Fracture of the Universal Boy: Right Here and Right Now

Fracture of the Universal Boy, available somewhere besides your local comics shop!

After twenty odd years making art and comics, Zulli believes that there are universal truths to be found amid the struggle and calling to make art, and indeed, to life itself. Often brutal, sometimes a bit funny, and always surreal as it examines life from a different perspective, The Fracture of the Universal Boy is Zulli's personal reflection on love, life and art; and both the damage done and the possibility of transcending even the most dire and difficult of times.

THE FRACTURE OF THE UNIVERSAL BOY

Fracture-Domestic $40.00 USD Fracture-International $80.00 USD

THIS COULD BE THE LAST TIME...

Okay, here we go, the obligatory end of year wrap up.

I hate this shit. It honestly seems so arbitrary and ultimately useless.

But my culture sort of demands it.

Lately I've been trying very hard to escape this feeling that the quantum conscience of god, aliens of a far superior race, or just plan entropy has their hands or tentacles or whatever poised on the handle and any moment now we will all begin the counter-clockwise rotation on the great water slide.

If any advanced whatever even cares.

So, with that in mind, and if we make it, here are a few things I look forward to. Of course this is in no particular order.

A: My ship, (or more accurately my dingy.) has come into the harbor but has not docked yet. "Boy" is out and after far to many years I may actually get paid something for the sweat, pain agony and dashed hopes I endured for far, far to long to make it happen. I will need to invest a substantial portion of it in re-outfitting my studio so I can really make things worth,(hopefully.) the effort involved in making them. That includes a whole new book, far, far different but in many ways quite similar to the last one. This time I hope I don't have to stop every week or two to pimp myself on ebay. That would be a true blessing.

B: the release of Caitlin R.Kiernans magnificent "The Drowning Girl: a Memoir." To say I am overjoyed at having however small a part in the promotional aspects of this unholy masterpiece pleases me to no end.

C: the "Panel to Panel" book by my friend John Rovnak, including work by my former New England squad of artists and writers. At least twice a year I get hit with terrible nostalgia for the old granite hills of New England. You must support his efforts. www.paneltopanel.net.

D: the still possible, though as of now somewhat remote showing in one place of the artwork for "Boy" I'd really like that.

E: the total revamping of my web-site. For a long time now it's served me well, but it's time has come and the need for a new face on the web for me is becoming more than a general spruce up, but a necessity.

There, off the top of my head, "things to look forward to. That is if we all don't wink out of existence tomorrow morning.

Late dear ones,

M.Z.

...THICK AS A BRICK.

   "Really don't mind if you sit this one out.   My words but a whisper -- your deafness a SHOUT. I may make you feel but I can't make you think. Your sperm's in the gutter -- your love's in the sink. So you ride yourselves over the fields and you make all your animal deals and your wise men don't know how it feels to be thick as a brick. And the sand-castle virtues are all swept away in the tidal destruction the moral melee. The elastic retreat rings the close of play as the last wave uncovers the newfangled way. But your new shoes are worn at the heels and your suntan does rapidly peel and your wise men don't know how it feels to be thick as a brick.   And the love that I feel is so far away: I'm a bad dream that I just had today -- and you shake your head and say it's a shame."

Ian Anderson, "thick as a brick."

Yeah, it's a damn shame.

Look forewords to those credit card bills come January. At least the lights and whatnot are pretty, and the change dropped into a

salvation army pot mitigates some guilt. Ah, well, new things, ( "Opium") coming along slowly but well. 

Work to live, live to work.

Happy Holidays!

M.Z.

PAGLIACCI, PIERROT, CYRANO.

Odds and ends time once more my friends.

A: I've got a raging case of strep throat, the kind that's dangerous. To top it off, I'm allergic to many forms of anti biotics which means that besides being sick as a dog, I'm sick as a dog.

B: I have absolutely no idea if "Boy" is in comics shops or not, and how many we sold through diamond. Would somebody write and tell me please. Thanks. I need the income to throw back into the next book, like NOW.

C: The filming for the short film/ book trailer for "The Drowning Girl: a Memoir" is being filmed, acted and photographed as I write. I feel absolutely blessed to have played a part, however small in helping to make something wonderful. I'm totally hooked on Caitlin's writing

and even Karen, who seriously prefers her fiction OLD, is taken by "The Red Tree". That's saying something. If you've never read anything by her, that would be a great place to start.

D: That's it. I'm done. Feeling miserable and just worn out. Nobodies talking and it's driving me around the bend. I thought friends talked to you. At least sometimes.

But what do I know?

Take care oh, my people, whoever you are.

M.Z.

BOYS ON DRUGS AND OTHER FILTHY THINGS.

Hhmm, bet that got your attention you that notice at all.

A quick word about "Fracture of the Universal Boy".

Imagine a walnut.

you hold it in your hand, and feel the smooth crenelated surface. You

fell it's weight in your hand, notice as it warms, it gives off a subtle nutty fragrance.

You might if so inclined, pop it into your mouth and roll it around a bit. Not very tasty, but

kind of interesting none the less.

But, if you do the work, crack it open you have the meat, the essence of the nut at your disposal.

"Boy", is like that nut. Nothing on the outside is worth anything. If, however you extend a little

effort, what's really going on parts like veils. And believe me there are a lot of them to part.

So.

Here is really why I'm here: today, September sixteenth, two thousand and eleven, at seven fifty seven AM, I officially started "Opium: variations for quill and vapor."

As I write this I have already penciled three pages of the prologue, and will have the rest finished by days end.

I have waited and planned for this day for over six months. Today. Exactly.

I may not, at the moment have a pot to piss in, but I have seldom been happier.

I have this rare and fragile thing, newly born in my hands and as the days go by, I will be there as it gets stronger and stronger until IT tells ME what to do.

So, mark this day well.

I suspect it will take about a year give or take, and I will undoubtedly suffer the torments of the damned from time to time, as well as flights of unbelievable freedom.

At least I hope so.

I will keep you posted, and if the whim takes me, a preview now and again.

M.Z.

TROUT.

Gods, (whichever you prefer.) what a day.

I spent nearly all day in the studio flopping around like a beached trout gasping for air for an IDEA, and idea. I started two different things only to very, very quickly dispose of them before they caused my eyes to bleed.

But, my dear old muse came back from Ikea with a brand spanking new IDEA.

I gotta hand to the old dear, she occasionally comes up with a whopper.

It seems I am not done with my run on subjects in, and around water. So, for the next week or so I will be sailing the stormy seas on a doomed clipper ship. What fun!

Then, oh yes, and then, I get to start the new book, "Opium: variations for quill and vapor."

Well, at least the prologue. After that, I need to wait a bit for some ship, any ship to come in, hell, even a leaky skiff, so I can purchase the needed paper. Then it's full sail for the next YEAR to get this monster out of my head.

Hey kids! "Graphic Novels" are fun!

What a life.

M.Z.

Done and Dusted.

Hello fellow travelers.

A brief studio update coming down the tracks.

For the last four or five weeks I've been painting as another person, and artist who died in 1907.

I needed to do two paintings one described in a novel, and another I need to make up in the same style but not described basically at all except in passing as "lost".

Funny thing about pseudonyms, They grow on you. I found myself actually feeling as if someone else was at the wheel, or leaning over my right shoulder from ectoplasmic otherwhere desperately trying to make my hands move differently and occasionally trying to force them to behave contrary

to the way I wanted them to move. A kind of artificial possession.

But, I finished them both this afternoon and so must roll up "Philip" and get back to being me.

Needless to say, it has been one of the more interesting things I have done in years and years.

Tomorrow I go back to the studio room and try and figure out what I need to do, as nothing looms on my creative horizon. I think I'll miss the dead guy. But I really wouldn't want to make a habit out of it.

Just chalk it up as "fun while it lasted".

Hopefully you will begin seeing them in one form or another in the next few months.

I'd like that.

But for now, I have to work my back from the twilight zone.

Thanks for listening.

M.Z.