Megazeen is an independent, raw anthology founded in early 2002 by Joseph Crossett and me. The idea behind the book was to create a Christian comic that WE would want to read. It would not be the traditional "safe" fare that Christian comics were traditionally known for, which was either extremely kid-friendly or in-your-face and down-your-throat evangelism. We were tired of people telling us what faith-based entertainment SHOULD be. We didn't want a book that the forty-year-old moms at the Christian bookstores would look through. Our book would be raw, entertaining, funny, even controversial at times, geared toward regular comic book readers, loser kids, kids on the fence. Gone would be the sappy cliche's and dardee dar endings we'd become accustomed to. And from that came our first slogan, "Christian comics without the cheese."
This, of course, ticked some people off.
Were we implying that Christian comics were cheesy? Yup. Were we implying that Christian comics should be geared toward the Beavis and Butthead generation more than the church youth group? Yup.
The hate mail was almost immediate. Even before the first issue debuted.
And it was all from Christians.
It surprised us- but from that came our second slogan. "If you're not ticking someone off, chances are you're not doing it right."
Megazeen has become, in many ways, instrumental in the ongoing success of Christian comics in general. More on that later.
I'm going to be updating the main website shortly, with a page devoted to each issue we did. It will show some clips from the book, some of the stories behind the scenes, even some of the bitter internal feuds we had as we disagreed about content more than once. We even managed to tick each other off!
As we wrap up production on our 14th and 15th regular issues, it's pretty amazing looking back to see where we came from- but looking ahead, there's no end to this series.
Submissions ALWAYS welcome- just don't make 'em CHEESY!
Viva la Megazeen, la comica sans fromage!
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