Flint Comix #51: STATUS REPORT

 By Randy Zimmerman

As of this posting Flint Comix #51 (July 2013) is now out on the stands.  Despite the Fourth of July Holiday (On a Thursday, which literally shot the back half of the week for many folks, but not our printers), we had copies distributed as early as Saturday.  The majority of them were distributed on Monday (the 8th).  It all came out well and we are moving onward.

It was an odd month in that a lot of things we had planned did not unfold as planed. It was one of those issues where there were a lot of hats in he air.  One or two we shot down ourselves: one article that closely mimicked another local publication's article, and after the last few weeks of behind the scenes "glitches" (We call them "koalas" for reasons we'll explain later.) we aired on the side of omission.  A couple we postponed to next month, and a few ...well...let's just say it's better left not talking about and leave it at that.

I have blown what I thought was a strained muscle in my knee (that I delivered my share of FC #51 on) to a full blow out, making it impossible to walk.  I don't get sick much and I make a lousy patient, so I'm typing this post in an attempt to be doing SOMETHING for the paper.

As I mentioned in the editorial, sometimes you just have ROUGH months, where it seems the whole world is fighting your efforts, and I'm hoping our current "rough patch" ends as soon as my knee heals (It IS feeling better and I am able to hobble short distances - going to the doctor's tomorrow.).

Returns on #50 have been normal, despite the one thousand issue overprinting.  No one decided to give our press release(s) any coverage, so the paper still remains a "local" event.  To say that I'm frustrated over this lack of attention is an understatement.  To say that I was surprised by it would be a lie.

I'm starting to believe that the only way folks will take us seriously will be when we start another comics paper in another location (which IS something we've tried to do these last 3-4 years, but have always run into "koalas" that I promise to get into in later posts), but for now we'll keep on punching away here quietly, or at least somewhat quietly.

Next month (Issue #52) is our annual "Back To the Bricks Cruise" issue, (I'll cover that in a little bit when I work our history up to issue #4).  I am currently working on painting the cover which, now that I think about it, I should be taking shots for it to show you its progress here.  More postings SOON.  I ALMOST have the history of our first issue post-able, so that will probably be next.

Thanks for being here.

Randy Z.