#this is from a comic I was working on BEFORE MY LAPTOP DECIDED TO ASCEND TO GREAT HEAVENS

[mephie404]

Uhhh,

[sehunjeno]

When you knock on Xavier’s bedroom door, you should’ve expected Ajax to answer instead.

“Can I shower here? She fucked up the bathroom again,” you grumble, referring to your roommate.

“Uh-“

“Yeah, sure,” Xavier chimes in from where he’s standing behind Ajax, peeking over his shoulder.

They hear a muttered ‘thanks’ as you walk past them dismissively. Curious eyes fixate on your body until it leaves their sight and, then, a smile is shared. Their prayers have been answered, apparently.

When you come out of the shower in your pajamas, you find them sitting at the edge of the bed. Two obedient puppies, you can’t help but think, and adorable is the only word suitable for the look on their faces.

Despite wanting to leave immediately, you do make the effort of approaching them and pecking their lips. The kisses are short and nothing like they’ve hoped for and you make sure to crush their dreams further when bidding farewell.

“Whoa… you’re leaving?”

They’re both pretty certain you’ve pavloved them into being desperate whenever you all breathe the same air.

“Why don’t you stay with us for a bit?” Ajax adds.

“I’m not feeling that great. I’m on my period. Maybe some other ti-“

“Why? We can just chill,” Xavier interrupts and the puppy eyes he’s sporting along with his best friend’s pout make you give in.

“Fine, I’ll stay for a bit.”

A bit turned into one hour of tv shows. One hour of cuddling in silence, your frame trapped between theirs.

And, despite your initial plan, you don’t just chill. In fact, their kisses descend down your body as soon as the laptop gets shut off. It gets to the point you’re all bare naked, Ajax working his mouth over your breasts and tummy while Xavier is busy kissing your inner thighs.

“We’re not doing anything more, okay? I’m on my period.”

“Yeah,” Xavier agrees to your reminder.

You miss the knowing look he gives his best friend. The latter only nods in response.

Only one unspoken mission is on their minds - to treat your body like a temple. And they don’t fail to deliver just that, attending to your hormone-driven needs with the utmost care. Letting yourself loose seems like the only plausible option.

That is, until Xavier decides to take it up a notch. His lips ascend from the smoothness of your thighs to your pussy and you can’t tell when it happened. The attack on your slit comes all of sudden - all you know is that his mouth feels unbelievably good on your clit, sucking on it with so much fervor your thighs slap against his ears out of reflex.

“Shit, ah… don’t,” you plead when he refuses to cease the suction on your swelling nub.

“Why not?” The vibrations of his voice tickle your pussy.

Exactly. Why not, your inner voice whispers. After all, you still have your tampon in and you’ve just showered. There’s no harm in this.

“Okay, fine…”

Of course, you should know better than to trust him because he seems keen on pushing your limits tonight. Weak thighs attempt to crush his face again but, this time, it’s because you can feel a stinging pain tickling your insides. You can’t see it, but it’s obvious that he’s got his digits wrapped around the string of your tampon. He’s trying to pull it out.

“No. Leave it in.”

“Why? It’s gonna feel good,” he’s adamant yet throws a glance at Ajax to see if they’re on the same page.

They certainly are, his best friend not hesitating to join him and pull the white thread until the tampon leaves your cunt. He does it with care, a soft gasp leaving your lips before they admire your gaping hole. They are in awe when it flutters right in front of their faces, droplets of blood dribbling down to your perineum.

And, then, a nerve-wracking silence follows. It forces your neck to crane, weight supported on your elbows as you glance at them.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Never seen one so up close.” Xavier seems bewildered.

“Why isn’t it fully soaked in blood?” Ajax asks, equally mesmerized and comically confused.

“Because I took a shower and changed it one hour ago, dummy. Stop staring at it like that.”

“Sorry,” Xavier is the one to apologize.

And he’s also the considerate one this time, leaving his own bed so he can throw away your used tampon. You’re too preoccupied with Ajax’s face getting dangerously close to your cunt, warm breathing fanning over your puffy lips and red-tinged hole, to notice Xavier coming back with a towel.

“Ass up,” he instructs and you don’t have the strength to refuse.

As if you’re nothing but a meal, they cooperate and help the fabric under your bottom, all before they push at your legs. A burning stretch plagues your thighs now that you have to accommodate both in front of your core. An internal battle between that ache and the prospect of the two of them playing with your bleeding cunt keeps your mind busy. It’s so nerve-wracking you end up blurting out:

“I’m on my period,” The obvious is stated for the umpteenth time.

“We can see,” Xavier laughs, curious finger dipping into your pussy only to be retrieved stained in red.

He wipes himself on Ajax’s thigh, the latter just shaking his head and laughing in response. Your brows furrow upon taking notice of how laid back they are in the presence of your period.

“Relax,” Ajax reassures when he notices the forehead creases. He’s also the one to kiss your right inner thigh.

As if on cue, Xavier joins him, except he goes straight for the big prize. His lips latch onto your pussy without a care in the world, tongue darting out and probing at your hole. The tang of iron invades his tastebuds and he grunts, eyes rolling in the back of his head. He didn’t expect to like the taste.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Your question is accompanied by the laughter that makes your flesh jiggle in their hold.

“Very much so,” Xavier murmurs, voice muffled by your cunt.

“You don’t… ha-have to do this,” you stutter when he sucks harder.

“We want to,” Ajax explains, having a front row seat to Xavier dragging the thin stripe of blood from your hole to your clit. They definitely want to.

“We can have normal sex. No oral.” Once again, you try to be sympathetic. “Or n-nothi- ah, fuck!”

Xavier seems fed up with your worries, teeth clamping on your clit until you stop talking. Swift hand flies to his hair immediately, gripping the roots with force. That’s all he needs to abuse your clit furthermore.

“Shit! O-Okay… just… tell me if you wanna tap out.”

They both laugh at that. At least your poor cunt is getting a break.

“My turn,” Ajax interrupts, obviously wanting in on the fun. His cheekbone nudges Xavier’s until he gets the hint and moves aside, bloodied lips now soiling your inner thigh.

They glance at you every once in a while, getting drunk off your moans and the way you tremble in their grip. It’s ravishing and they’ve never been more aroused, hard cocks throbbing at the lack of friction. They do rub themselves against the sheets but it’s a pathetic excuse for satisfaction and nothing like your insides’ embrace.

Xavier is the first one to fold.

“Wanna put it in,” he announces and his friend is mindful enough to let go of you blood-smeared folds, albeit half-heartedly.

When they switch around, their bloodied chins and mouths come into view. The sight rushes all the blood to your cheeks and you wonder if that’s gonna make your flow lighter. It’s obviously impossible but taken into consideration nonetheless by your hazed mind - that’s how flustered you’ve become.

“Mmph, so slippery. Shit.” So absorbed by their varnished skin, you didn’t even notice Xavier slipping his dick in. “So… ah… so fucking good.”

One thing’s for certain - fucking you on your period will definitely not be a one-time thing for him.

Neither for Ajax, the gorgon already boiling with envy. He doesn’t verbalize it but it’s obvious - you’re lapping at the cock he’s just positioned in front of your mouth yet he’s focused on Xavier’s dick entering your pussy, only to pull almost all the way out and have his shaft glistening with blood. The sight is mesmerizing and he can’t wait to feel what it’s like.

Until then, he has to listen to Xavier grunts and groans, mouth parted the entire time he expels sounds of pleasure. The green-eyed boy can’t help them - your cunt is so warm and very much drenched in juices and blood. Without a doubt, it becomes his favorite hole to fuck into.

You want to see the gore scene for yourself but Ajax is holding you back from doing so. His dick is getting pushed past your lips, the tip of his cock sometimes hitting the back of your throat. He kindly pats your cheek whenever you gurgle around him, silently apologizing for the mistreatment.

“Don’t wanna cum so quick,” Xavier explains upon pulling out abruptly.

He rubs his cock in memory of your sweet cunt and moves aside for Ajax to take his place. The latter is over the moon, filling you up within seconds of being gaped.

“Oh shit… you’re right…” A warm smoldering feeling takes over the gorgon. Cumming too soon wouldn’t be unreasonable.

That’s why he’s mindful with his thrusts and takes his sweet time to fuck you. You smile at each other and he brings a hand to your clit, rubbing gentle circles into the mess he and his best friend have just made.

Blood is getting smeared not only on your nether region but also on your breasts. Xavier is the culprit for that one, sucking on your nipples with the same pair of lips that has ravaged your cunt moments before.

“Feels nice,” you praise, ass propelled into Ajax’s pelvis every time he presses harder on your clit.

His strokes become incessant as time goes by. Threads of electricity weave through your body, tears gathering in the corners of your eyes while you plead them not to stop.

Being the compliant puppies that they’ve always been, they listen. Their ministrations never falter, not even when you’re close to reaching your peak. Xavier doesn’t cease nibbling on your breasts and Ajax pounds your cunt into the mattress at the same dizzying pace.

“Gonna cum already?” Xavier murmurs through mouthful of breast that he keeps on sucking. He’s fondling the other one, squeezing the smooth flesh between his fingertips.

“Y-Yeah… m-might.” You’ve never sounded so sweet, they both think.

Ajax is seemingly the most affected by the way you sound. And feel.

“Sh-Shit, gotta- gotta pull out,” he stutters, exiting your fluttering cunt in one swift movement.

“N-No… was close.” Being denied of the utmost pleasure has never been so vexing.

“I’m sorry.” Ajax is just as unnerved by his sudden decision and he attempts to make up for it by kissing your lips. Forgiveness has never come so easy.

When your mouths part, Xavier is eager to take over. He lies on his back and helps your shaky legs around him, some of the dried blood from his hands getting transferred to your thighs. You pay no attention to that, instead grabbing a hold of his crimson-tinged dick with frenzied hands. When you sink down on it, the gasps leave your mouths in unison.

“Can we both put it in? It’s not gonna hurt. You’re all wet.” He doesn’t mention it but you know he’s talking about the blood working as lubricant.

“O-okay.”

Ajax eyes your union when you lean forward until Xavier hugs you to his chest. The brown-eyed boy is nervous, pulse ringing in his ears at the thought of stuffing his cock in the same hole his best friend is in. He does it eventually, gripping the middle of his shaft and struggling to push the fat tip of his dick from behind.

“A-Ah… that’s… oh fuck,” you heave, eyes bulging in shock. The stretch is incomprehensible.

Xavier is there to coo at you from below, kissing the side of your head and whispering that “it’s gonna feel good, I promise”. He can only hope that lies aren’t being spewed because neither of you has ever tried it before.

And it takes a few attempts until they find a rhythm. They’ve silently agreed on one set of thrusts at a time, Xavier staying still when Ajax pushes in out, then Ajax freezing when it’s his best friend’s turn to fuck you. Once again, they cooperate smoothly, the cramped cocks inside your stretched out hole somehow working together.

“Oh my god,” you exclaim in awe. Xavier was right - it’s exquisite.

When you sneak a hand to your clit, Ajax encourages you to keep going by rubbing your love handles. As usual, his friend is the vocal one, whispering lewd and mindless things close to your ear.

“So good. F-Fuck… you like it? You like having your pussy split open like this?”

“Mhm.”

“Letting us fuck you on your period… with your pussy full of blood… ah, shit…”

His plan backfires because, instead of bringing you back to the edge, he brings himself there. His taut stomach concaves at the mere thought of your actions and voicing them out doesn’t help either. The fire threatens to unleash, face scrunched up in pleasure as he ruts into you at full force. Ajax joins him and they ditch their previous rule in favor of rubbing their cocks together and pounding you at the same time.

“Gon’ cu-aah, shit!”

There’s no mercy for his sputtering cock because your climax follows right after, eager pussy swallowing both cocks in. You bounce on them and rub at your clit, praying to come undone without any of them ceasing moving.

“Oh god… gonna… I… I can’t,” you whine and crying out seems to be the last resort when you come undone.

Xavier is in pure pain by now - he’s overstimulated and his ears ache from all the high pitched moaning taking place as you spasm in his hold. Tears blur his vision yet he forces himself to stay inside until it’s all over.

“A-Ah… you’re squeezing me,” Ajax complains from behind, suffocated by your orgasm.

He’s compelled to fuck you fast and hard, ramming into you with all his might. Luckily, his best friend has enough strength to hold you tightly, his warm embrace soothing away the ache caused by the rough pounding.

“F-Fuck...” is all Ajax gets to say before his hips still and he dumps his cum inside your fucked-out hole. He’s the last at the finish line.

When they slip out moments later, cum mixed with blood spill down on Xavier’s softening dick and the gore is almost too much to take in. You promptly feel bad, bottom lip jutting out in pure embarrassment.

Right as you are about to apologize for the mess, you hear the two friends bursting into laughter. Their silly moment puts you at ease in an instant and you can’t help but wonder if this is what unconditional love feels like.

“Do we all fit in the shower?” Ajax disrupts your train of sappy thoughts.

“Let’s find out.”

[almostafantasia]

the golden rules of college

Clexa Week Day 2 - Roommates

Don’t date your roommate.

Don’t have sex with you roommate.

Don’t masturbate when your roommate could walk in at any moment.

In which Lexa is a small flustered gay and all Clarke wants is to get herself off without being disturbed. And then the roommate situation ascends to an entirely new level…

Read on AO3.

When Lexa returns to her dorm after a busy morning of classes to collect something that she forgot to bring with her when she left in a hurry this morning, she knows to expect that Clarke will probably be in their shared room, perhaps working on her laptop on her bed, or sketching at her desk. What she does not expect to find, is that Clarke is on her bed with her back arched, her hand down the front of her pants, and her mouth forming a perfect circle as she gasps out her pleasure.

“Oh fuck!”

They both say the words at the same time, except that while Lexa’s is an ‘oh fuck, I’ve just walked in on my roommate in the middle of an orgasm’, Clarke’s ‘oh fuck’ is soft and breathy and deliciously sinful.

Lexa’s ‘oh fuck’ is accompanied by wide eyes that cannot stop staring and a paralysis that grips her entire body as she stands frozen in the doorway, because while Clarke is still fully clothed and Lexa can’t really see anything, the hand down the front of Clarke’s pants is moving visibly and Lexa can see everything.

Clarke’s ‘oh fuck’ is quickly followed by a second profanity as she realises that she is no longer alone in the room, and she flails around to crawl underneath her duvet, despite there being nothing to cover up.

Lexa remains frozen by the door, her eyes and mouth both comically wide as her brain attempts to process what she’s just witnessed.

“Lexa, what the fuck?” Clarke yells. “You never come back before five on a Friday!”

At Clarke’s words, Lexa snaps out of her trance, only to notice that Clarke’s hair is mussed and her cheeks are heavily flushed.

(She tries not to ponder too deeply on whether the colour comes from her embarrassment, or if her cheeks had already been a little red before Lexa burst into the room. She fails, obviously.)

“I…” Lexa’s eyebrows furrow together as she gestures vaguely at her side of the room, the happenings of the last thirty seconds having taken her so much by surprise that she has a little trouble recalling why she decided to return to her dorm in the first place, instead of heading to the library as she normally does on a Friday after her morning classes finish. “I have a deadline but I accidentally left my essay here.”

Making as little eye contact with Clarke as she can, Lexa stumbles across their room to her desk, grabbing a stack of paper that she knows has her essay in it somewhere and, not bothering to look through it to get rid of the sheets that she doesn’t need, stuffs the whole lot haphazardly into the bag hanging from her shoulder.

She leaves the room in a rush without a word, nor another glance back at Clarke.

With the memories of Clarke getting herself off permanently burned into the front of her mind, Lexa doesn’t return to her dorm room for two whole days, instead spending the weekend crashing on Anya’s floor. Anya, thankfully, doesn’t push for an answer as to why Lexa has temporarily moved out of her own bedroom, nor does she hurry Lexa into returning to her dorm.

But Sunday evening rolls around and Lexa knows that she has to go back at some point, and she can’t keep wearing the same pair of jeans for too much longer without completely disgracing herself and her usually impeccable hygiene routine.

Clarke seems surprised to see Lexa, and as Lexa crosses the threshold into the bedroom that somehow doesn’t really feel like hers anymore, she’s hit with the memories of what happened the last time she walked through this door. She wonders if she’s perhaps made the wrong decision by coming home. Maybe Lexa would have been better off going straight to the RA and asking for a room transfer to save her having to face Clarke again after seeing what she did.

Clarke starts speaking at once, a fumbling apology that Lexa knew to expect yet somehow didn’t think to prepare a response to.

“I’m sorry about…”

“It’s fine,” Lexa cuts Clarke off, dropping her bag down onto the floor at the foot of her bed and immediately going over to her closet as an excuse to have her back to Clarke. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

It takes almost three minutes of uncomfortable silence for Lexa to realise that actually, maybe they do need to talk about it.

“I get it,” she blurts out suddenly, disturbing the stillness of the room and causing Clarke’s head to snap up at her words. “You’ve got urges. There’s nothing wrong with it. Everybody does it. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not ashamed of it,” Clarke says indignantly. “I’m just worried that I’ve made you feel uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable!” Lexa practically squeaks.

“Sure,” Clarke says, with a disbelieving tone.

“I’m not,” Lexa insists, shutting her closet door and walking over to her bed to take a seat near the pillows, her legs crossed underneath her. “I … I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to come home early,” Clarke admits, and when Lexa finally looks up at her for the first time since entering the room, she notices the dusting of pink on Clarke’s cheeks, much paler than the flush that had crossed her face when Lexa had interrupted her alone time.

(The very fact that this is the first thing that registers in Lexa’s mind has a blush passing across Lexa’s own face.)

“Obviously,” mumbles Lexa.

“Are we still cool?” Clarke asks, a hopeful expression on her face.

Lexa hesitates before answering, letting out a long breath and closing her eyes, before finally replying, “Yeah, we’re cool.”

They are anything but cool.

Things don’t go back to normal, and Lexa thinks that the problem is that she can no longer remember what normal feels like. Not when the only thing that she can think about whenever she looks at Clarke is the whine of pleasure that she lets out when she came, or the visual of Clarke’s hand moving rapidly up and down within the confines of her pants.

They barely speak to each other – Lexa’s efforts to remain out of the room whenever she knows that Clarke will be home are a big part of that, but even when they are both present, there are hardly any words spoken between them. The air in the room is always thick with some kind of unresolved tension, and Lexa isn’t quite sure what can be done to get rid of it.

Or if anything can be done at all to get rid of it.

It’s Clarke who comes up with the solution. And it’s a solution that, in hindsight, is probably the best thing to ever happen to Lexa, though she never would have even thought about suggesting it herself.

It happens when they’re both silently working on their respective sides of the bedroom. Lexa is one and a half pages into a four page report, diligently working her way through her highlighted notes from class, when she hears the heavy sigh come from Clarke’s side of the room.

“I’m sick of this.”

Turning around in her chair to look at her roommate, Lexa finds that Clarke is staring right back at her, a disconcerted frown on her face.

“Sick of what?” Lexa asks, feeling the way that her heart starts pounding slightly harder in her chest in anxiety for no apparent reason.

“Sick of this.” Clarke gestures between them as if it is supposed to answer Lexa’s question. When Lexa’s expression remains blank, Clarke lets out another sigh and elaborates, “Things have been weird ever since you walked in on me…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t need to finish the sentence and Lexa is rather grateful that she doesn’t.

“Yeah, well…” Lexa starts, then abruptly stops and closes her mouth when she realises that she can’t actually find any words to say on the matter. Apparently Clarke isn’t the only one having trouble finishing her sentences.

“Look, I know that it’s my fault. But you’re not making it any easier.”

Lexa’s eyebrows dip into a frown and she opens her mouth to protest, but before she can get the words out, Clarke has started speaking again.

“I think I could possibly have dealt with this situation a little better if I hadn’t been on the verge of asking you out when it happened.”

Anything that Lexa might have been about to say drops from her tongue when she hears Clarke’s words. She’s only been rendered completely speechless once in her life before – walking in on your roommate masturbating tends to do that to a person – but never has she been reduced to the point where her brain stops functioning completely.

“I … what?” she chokes out.

“I am insanely attracted to you,” Clarke continues to ramble, apparently unaware of Lexa’s current lack of cognitive functions. “I mean, look at you. Who wouldn’t be? And yes, before you start, I know it’s like the golden rule of college that you should never date your roommate but I was just about to say fuck that and ask you out anyway when you just had to walk in on me getting myself off. You fucked it all up!”

“I fucked it all up?” Lexa questions, finally regaining her voice and at least a little part of her brain back. And then she registers everything else that Clarke has said, and realises that perhaps she’s focusing on entirely the wrong thing. “Wait, you think I’m attractive?”

“Yes!” Clarke insists, rolling her eyes as if to say ‘well obviously’.  “And if you’d only come back a few minutes later then you wouldn’t have seen anything and I wouldn’t have spent the last couple of weeks dying inside at the knowledge that the girl I’ve got a massive fucking crush on has seen me mid-orgasm!”

Crush. Lexa says the word over and over again in her mind, as if repetition will make the entire situation a little less surreal, and then remembers how she’s spent the last couple of weeks. Which is to say that she’s been agonisingly torn between wanting to wipe the memory from her mind completely, and desperately hoping each time that she returns to their room that she might walk in on Clarke doing the same thing again.

“What if I’ve been dying inside too?” Lexa says slowly. “What if I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you – about what I saw?” Feeling a moment of bravery inspired by Clarke’s own confession, Lexa adds shakily, “What if I’ve been hoping to see it again but under different circumstances?”

It’s Clarke’s turn to be dumfounded into silence. She just stares at Clarke, the only sign that she’s actually heard what Lexa has said is that way that her eyes gradually widen and her mouth drops open.

“What if,” Lexa continues, when Clarke says nothing, “I were to ask you out? What would happen then?”

“It depends,” answers Clarke, her voice dry and croaky.

“On what?”

Lexa thinks she might be about to pass out in anticipation of Clarke’s next words. Either from cardiac arrest or from lack of oxygen. Whichever one happens first. It feels a little bit like all of her vital organs are going to stop working in favour of contorting into a twisted mess deep inside her chest.

“On whether this is all just hypothetical or if you’re actually going to follow through.”

Her heart thudding against her ribcage so loud and fast that Lexa is pretty sure that Clarke will be able to hear it from her side of the room, Lexa says, “Clarke Griffin, will you go on a date with me?”

Clarke is nodding before Lexa has even finished asking the question.

“Yes. Yes, I will.”

The flood of relief that washes over Lexa’s body feels a lot like slowly sinking into a piping hot bath, warming her right to her bones and filling her with a pleasant haze.

“How does tonight sound?” Lexa asks, hoping that her voice doesn’t come across as too eager and then realising that the twist that this conversation has taken means that she really doesn’t care at all. “Dinner?”

“Dinner tonight sounds perfect.”

“Great.”

“Awesome.”

They hold each other’s gaze for just a second too long, then both glance away at the same time with flushed cheeks and stifled giggles as if they are middle schoolers passing ridiculous love notes in class instead of college freshmen, one of whom has seen the other in quite a compromising position.

Lexa turns her attention back to the work spread out across her desk but it’s the last thing on her mind. She can’t stop smiling to herself at the progression of events – at how she’s gone from not even being able to look Clarke in the eye or think about her without blushing profusely to scoring a date with her. It’s not at all how she thought her evening would go when she took her books out of her bag earlier to settle down for an evening of work.

And her mind – Lexa really hates her mind for doing this, but she also kind of really loves it – immediately jumps back to the memories of how this all started, and now she definitely isn’t going to be concentrating on her work any time soon.

Turning around in her chair once more, Lexa ignores the pounding of her heart and speaks as casually as though she is discussing the weather.

“I just thought I would let you know that it’s taking all the restraint I can muster to wait until after dinner before asking for a repeat performance of what I walked in on.”

They don’t make it to dinner that night.

[iesorno]

Martin Simpson – SKRAWL 1 cover

SKRAWL can be found on Kickstarter

  Anyone that’s followed zinelove or iesorno on any kind of social media knows I’m partial to a few creators including Phil Elliott and Nick Prolix who have both featured on the site and who I might have banged on about a bit…

When I saw Russel Mark Olson dropping hints about a magazine that would feature both, as well as his own work I was immediately interested, even more so when I saw the names of the others involved, many of them creators I was checking out on social media already. Then they blew through their Kickstarter goal on day one and added in Lucy Sullivan and Mark Stafford whilst also putting out a rallying cry dropping the names of some mighty UK anthologies that I love.

So, I thought I’d followed up with some questions to dig into it and flesh out their plans and ethos. You can see more details about the anthology and contributors at the end of the interview!

  Interview!!

ZL – You mentioned that the SKRAWLLORDZ formed after meeting up and chatting at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival and I was wandering what it was at that meeting that galvanised you as a group to get together and put out SKRAWL?

RMO – Away from the con, we were sharing an Airbnb. While individually, most of us knew each other, none of us knew everyone. But we all knew of each other’s work. I took my laptop and a microphone along in the hopes that at some point during the weekend-long convention we’d get a chance to all sit down together and talk comics. The Friday night before the con we recorded over an hour’s worth of discussion on topics ranging from individual process to the ins-and-outs of printing. From that conversation, and many more over the weekend, we bonded and formed the SKRAWLLORDZ. For the particulars, you’ll have to ask the group’s chronicler, Pete Taylor. We kept in touch and over the coming months the idea for a joint publication developed. Looking back, it was a pretty natural progression. Put a bunch of comic makers together in a room full of chimps on typewriters and eventually the chimps type out a note to the comic makers reading “Make a damned comic together, morons!”.

Escape Issue 5 Phil Elliott cover

Revolver cover by Shaky Kane

Pssst!

ZL – You’ve mentioned Escape, Revolver and Pssst! as inspirations, what is it you see in these that’s common to what you hope to achieve with SKRAWL?

RMO – Firstly, the magazine format allowed these great publications to stay nimble, agile. To bring in topical work that could address issues quickly and not get bogged down in exposition. The format allows for comics, journalism, prose, and the kitchen sink to sit side-by-side without being a jarring read. These magazines could capture a moment in comics and culture so quickly and effectively. We’d really like to be able to bottle that lightning.

Secondly, we loved the freedom to think about short form and long form comics. That’s the beauty of anthology mags. Ongoing stories and one-offs. If say, Nick Prolix hit on an idea that we wanted to run with, he could produce 5-8 pages every issue of a single thought or storyline while still being able to focus on his personal body of work. If say, he decided that he wanted to change tack for one issue, the melting pot magazine allows that. If he wanted to run with a political space thriller and dropped it into an issue of Slang Pictorial and had to elbow out the residents of Bouveray Town, readers might be a bit confused. The mag allows for that freedom of experimentation and for quick directional changes.

Tertiarily, collaboration. In future, we plan on doing much more of it. We’re all cartoonists, meaning we write and draw, and can letter, colour, do product design, the whole kit-and-kaboodle. We’re all confident with each other to send scripts around, share inking work, do colours here, or letter there. Many hands make light work.

Fourth, the opportunity to invite some incredible talent to add to the mags. To give both industry stalwarts and up-and-comers a chance to explore, or maybe dust-off stuff that’s been sitting around for years which has yet been able to find a home. At the moment, everyone is UK-based. But it’d be great to run with the international ethos of LICAF and bring Europeans, South Americans–hell, the world— to SKRAWL. Escape did that brilliantly. Something Pete said recently has really stuck with me. “I’m a fan of good comics. If it’s a good comic, we want it in SKRAWL.”

Lastly, they all had a bit of an edge. Hard to define, harder to capture. I suppose it boils down to risk. Risk in many forms. I think we’re all pretty comfortable with risk. Pssst!, Escape and Revolver were definitely happy taking risks.

Gustaffo Vargas – The Oak Tree from SKRAWL

ZL – As you’ve already blown through your first target and will definitely be putting out your first issue, what are your plans, if any, for the future?

RMO – The short answer: there will be more SKRAWL. The longer answer is a bit inchoate. We’re ironing out the details at the moment, but the things that we’re sure of, is that we have loved putting this together and want to do more. More contributors, more collaboration, wider reach. What we’re not sure of is output. Ideally, we’ll put out two a year. That might mean making the individual issues leaner, maybe 3 SKRAWLLORDZ per issue + guests, or the SKRAWLZ will do more collaborative pieces while guests can show off what they do best, or a combination of these things. We’re all involved in other projects, so we have to cut our cloth to measure, but we’re staying forward thinking. That’s not necessarily a hinderance. Ultimately, SKRAWL, as Pete said above, is about good comics. It wouldn’t surprise me if it naturally evolves. It probably will several times. But at its heart, we’ll do our best to take risks, explore, collaborate, and lift other voices.

  ZL – I’m always banging on about money, so I have to ask whether any of you will be making anything from this anthology and whether your future plans include paying contributors or using additional money to widen distribution or anything else you may have thought of?

RMO – Possibly not the soundest business model, but almost all of the money will be going to pay our guests and cover print costs. Anything that’s left over we’ll be using towards the magazine. That may mean figuring out distribution channels (we’d love for SKRAWL to act as an ambassador for the UK scene (even though we do plan on widening our net and bringing in international voices), so possibly translated editions), convention representation, promotional materials, marketing, or plugging back into guest rates for the next one. Ideally, we’d get to a place of self-sustainability. But print markets are increasingly tumultuous, new and established magazines bite the dust daily.  We might move towards a subscription model if we can get a few issues out on a trackable schedule, but these are all questions that we’ll be deliberating on once the first issue is in circulation. It’s exciting, wild stuff. Possibly a little mad. But no one stays in comics for the money.

Russell Mark Olson – Goldhorn from SKRAWL

ZL – Last question, I promise, what do you hope Skrawl will bring to the current marketplace for comics and the history of comics?

RMO – Maybe it’s just because we’re in the shadow of Covid-19, but this “feels” like one of those Moments in Comics. Distribution has been partially/temporarily disrupted. Books have been canned, pushed back, mothballed. Artists and writers are roaming the prairies, tasting the dust, listening to the ground for the tell-tale signs of buffalo, dipping their tin pans in streams new. Retailers have scrambled onto their rooftops, their eyes scanning the horizon for the arrival of the airlift helicopters. When we started planning SKRAWL, Covid had yet to hit the news, but by coincidence, we feel we’ve tapped into something, a moment, which is bigger than your average occurrences. How SKRAWL fits into that moment, we’ll have to wait and see. But there have been anthology periodicals which have managed to be more than just a genre vehicle, more than just a single-topical-issue-mag-of-the-hour. This is possibly–as were books like those mentioned above or RAW or Rubber Blanket–a time capsule of what was going on in the UK indie scene at this point in time.

RAW cover by Art Spiegelman

Rubber Blanket cover by David Mazzucchelli

Let me add a caveat to that. The UK indie scene is massive and has talent of which no single mag could possibly hold. The last thing we’d want to do is self-proclaim ourselves to be the keepers of the keys. Lemme tell you. Give us a set of keys and we will lose them faster than a hot minute. But our camaraderie, and our combined network means that all of those creators currently delivering gold are an email away from joining in on the fun. I guess we’re all at a point in our careers where we’ve been around long enough to have a decent grip on the ins and outs of book production but aren’t so swamped with phone calls from the big leagues that has allowed us to confidently produce something which we feel is a good and necessary addition to the indie market. How does that sound? Time will tell. Finger’s crossed in twenty years from now an aspiring UK cartoonist will find a bundle of SKRAWLS in her local Oxfam for a tenner, and she’ll take them home, read them, and then feel inspired to call her friends and say, hey, let’s make something special. That or “Christ, people didn’t know how to draw back then.” I’d be happy with either. Being remembered is being remembered, right?

Rosie Packwood – Ascend from SKRAWL

ZL – I’m sure they will be inspired! On which note, tell us some more about the details of the anthology.

RMO – Continuing in the tradition of Escape, Pssst!, and Revolver , SKRAWL is a comic anthology magazine featuring cartoonists, artists, and writers primarily from the UK’s independent comic scene. The magazine was launched on Kickstarter on August 1st and met its goal in under 24 hours. With a long list of up-and-coming UK talent as well as established professionals, SKRAWL promises to be one of the most exciting comic anthologies of the year.

The core of SKRAWL are the SKRAWLLORDZ (Mark Hughes (Silverbeard), Russell Mark Olson (Gateway City; Tripwire Award Best New Talent 2018; Yancy Street Award Best UK artist 2018), Nick Prolix (Slang Pictorial), Martin Simpson (Needleman, Pipedream Comics Top 10 Indie Comics of the Year 2018), Pete Taylor (Silverbeard) and Gustaffo Vargas (Manu, Pipedream Comics Indie Comic of the Year winner, 2019)) who formed during last year’s LICAF. The magazine will also feature guest spots by their chums, including UK-indie royalty Phil Elliott (Tales from Gimbley), Rosie Packwood (Bun), Jessica Lucas (Yours, Yesterday), Matt Simmons (Bastard Galaxia), and the Cartoon Museum’s Artist-in-residence, Mark Stafford(The Bad Bad Place). To further accentuate the magazine-ness of the anthology, John Reppion (Conspiracy of Ravens) and Lucy Sullivan (Barking) will provide an illustrated short folk horror story.

The SKRAWL Kickstarter campaign offers backers the chance to get on board the publication either as a fully digital or print edition, with retailer tiers for comic shops and bookstores. The magazine will be US format, (a bit bigger and a lot wider than a US comic– at 280 x 210mm) perfect bound, and currently sitting at a page count of 84… but we’d like to expand outwards a bit through stretch goals.

The campaign can be found on Kickstarter. Funding began August 1st and ends on Thursday, August 20th at noon BST. Digital backers can get the full magazine for £5, while the physical magazine is £12 (plus shipping). Retailers in the UKand EU can take advantage of the retailer tier which offers 8 copies for £48 (plus shipping). For more information, please email skrawllordz@gmail.com.

Gallery of contributors

What The Actual Folk – Mark Hughes art

Gateway City – Russell Mark Olson

Issue 1 page 23

A Carnival for the Lost – Martin Simpson

Monster Kids Show & Yell – Pete Taylor

MANU – Gustaffo Vargas

Illegal Alien page – written by James Robinson

Blinker – Rosie Packwood

Jessica Lucas illustration

Bastard Galaxia art by Matt Simmons

Lip Hook art by Mark Stafford

  all art copyright and trademark it’s respective owners.

content copyright iestyn pettigrew 2019

SKRAWLORD Russell Mark Olson talks SKRAWL to us @russell_m_olson @LucySullivanUK @johnreppion @marxtafford @SheriffFreak @pocketm0use @philselliott @jessicaonpaper @GustaffoVargas @SIMO_paints @nickprolix @theartofsok @thismanthispete SKRAWL can be found on Kickstarter Anyone that’s followed zinelove or iesorno on any kind of social media knows I’m partial to a few creators including…