Buenos dias, my little droogies! We've been busy toiling away on Issue Two of IN MEDIA REX. We'll have some news about it's debut and the next event that we're going to participate in within the coming weeks. By the end of this week, however, we should be releasing a little free surprise for everyone to enjoy. This gift, from us to you, is also going to help us test a few things, especially for the digital aficionados.
The first installment of our Mailing List - which we'll have a link for on the site before it's published - is getting prepped. While some the information in this blog is going to be repeated in the Mailing List, we're working to customize that experience to be a little more substantial. Or, at the very least, much more novel than what you can come to expect from this place. We'll see. It's going to be a fun experiment.
Also, don't forget that there are plenty of copies of IN MEDIA REX still available in our Store.
Anyway, I'm going to hand the mic off to James Roberts and let him fill you in a little on how his and Aleisha Bayron's BAD ACID originated.
- Chet
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After graduating from U of H a few years back, I was completely lost. (Much like Alan, the main character of Bad Acid.) I was still writing, of course -- after all, I DID graduate with a creative writing degree, but I wasn’t writing short stories, or poetry, or a novel. No. I was brainstorming endless nights and funneling all thought into a journal titled “God and the Devil at a Dive Bar in Hell.”
This, of course, became Bad Acid. (And don’t worry, the old title has its significance.) The idea of a simpleton like me escaping the mundane and albeit terrible, monotony of everyday life was something I have and will always relate to. Alan, the struggling musician. Me, the struggling writer (although I too, like Alan, play guitar and write songs). We are both trying to find our way to fit in and leave our mark, while escaping/improving/enduring this life with whatever mind-bending experiences we stumble upon along the way.
Ergo: “The trip of all trips.”
I suppose the idea here is also simple, giving the responsibility of life as we know it, existence, whatever you wanna call it... give this power to someone genuine who merely wants to make art and get by without hurting anyone… while tripping balls.
The existential elements of Bad Acid are just that. I’m an atheist, if you couldn’t tell. But I have quite an optimistic view on life. I may not believe in anything, but if I’m ever proven wrong, so be it. There’s a bit of that in Bad Acid as well. Alan is content, and while he’s generally a happy person, he’s not rich or married with kids. He is scraping by doing what he loves. I also like to have fun with the idea of God retiring and him and the Devil being whiskey buddies, because that sounds about as ridiculous as anything else.
As far as “why” I’m not writing a novel or something else “worth my time or my degree,” I’ll say this…
I love comics. They are my first love. They always will be. And Bad Acid is fun. I’m still learning to adjust to the anthology style, but it has its perks and drawbacks. Trying to fit parts of this story into increments is both fun and challenging, which in itself is a good thing to keep pushing me along.
I have so much to tell: Alan will have moments of a shitty, 90’s, grunged-out superhero. He will party in Hell. He will turn the world on its head. He will also hit that wall... That point of no return... And I refer to the “Bad Acid” side of things when I say this... For those who’ve “braved the rabbit hole,” sometimes you hit that wall, when you want it to stop, but find yourself helplessly along for the ride.
In the end, the only way out is through.
Cheers,
James
