credit: vlacollective
Chaya Gritton
As a kid, I devoured comics faster than I devoured candy. I loved sitting in a hammock reading Calvin and Hobbes until my mom yelled out for me to come inside for dinner. Calvin’s adventures with Hobbes the funny tiger always brightened my day. A new publication, Other Strangeness , hopes to inspire that same connection to comics and bring them to the forefront again. Frank Fucile, a member of the UWEC English Department who specializes in genre literature, is the managing editor of Other Strangeness. After growing concerned by the lack of newspaper space for comics, he wanted to create a publication that put comics back in the spotlight. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Frank to get to know more about the publication and the non-profit organization, Visual Literary Arts Collective, that started it. Read on to learn more about Other Strangeness an international comic zine with roots right here in Chippewa Valley.
Chaya Gritton: What is the Visual Literary Arts Collective?
Frank Fucile: We are a relatively loose collection of individuals from potentially all over the world, but generally focused in North America. At the same time, we are recognized by the IRS and the Wisconsin government as a non-profit business entity. I envision it as a union of all people who write or draw in the whole world, but that’s of course crazy. The point is that it is open. We have a core of people who are in Eau Claire who are dealing with a lot of stuff. And so far, we’ve been doing our printing here. However, we do have two other nodes of activity in Toronto and Philadelphia…One important thing is that when we agree to publish work, we do not buy a copyright, we buy a license to print the work. So, artists can keep their work up on their websites. The idea is that the organization isn’t supposed to own any intellectual property, it’s just there to get the work out. It exists for the charitable purpose of funding artists and writers.
CG: How do you pick the artists that get published in Other Strangeness?
“ This first magazine was supposed to be something that could appeal to all ages, that was interesting enough, and was independent in its mindset. ”
FF: Well, we’ve only gone through one issue so far, so at this point it’s based on my taste just because I’m the managing editor for it. As we have other publications that come up those will basically be based on those peoples’ tastes. But it’s not that simple because we have a very particular type of magazine that we are trying to put out here. This first magazine was supposed to be something that could appeal to all ages, that was interesting enough, and was independent in its mindset. I wanted to get somebody that was relatively a big name on board for us early on and that ended up being Tom Tomorrow. He was big in syndication I would say during the George W. Bush administration—that’s sort of where he hit his peak. I was a big fan of his. He used to be syndicated in almost every independent weekly across the country… He loved the idea of having a new venue and he agreed to get on board.
CG: Is there a specific takeaway you want the Eau Claire community to get from this publication?
FF: I think that this publication looks way beyond Eau Claire in that the VLAC is an international organization already. This is going to be our flagship publication for VLAC wherever it’s going to come out. While the people who contributed to it are from all over, there’s a core of people who are producing this thing that are homegrown right here and are envisioning this as something that can uniquely come out of this place. Maybe not just this place, but places like this…What I would hope to hear from the Eau Claire community more than anything else is a resounding yes. A resounding sense of this being our opportunity to preserve and improve on an art form that honestly the older generations are just letting disintegrate. For example, there’s so many weird and random things we are the epicenter of, such as horseradish or hardware stores. If we as a community step up, this could be another weird thing that we could be at the epicenter of. But honestly, it’s a question of supporting the thing. What we really need is sponsors and advertisers.
CG: Where can one pick up a copy of Other Strangeness?
FF: Right now, we have sold out or more or less given out all our copies. Basically, I sent it out to all the places I could. We should still have a rack of them at Revival Records, they are so far our first advertiser who’s signed on. We’ll probably have them available at other places as well, generally when new ones come out, I’ll put them on Volume One racks. They are also available at Clairemont Comics.
CG: How can one best support Other Strangeness?
FF: You can subscribe to our Patreon, and we’ll mail it out to you when the next one comes out. You can find us on Instagram at vlacollective. That’s how you can keep up with us. When the next issue comes out in October it’ll be all over the place. If I get some more money from a sponsor, we’ll do another run of issue number one before then. If you sign up on the Patreon you won’t ever miss anything.