*insert general excitement about having new Patreon supporters*
Look, it’s never going to get old. People wanting to support one’s creativity…it really does feel fantastic.
I wasn’t having a great last few days, but made the effort today to do some self-care stuff, and epic adulting (how good is it that you can pay your car registration in three-monthly instalments, praise the capitalist lords?!). After testing to see that That’s Alotta Donuts really is 24-7 (?!?! who needs doughnuts that urgently?!), I bought some lemon meringue ones, some white choc and raspberry ones, and one each of a Rocky Road and Ferrero Rocher. I’d chosen them having in mind to pair them with a dark beer. A riffle through my zine collection, and lo and behold, a fun theme emerged!
zine: Pizza Echoes by Michael Hawkins (printed by Glom Press; $10 from Junky Comics distro)
beer: Red Duck Sexy Thing chocolate and chilli dark ale (500mL; 6.9% ABV limited release)
guest appearance: lemon meringue + white choc & raspberry doughnuts from That’s Alotta Donuts
Over the weekend, I had another one of Red Duck’s limited release beers I’d been keen to try for a while (the Choki Boki) – it full-on looked like chocolate milk, frothed in the same way, and smelled of glorious caramelly, chocolatish biscuit goodness! Sadly, this did not quite translate to the palate. Sexy Thing is completely different – it is delightful, rich, really smooth and now I wish I had an extra bottle. It went really well with the lemon meringue doughnut which isn’t all that sweet, and is a doughy, gooey, fluffy flavoured air treat to eat. Seriously, I hate making a mess when eating, but it’s absolutely impossible to eat the lemon meringue doughnut neatly. Etiquette school be damned!
So yeah, the doughnuts are GONE, the beer’s just about on its way to disappearing, so now it’s zine reading time. An A5 riso-print zine about pizza in turquoise, neon green and neon pink? Even the staples are pink?! <3
Three siblings seem to be bonding over a misplaced childhood toy known as the ‘metal b.f.’ They chat about several places they’ve lived and someone brings in a pizza. One sibling can’t really recall their time there, so the other two try to jog the memory by describing their pizza-making antics.
Storytelling and reminiscing, shared food and oddities such as the metal b.f. are weirdly and lovingly intertwined…just when you think one bit’s about to get freaky, one of those three elements will kind of ‘anchor’ the story to prevent it going fully surreal. This lot sound like the most adorable siblings – it’s got shades of Stranger Things, and Stephen King’s It. Possibly even Paper Girls? In case you’re wondering, I recommend all these things, except maybe don’t watch It unless you’re okay with clowns. The book felt much less vivid, though totally just as scary.
So…do you have any weird pizza stories? Perhaps it’s like the cheese dream phenomenon? My Monday evening has panned out (ha! see what I…?!) better than it felt it would when I first woke up today.