Working with a hangover blows chunks, but fear not,Sucky the Parasitic Worm is here to help you survive your crappy existence! Today’s life lesson is how to get through work while suffering from a hangover.Also, if you have a drinking problem, get help, please!
A Guide to Working with a Hangover
Hungover on a workday? Don’t you DARE call in sick and screw over your coworkers. And don’t miss out on your bread just because you can’t hold your juice. Beat that hangover, buddy!
If you are an hourly employee with no paid sick days, you cannot afford to waste a day on a hangover. Have some fricking self-respect and suck it up, Sally. Get thee to work!
Yeah, it’s gonna suck hard but you deserve it, you moron. Maybe next time you’ll think twice about doing those 2 am whisky shots on a school night. If you absolutely must party on a school night, get smart. Make a plan to eat before, during, and after your binge. Drink some water and eat an aspirin or two before you pass out (I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice).
Oh, and try not to drink like a frat person. I realize that sometimes a night of debauchery will pop up unplanned and tackle your ass to the ground, but whenever possible, mitigate the damages.
Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz
Before you go to bed after a binge, drink some sodium bicarbonate and anhydrous citric acid, a.k.a. Alka-Seltzer, and then drink some more as soon as you wake up in the morning. Sure, it looks comforting when it’s all fizzy in a glass, but it tastes like cat piss. Slurp it down anyway and you will feel—not amazing, but amazingly less shitty.
Again, this is not medical advice. I do not have a doctoral or a master’s degree. I barely have a bachelor’s degree and it’s definitely not paid for yet.
Line that Gut With Grease
If you can manage to remember to stuff your face with some good old-fashioned grease before you go to bed after bingeing, you will be the better worker for it. Nothing too salty or you’ll be up all night chugging water. There’s nothing wrong with drinking lots of water, you’ll need to do that too, but you also need sleep. Drinking water and whizzing all night ain’t gonna help you clock those Z’s.
I personally like to eat a slinger at the conclusion of a bender. A slinger comes in different incarnations but usually goes something like this: greasy hash browns topped with two hamburger patties topped with American cheese topped with two fried eggs completely smothered in chili. Eat it with a side of white bread and a glass of milk and you will live longer than Keith Richards. Also, White Castle sliders never taste better than when your three sheets are blowing in the wind, so consider a stop there (on foot!)
The Morning After
Oh boy. I hope you remembered to eat grease last night. Here’s what you don’t want to eat now: anything acidic. Eat some dry toast. Drink some tea and a lot of water. Yes, you need caffeine, I’m not an idiot (or a doctor) but your stomach can’t handle coffee just yet. You’ll cave into your craving soon enough. Try to wait as long as you can though.
Eat a banana, an apple, a pear, maybe eat some (mildly acidic) cranberry juice. Some people think Gatorade does the trick. Some more grease won’t kill you. I usually try to get some type of sausage and egg sandwich in me around this time and at least two orders of hash browns. What can I say, the gut wants what it wants.
Stay Hydrated and Caffeinated
Your brain is going to go through a lot of peaks and valleys throughout the day. You will need to keep it hydrated and find sources of caffeine. I know I previously warned you to avoid it, but that was THEN, this is NOW! Have some coffee as soon as your stomach can handle it.
Consider other caffeine delivery systems such as Coke (that’s a capital ‘C’ on Coke, Disco Stu, don’t mess with the yeyo when you can’t even handle the hooch) or other cola products. More H2O too. Lot’s more.
Hair of the Dog
The Hair of the Dog cure basically advocates staying drunk—a very short-term solution. That said, hangovers are short-term problems. The pros don’t get hungover because they make sure to always have booze in their systems. If you have a job where the lives of others are at stake, you should really just call in sick today, but if you are an office drone or retail worker, who am I to tell you what cure to take? That said, maybe you should save this one for your day-off hangover. That’s a whole ‘nother breed.
I hope you have sense enough to listen to me and not your brain. After all, this is the same brain that told you to drink three pitchers of Busch Light last night so, obviously, it doesn’t know shit.
Try to look busy today, sport, and remember, you will live to be this stupid again, probably in a few days.
Longtime readers may recall that before he was elected POTUS (the first time), Donald Trump wrote record reviews for the Reglar Wiglar. Now that he is out of the White House, we asked The Donald if he would return to his old post. Amazingly he agreed to share his thoughts on the iconic American hardcore band Black Flag.
(If you’re interested in what Trump thinks of Metallica, read his review of their killer debut album Kill ‘Em All.)
Best Black Flag Album: Damaged
I’ve said this publicly, you can go and check, Damaged is the best Black Flag album. I’ve gotten a lot of credit for saying that. I’ve had big, powerful skinheads — big, tough guys — come up to me with tears in their eyes and say, “Thank you, sir, thank you for saying that Damaged is the best Black Flag record.” Biden thinks Live ‘84 is better and it’s a disgrace.
Drawing by Mike Dixon
Best Black Flag Song: “American Waste”
Dez sings very strongly on this one. Very powerfully. “American Waste” is what was going on in this country when I became president and I changed that. We had the best economy in the history of the world and then came the plague from China and it never should have happened. And I won’t forget it.
Best Black Flag Singer: Henry Rollins
Some people say Keith, some people say Dez, some people say Ron. I say Henry, OK? For me, Henry sings very powerfully. Very strongly. You need that in a singer, especially in hardcore, you need somebody who’s tough.
Drawing by Mike Dixon
Best Black Bass Player: Chuck Dukowski
Chuck plays very strongly. Very powerfully. I can relate to that. Kira? Not a fan. Nasty woman. People have said that if I played bass I would be a very good bass player because I would play very strongly. I like that. Maybe I’ll play bass. Never saw Black Flag, no. I imagine the audience would smell very strongly. Can you see me and Melania at a Black
Best Black Flag Live Show: —-
Never saw Black Flag, no. I imagine the audience would smell very strongly. Can you see me and Melania at a Black Flag show? I don’t think so.
Best Black Flag Drummer: Bill Stevenson
Definitely not Robo. He came here illegally. If he would have gone back to Colombia, or wherever, and come here legally then I would consider Robo. But Bill, Bill plays very strong, very powerful drums. I like Bill’s powerful drums.
Drawing by Mike Dixon
Best Black Flag Guitar Player: Greg Ginn
Greg Ginn, no question. Great businessman too.
Black Flag Member Ivanka Should MarryAfter Divorcing Current Husband:
How about none of them, OK? Great band though. Really fantastic for what they did. Very successful for that type of music, hardcore, but no, Ivanka would never marry a loser.
Recently, Dave Hankins interviewed me for his zine, Questions & Answers. You can read that interview below. I also encourage you to check out some of the other zines Dave publishes, which are available from Lazer Attack. [Note: color images and headings have been added to the original]
Interview with Chris Auman
I first contacted Chris two years ago to inquire about his zine distro, Roostercow. Since then, we’ve exchanged a handful of emails and sent each other some stuff through the mail. Yet over these past couple years, I had only read five of Chris’ zines. Five is a very small percentage of Chris’ output. He has been publishing for a long time and is incredibly prolific. Just recently, I finally got my hands on a bunch of his zines and have been having a lot of fun reading through them all. And now I get to ask him some questions!
Hello Chris, thank you for being a part of this! To start off, I’m asking everybody about their names. I’ve seen the movie Vernon, Florida, so I think I know where the name of your zine series Reglar Wiglar comes from. So I suppose I’ll ask you about Roostercow. How did that name originate?
Many years ago, when I was a teenager, my mom found a little plastic toy animal while working in the garden. It had the head of a rooster and the body of a cow. I cleaned it off and kept it on my desk in my room. For whatever reason, when I made a mix tape for friends, I would write RoosterCow Records on the J-card. When I started drawing Woodrow Comics, also as a teenager, RoosterCow Records was their record label. Naturally, when my band (Reagan National Crash Diet) wanted to release our debut record, it had to be on the RoosterCow label. Since 2001, the label has released 30 CDs, vinyl records, digital albums, and one cassette. When I started RoosterCow Press in 2014 to publish the Reglar Wiglar reboot, I decided to use the umbrella term RoosterCow Media for everything.
Reglar Wiglar Zine
Cat drawing by Dave Hankins
You were nice enough to send me some of the old Reglar Wiglars from the late 90s and early 2000s. Several articles and interviews have had me laughing lately, but I think my favorite section of each issue is the album reviews. A cast of characters, such as Joey Germ, P.C. Jones, and Jayne Wayne, really had a way with words when reviewing records. I’m guessing that most, if not all, of these reviewers, were actually you using pen names. Is that right?
Yes, those names you mentioned were a few of the many pseudonyms I used. I wrote the majority of the reviews, but I had several guest reviewers over the years. Mike Dixon (Used Records & Tapes) wrote quite a few in the later years. In the early days, I had three or four standby names, like the ones you mentioned. Each had their own personality and taste in music. Joey Germ and Malcolm Tent liked punk rock. Muggsy McMurphy was partial to metal. Early on, Jayne Wayne was a super pretentious New Age-type, but morphed into a snarky punk as well.
Most of the Reglar Wiglar record reviews are done in the typical format of a short paragraph, but you’ve also gotten very creative at times. One word record reviews, record reviews written as haikus, and records reviewed in the voice of Donald Trump are just a few of the entertaining choices made. I guess there’s not really a question here, but I wish other publications would have as much fun with reviews as you do.
Well, Reglar Wiglar started as a parody of music magazines. The first few issues had reviews of fake records and movies, interviews with fake bands, etc. Around the third issue, I reviewed a few records put out by friends’ bands and labels, then other labels and bands started sending me stuff. I made a point to review everything, but I kept getting more and more, so I had to find some way to review everything. That’s how the one-word and haiku reviews started.
Looking back now, most of the reviews were pretty harsh, and I think I’ve endured some karmic payback for that, but of the hundreds of snarky reviews I published, I only got complaints from two bands, and one was for a review that I didn’t write. My hope was that everyone was in on the joke, and if you didn’t know what to expect when you sent me your record, you failed to do your research. As for the reviews “written” by Trump, those were published a year or two before he ran for president in 2016, back when I thought he was just an incompetent real estate hack and gameshow host. I mistakenly thought this was how everyone saw him. I was very wrong about that.
Used Records & Tapes Zine
Ok, here’s a question… You also have a zine series called Used Records and Tapes, in which you and a few guests write about and review albums. Have you ever considered inviting a Reglar Wiglar regular, such as Dunc the Punk to write something for U.R.&T., or will the two worlds always remain separate?
I have not, but that’s a great idea. Some of my reviews in UR&T, at least in the first issue, have a bit of Joey Germ’s attitude, but I think I’ve mellowed out too much these days to revive those characters. Dunc the Punk is a real person, by the way. He is an irritable Brit in real life, too, so I think he had fun channeling that into his music reviews. I am sure he would resurrect Dunc if asked.
Woodrow Comics
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading about the fictional band The Woodrows. You’ve been writing about them for nearly forty years now. Over all this time, have you ever made any Woodrows merch? As I’ve been reading, I’ve been thinking that I’d like to get a Woodrows t-shirt or sticker. That band rules!
Yikes! Reading “40 years” is a bit of a shocker, but yes, I started drawing the Woodrows with a friend in high school. I have thought about creating Woodrows merch in the past, but always wondered, who would buy it? Now I know that Dave Hankins would, and that’s at least one sale! So, maybe someday. You’ll be the first to know. One project that I will probably never get around to is a Woodrows tribute album where I would ask real bands to “cover” Woodrows’ songs. That would be a huge undertaking since only the song titles exist at this point.
Music
Aside from creating fake bands, you also create real bands! It looks like your most recent group, Empire Smalls, is no longer active. Are you working on anything currently, or are you taking some time off from music?
Well, I’ve wanted to be in a band since I was probably 12 or 13, and I started my first band when I was 15 before I even had a guitar, which I got for my 16th birthday.
After I moved to Chicago for school, it took a few years to get another band going. Once that initial hurdle was over, I was in a band, playing shows, and releasing records for the next 25 years. I moved to Madison, WI, in 2012 and lived there for a little over three years, but didn’t have much luck finding people to play with. That’s when I started using the name Empire Smalls to release a few solo digital EPs on Bandcamp.
When I moved back to Chicago in 2015, the 1-piece band became a 3-piece with the addition of Mike Dixon and Tim Davison. Our debut live show was canceled due to the pandemic. When the shutdown ended, I realized I no longer had the desire to play live. When Tim moved to North Carolina a year or so later, Mike and I had a hard time replacing him, so we gave up trying. I have not done much with music since then, but I do have a dozen or so songs I’d like to finish and record someday, hopefully with guest appearances by my many talented musician friends. That record will no doubt be released on RoosterCow Records.
Gray Flag & Ridiculous Fiction
Over the past few years, you’ve been publishing zines containing material that you wrote in the early 1990s. The Gray Flag series just ended, but it looks like Ridiculous Fiction is just getting started. Issue #1, titled Old Joe, came out last summer. When can we expect issue #2?
My reasoning for publishing stuff from the early 1990s is to fill in a gap in the creative timeline that exists in my head. It’s a very self-indulgent undertaking, but that’s what self-publishing is. Looking back, I realized that I have been publishing comics and little magazines (didn’t know what a zine was then) since I was 8 or 9 years old.
Not long after I bought my first copy of Mad Magazine, I started writing and drawing my own version. My high school band “released” a half-dozen cassettes that I did artwork for and dubbed on my crappy Sears stereo, but there was about a four year gap while I was in college where I was writing and drawing, but not publishing anything aside from a one-off underground newspaper.
So, Ridiculous Fiction and Gray Flag are my attempts to document that time. Ridiculous Fiction #2 should be out in 2025 at some point. It features an absurd short story I wrote at a laundromat in 1990. I have stories for more issues, but I think some of this stuff may be too ridiculous for general consumption, which means I will probably publish them anyway, maybe as Really Ridiculous Fiction.
Reglar Wiglar #30
On that same note, issue #29 of Reglar Wiglar came out in 2023. Any plans for #30?
There is a plan for RW #30, which will be a collection of comics, gags, and drawings – some old some new – but all previously unpublished (I think). I hope to have that done by the end of this year as well, but we’ll see.
It appears to me the quality of the physical zine itself is just as important to you as the quality of the written content. Many of your zines are in large sizes, several of them have glossy pages, and all of the covers are thick and mostly printed in color. They really stand out amongst the rest of my collection. Even the old issues of R.W. from the 1990s are 8.5 by 11 inches with cardstock covers. Could you please share your thoughts on paper choices?
I always wanted the Reglar Wiglar to look as good as possible while being produced for as little money as possible.
The first two issues had black and white cardstock covers, and then I did all newsprint editions until I used color cardstock covers starting with issue #11. Initially, I could only afford one color, so I did a red-on-white cover, black-on-white, green-on-white, blue-on -white, etc. Once I obtained better-paying employment, I graduated to two colors, then three.
I peaked with RW #16, which was four colors, plus I drew in part of the cover drawing with a black Sharpie, so technically it was five colors.
After that, I went back to two colors but increased the page count to 100 pages. With digital printing and more affordable software options, I can finally go crazy with multicolor covers or do grayscale or black and white, as well as smaller print runs. It’s been liberating in that respect, but it still ain’t cheap to print in color.
Vincent Van Gogh
This final question is pretty far off topic, but you recently mentioned to me that you got to visit the big Vincent van Gogh exhibit that is currently happening in Boston. Please tell me a little about that experience. Was this your first time seeing original Van Gogh paintings? Did you see anything or learn anything that surprised you?
Van Gogh had been popping up in my life a lot about a year ago. It started with a book my dad gave me in 1990 called If You Want to Write, which was published in 1938. I finally started reading it last year (35 years later!), which goes to show that good advice is often wasted on young people. At any rate, the author, Brenda Uland, refers to Van Gogh’s letters quite a bit, which I never knew existed. Around the same time, I read your zine Sunflowers, which hit me at the right moment because it was such a great way to spend 30 minutes on the porch on a sunny fall afternoon, totally engrossed in one specific subject.
In January of this year, Santa gave me a copy of Van Gogh’s letters. In June, while my partner Sarah was attending a workshop in Cambridge, MA, I was killing time, strolling around Harvard Square, when I saw an ad on a bus for the Van Gogh exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. The next day, I took the train to Boston and spent about three hours at the museum.
I’ve been to the Art Institute of Chicago enough times in my life that I’m sure I’ve seen “The Bedroom” there, which is on loan to the Boston Exhibit. It was great to see so many of his paintings grouped together and up close. I love how he saw color and how he was willing to sacrifice so much to become a great painter, knowing he had a limited time on this planet, as we all do. He was fully aware that he was painting for future generations and not his contemporaries.
Thanks again, Chris! I’m thirty years late to the party, but Reglar Wiglar has become one of my favorite zine series. If you’ve got any new projects coming up, or anything else you’d like to tell about, please do that here.
You’re welcome. It’s never too late to join the party. As for future projects, this year should see RF#2 and RW#30, as previously mentioned, plus Woodrow Comics #2. There will be a RoosterCow records release as well, but it’s too soon to go into detail about that because there may or may not be a zine component to it. After this year, it will be time to scale back. I want to focus on finishing a graphic novel I’ve been chipping away at for the past five or six years. It will be unlike anything I’ve done in the past and it is not music-related at all. If anyone wants to stay up-to-date on any or all RoosterCow-related activities, they can sign up for the newsletter. Thanks, Dave!
Emo Rapper Lil Magneezy was an American rapper who rose to fame as a part of a group of artists who released mixtapes on the popular SoundPuff streaming service. While many SoundPuff hip-hop artists rapped about codeine, benzodiazepines, opiates, and “purple drank,” Lil Magneezy spit rhymes about magnesium, a mineral that helps keep blood pressure normal, bones strong, and the heart rhythm steady.
Early life and career
Born in rural western Pennsylvania in 1999, Lil Magneezy began his career as Lil Fenty before changing it to Lil Oxy. Lil Oxy made his rap debut at a junior high talent show then blew the fuck up thanks to a mixtape released on SoundPuff. After being diagnosed with a magnesium deficiency, Lil Oxy began taking vitamin and mineral supplements and changed his name to Lil Magneezy.
Dangers of magnesium deficiency
Experts say that a significant number of individuals in the US do not eat a diet of magnesium-rich foods, thus putting themselves at a higher risk of inflammation. This inflammation, in subsequent stages, has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and specific types of cancers. Insufficient magnesium levels also seem to contribute as a risk factor for osteoporosis.
SupplementBoiClique
In 2015, Lil Magneezy joined with like-minded artists to form the rap clique SupplementBoiClique, which included fellow SoundPuff rappers Vitamin Deezy, Multi Vee, Vita-K, Bee12, and Fish Oyl.
Success
While Lil Magneezy failed to blow the fuck up among his age demographic, he found a receptive audience in the retirement communities of Florida. In 2016, he moved to the Sawgrass Grove area of The Villages with other members of the SupplementBoiClique. The “bois” held weekly concerts and in their leisure time, enjoyed playing mahjong and shuffleboard, and doing 500-piece jigsaw puzzles with their fans.
Overdose and death
Before a show in Gainsville, FL in 2016, Lil Magneezy complained of nausea, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea — all side effects of taking too many magnesium supplements. The cramping was so intense that he canceled the remaining tour dates. In 2017, to show that he was true to the supplement game, Lil Magneezy shunned most solid foods except seeds and nuts, which are themselves high in magnesium. His body eventually shut down, and he passed away peacefully at his villa. According to the Marion County medical examiner, the cause of death was starvation.
Read more musician bios
This Lil Magneezy bio was originally published in Forgotten Music Masters which is still available for purchase.
This column originally appeared in Behind the Zines #12 titled “Like This or Don’t: Promoting Your Zines on Social Media.”
A collection of my zines that I should be promoting on social media.
Promoting Zines on Social Media
If I could make one generalization about zine makers—and this is probably true of creative people in general—it’s that we tend to be introverts. It’s not that we can’t be social and outgoing and accomplished because, obviously, we can. It’s just that many of us find social situations draining, especially when we are engaged in them for long periods of time, like five minutes. And yet we manage to summon as much awkward grace as we can and get through it.
It would stand to reason then, that the very concept of social media would set our collective teeth on edge. Why wouldn’t the same anxieties and insecurities bubble up at the thought of publicly sharing information about ourselves and our work?
Self-Esteem Destroyer
There are countless studies on how social media is a self-esteem destroyer that is making us all profoundly unhappy. Some scientists believe social media affects us in a way similar to drugs—the positive attention we get from social media releases dopamine that gives our brains a thrill. That blast of cerebral pleasure quickly dissolves, leaving us feeling empty and sad inside. Pretty bleak stuff.
From my own experience, using social media to spread the word about my zines is a necessary evil. If you create something and you want people to read it, then you have to promote it. Sure, you could stand on a street corner and hand out copies to random people, but in some way, you’re still marketing the ideas contained in that publication. And if you print more than one copy of something, it stands to reason that you would want at least one other human animal to see it.
That said, if I spend countless hours making a zine and pay out of pocket to have it printed, then travel to the social media dimension and post about that fact, and in return, I get a smattering of likes—is that a failure? How about no likes? (Did anybody just hear a tree fall in the forest?) On the other hand, if I post a picture of my dog wearing a funny hat on his birthday that’s gonna blow the F up. (Not hatin’ on my dog, he’s a funny dude, but still, it’s a humbling experience for those who actually have to work for the accolades.)
Engagement Fatigue
I think the reason for the indifference to my zine-promoting posts is that most of my social media friends/followers fall into two different categories. There are my “old” old friends (elementary school through high school) who have not, nor will they ever understand zines, comics, self-publishing, or underground anything. And then there are my “newer” old friends (college, former coworkers, etc.) that I’ve known for decades who are probably a little immune to the steady barrage of “read this zine/comic,” “download this digital album,” “come see my band play at 11:30 on Monday night at a dive bar that is 20 miles from where you live.” On the other hand, everyone gets dogs. So in the social media arena, I just can’t compete with an animal who goes through life blissfully unaware of his status as a minor celebrity.
So, the question becomes, is it worth it? I think it probably is. You just can’t take it personally. You’ve got to be prepared for your posts to be insufficiently liked and possibly outright ignored. I mean, how often do you scroll through your feeds carefully examining each post, considering the merits of what’s being communicated, and really engaging with it before assigning a thumbs up or heart to it? How often do you just go on a “like” binge and drop a heart on everything that has the words ‘birthday,’ or ‘graduation’ in it, or the picture of a kitten, puppy, or baby?
My dog Snippet as a puppy. Photo: Elizabeth Auman
Start Promoting Zines on Social Media
I swore many times that I was going to give up social media for good, but I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon, especially now that I’ve joined a whole bunch of new platforms. So, please Frog me on Frugger, Tweak me on Twerker, Spike me on Spoker, and Squish me on Squasher!
Whether we are at the club throwing out our digits (cell phone numbers) to prospective sleeping companions, or in the alley behind the club giving up our PINs at knifepoint, we can’t live without numbers. That’s why I think you’ll agree with my list of the top ten numbers of all time!
Coming in first (which really means last) on our Top Ten List of the Top Numbers of All Time is Number Ten. Don’t take it too hard, old buddy, this doesn’t mean we don’t love you. We appreciate your work ethic, but somebody has to come in at Number Ten and unfortunately, that’s you.
The Number Nine is divine, and by divine we mean one better than Number Ten. Nine times out of ten we’ll take the Number Nine over the Number Ten (with a margin of error of plus or minus one). Not too shabby.
Eight is great if you’re a spider or an octopus, but not so great if you’re John and Kate. But we’re not them. We’re not even Octomom, so we really do think Number Eight is great. We wish there could be eight days a week because that would mean one more day per week (which is currently seven days long) that we could love this number!
Seven is heaven and a little bit lucky to boot. We’d sail the Seven Seas to please this magical numeral. Not as needy as Six or as snooty as Eight, we think the Number Seven has it going on!
Three of these in a row and you’ve got trouble, my Christian friend, but the Number Six by itself? A-dor-a-ble! (Just keep Six away from Nine, please, this is a family-friendly Top Ten List.)
Number Five is alive at Number Five. The Number Five doesn’t take any jive and that’s why we love it! So give us Five. Up high. Down low. You’re never going to be too slow to hang out with this affable, middle-of-the-road, go-along-to-get-along, probably an undecided voter of a number.
Four is good luck if you’re a clover, but not if you are in China as the number four sounds like the Chinese word for death. Yikes! That is not so lucky, unless you are praying for death like we pray for the Number Four to someday move on up in the ranks. Watch those weird back humps, Number Three, Number Four is going to murder you someday!
Three’s a crowd, or so they say, but we disagree. That’s why this numeral is near the top of our list. Coaches, and other overly competitive jerk wads, like to say things like: “If you’re not first, you’re last.” (Which basically means, if you didn’t win the game, you cannot technically call yourself the winner). We say, not true! You can be a third-place champion like our (third) favorite number, Number Three!
Playing second fiddle to no one (except the digit at the number one spot on this list) is good old Number Two. Why do kids laugh when someone says your name, Number Two? So cruel. You don’t care, because it sure feels good when you slide out ready to make a splash in the world!
Number one on our list of the Top Ten Numbers of All Time is the undisputed champ, the greatest number that has existed or ever will exist, the perennial top dog—our Spanish-speaking friends call this guy “Numero Uno” for good reason—yes, it’s Number One! One is the loneliest number only if you believe Three Dog Night, but we don’t. We’ve never trusted Three Dog Night about anything before and we’re certainly not going to start listening to them diss our favorite number. Hey Number Ten, lose that Zero and get with a hero!
NOTE: This Top Ten Numbers list originally appeared in Reglar Wiglar #22. Always read Reglar Wiglar! See more of my published zines here.
Here’s a little explanation about the comic punk band The Woodrows reprinted from Woodrow Comics #1.
The Most Notorious Comic Punk Band
During our sophomore year of high school, my friend Toby and I were picked to attend a drug and alcohol prevention conference. It was 1986. We were 15, maybe 16 years old. Two students and one teacher from area schools were invited to attend this all-day event where different speakers gave tips on resisting peer pressure and staying on the path to good grades and healthy living.
It was well-intentioned, but also very boring. To pass the time, Toby and I started drawing the characters of a made-up punk band, The Woodrows. Unlike the Ramones, Ricky, Toby, Marvy, and Erin really were brothers. Like the Sex Pistols, they were anarchists bent on chaos. They took any drug available and partied harder than Spuds Mackenzie. They scared the PMRC more than any motley band of hair rockers or cheese metallers could ever hope to.
The Most Prolific Comic Punk Band
After the conference, I suppose we were to return to our high school and share what we learned with our fellow students. Back in class, however, we kept drawing The Woodrows, making up endless lists of song and album titles, lyrics, and backstories for the Drab Four. After high school, The Woodrows retired into my subconscious until I started the zine Reglar Wiglar in 1993.
The Reglar Wiglar was launched in the satirical spirit of Spinal Tap and MAD magazine and featured fake band interviews. Of course, the Woodrows had to represent. They were interviewed in the first issue (see the reprint in this book) and were a regular feature for years.
The Debut of Woodrow Comics
In 1995, the boys got their own title, Woodrow Comics #1: a sloppy-looking, photocopied-at-Kinkos, 5.5” x 8.5”, 12-page, black and white comic that I sold on consignment for $1 at a few record and comics shops in Chicago. Woodrow Comics #2 followed in 1996.
These comics did not sell well and it’s easy to see why. They’re crude, juvenile, poorly drawn, and completely absurd. To me, however, they’re hilarious. Over the years, I’ve redrawn the covers several times and even cleaned up the bad behavior a bit (if you can believe that). I present them here, perhaps for the last time, almost 40 years after their creation and 30 years from their original comics debut.
NOTE: The point of this comic was never to make fun of addiction. Just the opposite. These characters were created by two teenagers who thought that booze and drugs were stoopid, but who also thought that the scare tactics of ‘Just Say No’ anti-drug campaigns were a bit corny too. It’s also a parody of the rock and roll lifestyle and punk rock stereotypes. More importantly, this comic asks the question, what if Sid and Nancy had four babies and let G.G. Allin raise them?
If you’re wondering, “Where can I buy comics and zines made by Chris Auman?” I have an answer for you. The best place to order them is direct from yours truly. While my shop is the preferred location, if you like visiting brick-and-mortar retail locations, there are a few shops across the country that carry my titles (see below).
Shops the Carry Chris Auman Comics and Zines
You’ll find RoosterCow Press comics and zines at these retail locations. If you do not live in one of these fine U.S. cities, politely ask your local bookstore to stock RoosterCow titles today!
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 EarthA.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 full spread.
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!
Chris Auman’s “Famous” Frog-in-a-Box is tops among the frog gift ideas you should consider for yourself or a bud. They make for a unique gift for any occasion.
Kids and adults love getting cool stuff in the mail, and if you love frogs, even better! It’s not just the frogs who are ready to hop in a box and be delivered to your door, boxes also include an assortment of knickknacks, buttons, and stickers. You never know what you’re going to get, maybe even something for your new froggy friends to snack on.
Each box also comes with the latest issue of Frog Pond Magazine. Every box is decorated by hand so each one is different.
As great as my frog gift ideas are, these aren’t the only animal-themed presents I have to offer. If you or someone you know digs turtles or snakes, everyone wins with the following boxes.
Kids and adults love getting cool stuff in the mail, and if you love turtles, even better! It’s not just the turtles who slowly crawl into a box and be delivered to your door, boxes also include an assortment of knickknacks, buttons, and stickers—you never know what will be included, but each box also comes with the latest issue of the Turtle Times newsletter.
Every box is decorated by hand so each one is different.
Snake in the Grass
Slithery fun for everyone!
A Snake in the Grass gift box is a super slithery option for a great gift!
Who wouldn’t want to get a box of snakes in the mail? No one we would want to hang out with. Each hand-painted box is different and comes with an assortment of knickknacks, buttons, and stickers—you never know what you’re gonna get, but they all come with the latest issue of the Snake Sentinel.
Check out this gallery of images for your frog gift ideas. If you see something you like, order one today.
