It’s August, and here in Austin that means two things, 1.) a month of tortuous heat and 2.) the Austin sci-fi convention Armadillocon. Yep, Armadillocon is the big show people. That’s why Space Squid is currently running around frantically putting together the new issue, the first new issue since the last time we were all at Armadillocon.
And because we are Space Squid, the most punk-rock and notorious Sci-fi/Humor/Comics zine in America, the issue release will have a number of truly amazing events, the details of which we are still ironing out. A party is virtually guaranteed.
Longtime readers of this blog will know about the ongoing malfunction with our beloved photocopier, Sanjay2. This was one of the reasons we skipped a spring issue. I’ve done more work on it, and it seems that even if Sanjay ever printed again, his days are numbered.
Space Squid would not truly be Space Squid without existing in meat-space, so we have found an even deader media in which to publish: clay tablet.
I’ll tell you more about the technical details of clay-tablet publishing later, but I will show you the proof-of-concept of the clay-printing process. Below, is a plastic-resin cast that contains the image of a squid and the name and number of the current issue in phonetic cuneiform. I have used the cast to impress the writing onto a lump of modeling clay.
If you’re going to publish in dead media, you might as well use a medium that’s proven to last 5,500 years.
