Windy Corner Magazine #1 edited by Austin English

For the curious: in this series I reviewed #2, then #3, and now finally #1. I plan on reviewing future issues out of order as well (if I get more than one of them at a time) just for the hell of it. Sure it's a stupid way to go about it, especially as this issue details exactly what Austin hopes to get out of the artist interviews (he wants artists to interview artists about, um, artsy thing, which makes it especially impressive that all three of them have all been equally accessible to somebody like me, who is decidedly not an artist), and also has the beginning of the story of Francis. Austin was also against using punctuation in most of these strips, which has the disquieting effect of making everything seem like a deeply relevant run-on sentence. Anyway, stories in here include Francis parts 1-4 (involving losing the money for dinner, Francis finding a suspicious letter in his dad's coat pocket (and showing it to his mother), buying toys and eking out a living, and Francis selling some of his art), Austin showing us a few of his earliest memories, some painting by Paula Salemme, Austin interviewing Andrice Arp (if the name doesn't sound familiar, trust me, if you read small press comics you'll recognize the art), a story of actually learning something in art school by Steve Lafler, and a wordless piece by Richard Hahn, who should really finish the next issue of Lumakick already. Unless he's just working on other stuff that I've missed, which is entirely possible. I still think #2 is the best of the bunch, but that's probably just because I'm so biased towards that Onsmith/John Hankiewicz interview. Still, there's not a bad issue here, I just hope the price tag doesn't scare people off.