drollhousemagazine

As some of you readers might’ve already heard, half of Drollhouse will be relocating from Toledo, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois to enroll in Second City classes and pursue her comedy writing career (ON SNL?????!!!).

Duh, you’ve already been giggling at Erin Kanary’s words for like years.

We’ve been pondering, “what do we do with our little mag?” and have decided to keep publishing it whenever-we-feel-like-it-ly instead of quarterly. We’re currently putting together issue #3, Haunted, and we’ll let ya’ll know when it’s available.

Get scared.

“Despite what everybody says about print being dead and people leaving it behind, it seems to be the opposite to me,” said Jeremy Leslie of www.magculture.com in a video interview by Julius van der Vaart and Paul de Brujin. “I think there are just as many, if not more independent magazines being made now than there have been in the past. Generally, there are a lot of very passionate people making lovely projects that they put all their heart and soul into, and then they struggle to make money from them. The publishing business is difficult and only some of them succeed, but they are all worthy of attention, looking at, and learning from.”

Check out the 2012 Facing Pages on flickr.

Drollhouse Magazine is going to The Netherlands! The magazine is physically across the sea right now in the homeland of Rebecca Romijn’s father! We were invited to be a part of Europe’s largest independent magazine festival, Facing Pages, taking place this weekend. The lovely people at FP are super nice and cool and might even be our magazine heros.  Check it out:

Facing Pages is the biggest event in Europe on independent magazines. Never before has such a large variety of international independent magazines been brought together. Facing Pages (formerly O.K. Festival) offers an exhibition of many unique magazines, lectures by renowned magazine makers, inspiration, parties and networking. Facing Pages shows how the independent magazine has grown into a new phenomenon within our visual culture, and why these magazines can be seen as pioneers in the digital age.

Kate and myself are absolutely honored to be a part of this amazing event, and it breaks our little hearts that we are unable to jump across the pond to be there. But Toledo, Ohio, USA is representin’ in 52 page-form and this makes us smile harder than when Rebecca Romijn married that fat kid from Stand By Me. A big thanks to Facing Pages and to all our  rad contributors that brought it to the DH. We love you allllllllllllllll!

Bobby “Baby” Szorady whips songs out as fast as Angelina Jolie whips out her leg when the camera flashes on the red carpet. When we asked him to write a poem for our upcoming No. 3 — HAUNTED — he did that thing where you stand next to someone and tap their opposite shoulder so they turn around all confused, and when we turned back around to be like, “HEY THAT WAS YOU,” there was only a hilarious poem on the ground.

Bobby Baby writes songs for his band, Highland. Highland is a total gem. Here’s a taste:

You Had Me At Fuck Off
You fake a smile, look for a friend
You excel and condescend
Stare at your drink then you scoff
You had me at fuck off
Maybe a sin or salvation
As you feign conversation
You’re the lukewarm Great Salt Lake
You’re a Salisbury steak
Your girlfriend said she’d be here by now
She’s asleep on the couch with a paperback of Tao
You clam up, stare at the floor
I feel we have a rapport
I sniffle and you cough
You had me at fuck off

Listen to Highland at http://highland.bandcamp.com.

(Erin Kanary photoshops Drollhouse contributors Michelle Duni and Erin Keaton wielding Jolie leg.)

You guys! What’s up? We haven’t seen you in like forever! What’s new, you ask? Oh, nothing really … same stuff, different day.

PSYCH!

Issue #2 premiered last week! It be straight dropping like Sir Michael Caine’s balls, son!

We had a little get together at the Ottawa Tavern for the occasion. Nothing big — just a few friends, some meatballs, Jesse Spano’s boobs. It was very nice, and we want to thank everyone for coming out. Otherwise, it just would have been Kate and myself watching Showgirls in the dark next to a pile of meat and gravy.

For reals, though, the mag looks great thanks to our contributors who are beyond amazing. In fact, they are so great, I am going to list them all in a bold font right now:

Jason Webber
Doug Kampfer
Moist Productions
John Walz
Francis Bova
Amanda Culkowski
Projection List
Will Santino
Erin Keaton
Claire Skowronek
Katie Graham
Ashley Baker
Kelsey Short
Alicia M. Corman

If you ever meet them in person, shake their hand and tell them how fabulous they are because … THEY ARE DROLLHOUSE.

And also, if anybody got any pics at the party, can you shoot them our way? I took one of Erin Keaton and I’m stealing one from Michelle Duni’s Facebook page (thanks, Duni!) but that’s all I got. So …. yeah…

You can buy Issue #2 – The Movies here.

Issue No. 2, The Movies!, is at the printer’s — and if you’re tamping down your excitement because you were burned so badly by how they ruined Tremors 1 with Tremors 2, you can knock it off right now. We’re proud of our sequel, and we’re pretty sure we haven’t pulled a George Lucas and gone spontaneously insane with bad taste.

IIIIEEEEEE EOMGOMGO M GOMG HERE IT COMES!!!!!

Listen to us babble about it on Tell Me Something I Want to Hear, a podcast by contributing writer Dylan Wise and his friend Jeremy.

And if you love your country, check out PLATES 4 U, a new Toledo-based blog continuing to celebrate the dumb American cultural phenomenon known as vanity plates that we wrote about in No. 1. We’ve grown increasingly obsessed with hunting for these things.

Last night little old Toledo got a Victorious Voluptuous Va Va Visit from the  Fantastic Found FuhMagazine.

Davy Rothbart, the co-founder of Found (along with Jason Bitner), was super friendly and more than willing to chat with us about self-publishing joys and biz. We listened and laughed while he read some choice selections, like these:

When the show was over, we voraciously ravaged the merch table, buying every single book, magazine, sticker, and pin (at a very reasonable price). Then we hid in a bathroom stall so that we could slowly, secretly rip out pages and eat them, while moaning “mmmm … mmm.” Ok, that last part’s not true. Anyway, Davy said that he still gets excited when people send in submissions, and he encouraged people keep their eyes open for items to send. Keen, interested, treasure-hunting readers; if you find something, submit it here!

Davy said his magazine is basically an international-scale community art project, growing ever since the first publication back in 2001. We love it. Thanks to Davy, Peter (his brother who writes and performs songs about the subjects of found notes), and Sarah. Thanks to the Ottawa Tavern for arranging the event!