Thu, 19 May 2005

angel of mercy: an introduction
Angel of Mercy began in late 1990, right around the time I first started staying up late on school nights to pound out stories. The vast majority of these early stories found their way into the hands of a friend, who encouraged me to keep writing, thus leading to these questionable first attempts at low-rent zine production. The first two episodes were never actually sent anywhere; I made up copies and messed around and was just too much of a wuss to let them out into the world. After I got to Iowa City, however, there were so many people doing the same basic thing I was doing that I felt nicely anonymous. Primarily these consisted of short stories mixed with photocopied images and hand-written scrawls, averaging about eight pages each. I’d make five bucks worth of photocopies at kinko’s and leave some in my dorm lobby (Quadrangle, then Burge, then Currier), at the ped mall, wherever. I didn’t put my name on them, but left my po box, and got a few interesting replies. Later, I got more into swapping copies with other people, which brought me into distant circles with a few genuinely cool people; no less an authority than Kerry Thornley (who traded me for copies of his “Out of Order” sheets) said Angel of Mercy was “not horrible”. Alas, in 1993 I was forced to leave Iowa City, at which point Angel of Mercy (and all writing of any sort) stopped for a good long time.

This archive here contains bits and pieces from that time. A lot of it simply isn’t that good; zipping around on questionable chemicals and youthful folly, much of the text material is the sort of self-satisfied cleverness that doesn’t really hold up on close examination. Once in a while, however, I did okay for myself. Many of the stories are the roots of the characters and places I still use in stories, so it’s a miniature history lesson for people interested in who I was and what sorts of things I was doing, then.

As to why it’s called Angel of Mercy, it’s a personal thing and not worth a story.

Special thanks to Jenna, who dealt with the bulk of this material first-hand; all the roomates I kept up until all hours of the night; the upper floor of Great Mid, where I did most of my layout work; and my friends of that time, wherever they may be today.
(12:16.05.19.2005) [/else/angelofmercy] #