the page where Perk was.
Fast forward to February 2009: I decided to create BURRITO Magazine as a way to spotlight “Perk at Work” as well as “Attack Mimes”, the graphic novel I illustrate, as well as “On Things…”, a humor piece written with Trevor Hodgkins who also writes “Attack Mimes”. Again, Perk was a staple but, instead of having him at the foot of the pages, there were a bunch of strips all clumped together. This format was easy to produce but lacked the character of “One Lump or Two”; it didn’t flow as well.
I went back to the drawing board and took what I thought worked with “One Lump or Two” and adjusted it for BURRITO. I like the direction it’s going in. Folks seem to be getting a kick out of it too, which is nice. It’s taken a chunk of time out of my life but it’s a labor of love.
Now that BURRITO has a nice solid format, I hope to get back to blogging a bit more. Things have been crazy since MAD Magazine, but crazy in a good way. Soon I may share some good news on that front as well. But, again, that’s a story for another time.
If you haven’t checked out BURRITO Magazine, head on over to the website. You can download issue #14 for free! If you like it, get a subscription. Most of the content from issue 14 is up on the site to read… except for Perk. That’s not irony, it’s just that Perk has it’s own site. I’ll probably stick Perk up on there anyways just for fun. After all, fun is what this is all about.
