I don’t remember thinking much about the spot illustrations I submitted to Factsheet Five. For the most part I just thought up some images that seemed cool (and disturbing) and then drew them. I was (and am though I don’t use it much now) very fond of stippling and cross hatching so most of the illustrations feature those techniques for shading and texture.

I’ve been having illustrations published for a little over 20 years now. I started publishing my own minicomics in 1989. Kinkos 24 hour self service copy shops were a new phenomenon and I took advantage of it. There was (and is) something very satisfying about folding and stapling a little zine together. Once I started publishing minicomics I quickly discovered that other people across the country were publishing as well. One of the best sources of information and reviews in those ancient, pre-internet days was Factsheet Five. Mike Gunderloy reviewed just about anything sent to him. And he liked (or at least had positive things to say) about much of it. Factsheet Five was illustrated with drawings and photos contributed by its readers.

The next series of posts will be drawings I sent to Factsheet Five. Most of these were intended as filler illustrations for Mike to put wherever he had an empty space in his layout. Not all of them saw print. I have a hard time looking at a lot of work I did prior to the mid nineties but I still like most of this stuff.