2024 was a productive year for me. I published six comics and zines and made an appearance at a few book and zine fests, and even a makers’ market where I met some swell fellow creators. Hopefully, 2025 will produce similar results. We’ll see how it goes, but for now, here is a recap of my year in publishing.

[By the way, you can get all six titles in a bundle from RoosterCow Press!]

Used Records & Tapes #4

The first title of the year was the fourth issue of Used Records & Tapes. If you don’t know, this is a zine I edit and contribute to along with Mike Dixon. It features reviews of records from past decades written by a revolving group of artists, writers, and other creators.

Issue #4 featured contributions from writer March Basch (co-screenwriter of I’ll See You in My Dreams, The Hero, and Hearts Beat Loud), prolific zinester Liz Mason, and author Katie Haegele to name a few. Also, cartoonist Ben Snakepit drew an awesome two-page comic review of the Misfit’s album Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood.

My contributions, in addition to recreating many of the album artwork and the zine’s cover, was a review of three grunge classics on cassette. Issue number five is in the works.

Gray Flag #4

Another zine series I’ve been publishing for the past few years also saw its fourth issue published in 2024. Gray Flag features snippets from the journals I kept as a writing student at Columbia College from 1990 to 1993.

Much of what is in these journals (two spiral-bound notebooks) are writing exercises for the various classes in the Fiction Department’s Story Workshop program.

Issue number four includes word associations, character studies, work instances, and story outlines, as well as an excerpt from an underground newspaper and a column for Columbia College’s student newspaper.

The fifth and final installment of Gray Flag will be published this year.

Ridiculous Fiction #1: Old Joe

I used the term “ridiculous fiction” to describe the absurd short stories I wrote in the late 1980s and early ’90s. In 2024, I began compiling these relics into a zine series of the same name. The debut issue contains the story “Old Joe” which I wrote for a creative writing class at DePaul University in 1989.

“Old Joe” is a spoof of the classic Man versus Nature literary theme. Will Bill Billson become a man after a successful hunt?

Also in this issue is a comic I created just last year about an incident that occurred in the mid-’90s. “The Sheridan Park Massacre” tells the tale of one rage-filled evening where I obliterated a disgusting nest of cockroaches. The horror! 

The Flaming Skull of Death

The Flaming Skull of Death comic tells a terrifying tale of Jonas who receives a cryptic message from his uncle, lord of an ancient castle on the Isle of Crannias. Jonas must decode the message and follow its instructions… or else…

A version of this comic originally appeared over ten years ago as an Easter egg on this very website. It had no real beginning or ending. Now it does. To fully enjoy this comic, readers (must) use a key code to decipher an encrypted message. Doing so reveals the full story. Many who have done so found themselves frozen with fear as their hair mysteriously turned white. Yes, it is that frightening.

Woodrow Comics #1

Woodrow Comics #1 is a reworking, or reimagining if you will, of a crappy photocopied comic I made in 1995. That comic was itself a reworking of a series of drawings I made over the preceding decade, all featuring the most notorious punk band in the world, The Woodrows.

My friend Max and I invented these insane party dudes while attending a drug prevention conference we were sent to as high school sophomores. If all this sounds confusing, you should buy a copy and read the introduction. After that, you’ll be ready to laugh your face off at this hilarious (I hope) illustrated discography.

Sssnakes #5

Yesss, the fifth and LAST issue of my Sssnakes! minicomic (featuring Sly and Steven) slithered into the world at the tail end of ’24.

I’m sad to see these two reptilian rapscallions go, but honestly, this hand-printed publication is a bit of a pain to produce — lots of folding and stapling and lots of expensive ink cartridges. Once my stash of colored cardstock is gone, so is this mini.

These snakes have been around for years, having appeared in Reglar Wiglar, and Roctober zines as well as on the Reglar Wiglar website. Someday, I hope to assemble all of these strips into one volume. Until then…

Chris Auman Comics & Zines for 2025

As mentioned above, the new year will see the fifth issue of Used Records and Tapes and the end of Gray Flag with issue number five. There will certainly be another installment of Ridiculous Fiction as well as a second issue of Woodrow Comics. Other planned titles include @#$%!!!, which is another collection of strips I did in the 1990s and early aughts. And lastly, hopefully, the 30th issue of Reglar Wiglar print zine will see the light of day. Join the RoosterCow Club for 2025 and get all of those titles mailed to you directly!