heavy mental

In college my friend Dennis and I were too engrossed with a lot of “underground” comics that one day we decided to put up our own. Because we were a pair of shiny happy people back then, we called our oeuvre “Madness: Tales of Mental Decay.”

The setup was for me to deal with the story, letters, and whining; Dennis with the illustrations, promotion, and bad jokes. It was a pair-up from hell.

Our idea was to come up with a series of stories dealing about love lost, depression, alienation, moral bankruptcy, and other sweet, inspiring Reader’s Digest stuff like that.

We were able to crank out an issue, earned a little from it, got praised by girls (our target readers), but that was it. Dennis and I graduated, married our respective girlfriends, and simply lost time for such creative collaboration.

Plans have been underway for a second issue, but nothing seems to get past the drawing board, as Dennis and I are both adjusting to that bright and wonderful world called fatherhood. (It’s pretty difficult to write about a man offing himself in the most hideous manner when your bundle of joy is smiling beside you.)

Anyway, to re-live old glory, Dennis posted the whole thing here, with his take on how the project came to be and how we became gods for a couple of days here. (You have to have a Multiply account to see them.)

Looking back, the story is kind of juvenile — we were college dudes back then anyway, single and fucking bitter about it — but I’m still proud of this one.

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