Updated weakly.

John P. has a PATREON. / King-Cat 83 is OUT NOW.



Thursday, July 18, 2024

KING-CAT 83 ORDER NOW~!!!


Click images to enlarge!

Hi Folks,

King-Cat #83 is printed and packed and will be in hand circa next Tuesday July 23. If you would like to pre-order a single copy, shipped in a plain manila envelope, please send the following:

USA: $8.82 via PayPal
CANADA: $10.46 USD via PayPal
REST OF WORLD: $13.32 USD via PayPal

PayPal address is johnp_kingcat AT hotmail DOT com

This is for a jumbo-sized 48-page issue featuring: Cartoonist Hijinx, BBQ Joint, Fragments of Memory, Diamonds vs Pearls, Demolition Derby, Childhood Reveries, Letters, Top 40, Dreams, and lots more!

---

If you would like to order (or renew) a four-issue subscription, please do so at the Spit and a Half site:

King-Cat subscription – Spit and a Half

Thank you!
John P.






Thursday, April 4, 2024

UPCOMING EVENTS - 2024


Dear everyone,

"Post-COVID" (I'll be wearing a mask) and following the death of my mom, I'll be resuming my rounds of the book, zine, and comix festivals. Still sticking to the Midwest. I just don't travel very easily or well anymore. But if you're in or near the following places, I would love for you to drop by and say hello, starting this Saturday in Iowa City. (Events listings updated 5/27/24):

April 6
ICE Cream Fest
Iowa City

April 16
New York Comics Symposium
Online/Streaming interview (w/ Austin English)

April 19-20
"Rockford Art Scene"
Maze Books - Rockford, IL
(Fri. reading and Sat. zine workshop)

April 27
Madison Print and Resist
Madison, WI

May 24-25
Nancy Fest
Billy Ireland Library - OSU
Columbus, OH

June 15
Zine Not Dead Fest
Chicago, IL

July 27
Mini Comic Con

Alsip Public Library
Alsip, IL

August 17
Autoptic Festival

Minneapolis, MN

August 18
Insert Name Here Zine Fest
Minneapolis, MN

August 24-25
CAKE
Chicago, IL

October 5
Chicago Zine Fest

October 6
MILK Comix Fest
Milwaukee, WI

Hope to see you around soon!

Thank you,
John P.

Sunday, January 8, 2023

KING-CAT #82 -- Available Now!

Hi everyone, the new King-Cat, #82, is now available for ordering!


It's 32 digest pages, featuring: Michi Moo Love, Nature Notes, lots of stuff about 7-11s (and video games and Conan's Savage Sword); plus: Walking Slowly in the Backyard, Wooden Toothpicks, Dreams, Driving Country Roads, Catbird Talk, Letters, and more!

To order ONE copy directly, please send the following, via PayPal to johnp_kingcat AT hotmail DOT com:

USA: $6.50
CANADA: $7.50 USD
REST OF WORLD: $9.50 USD

These prices include shipping in a plain manila envelope! If you prefer shipping with a cardboard backer in a padded envelope/box (more expensive), please order from www.spitandahalf.com

To order a copy along with other comics, please visit www.spitandahalf.com

Thank you!
John P.





Thursday, December 8, 2022

THE STONEWARE JUG -- Available Now!

Stefan Lorenzutti is an American poet living with his family in a small house in the mountains of Poland, from which he and his wife run their Bored Wolves publishing imprint. From my first encounter, I was enchanted with their books– simple, beautiful, elegant, with none of the ponderous opacity that makes up so much contemporary poetry. A few years ago, Stefan and I collaborated on a print called “Whiz,” in which I adapted a short poem of his into comics form. It worked so well, we decided to do it twelve more times! The Stoneware Jug collects 13 comics-poems (including Whiz), that focus on the seasonal, mundane-but-transcendent experiences of domestic life: baking, laundry, ice. Fans of King-Cat will, I think, enjoy this very much. 28 pages, black ink on lovely soft paper, saddle-stitched, 7.875″ x 5.5″ (Co-Published by Nieves Books/Bored Wolves/Spit and a Half)

To order ONE copy directly, please send the following, via PayPal to johnp_kingcat AT hotmail DOT com:

USA: $9.40
CANADA: $10.00 USD
REST OF WORLD: $11.35 USD

These prices include shipping in a plain manila envelope! If you prefer shipping with a cardboard backer in a padded envelope/box, please order from www.spitandahalf.com

To order a copy along with other comics, please visit www.spitandahalf.com

Thank you!
John P.


Monday, June 20, 2022

ROCK N ROLL NEVER FORGETS #1

1995, Denver.

This was one of the last shows we played. My ears were already fucked up. I remember I was sooper sick that night, and I showed up for the gig in my pajamas. The Wreck Room was like an 80's hair metal club that never got the memo, and I was bewildered that we were actually playing there. I remember at one point saying into the mic, "I though Kurt Cobain killed you." I'm sure that endeared us to the crowd.

Afterwards, I walked home in the snow and ice in my PJs.

--John P.

Photo courtesy Eric Lowe of the fabulous Christines.

Friday, February 11, 2022

KING-CAT #81 AVAILABLE NOW!

Hey folks, King-Cat #81 will arrive from the printer on Sunday Feb. 13, 2022! Wow.

The epochal thrills of Medicine Cabinets, Garbage Days, and the decline and collapse of American Empire all come together in this new issue. Plus: Sparrows in the Rain, Faded Hearts, Where’s Miss Moo, James Brown vs Prince, Monobrow, Letters, and all the rest. 36 digest pages, black and white throughout.

If you would like to order a copy as part of a larger Spit and a Half order, you can do so here.

If you would prefer to order a single, standalone copy, prices are as follows:

--ORDER a SINGLE COPY directly...

USA: $6.50
CANADA: $7.25 USD
REST OF WORLD: $8.90 USD*

Payable via PayPal to: kingcat_paypal AT Hotmail DOT com

If you're in the US, you can also send a check for $6.50 payable to:

John Porcellino
PO Box 142
South Beloit, IL 61080

--GET a SUBSCRIPTION...

Subscriptions get you FOUR issues of King-Cat delivered to you as they become available.

USA: $20.00
CANADA: $23.00 USD
REST OF WORLD: $31.00 USD*

Payable via PayPal to: kingcat_paypal AT Hotmail DOT com

If you want to order a subscription along with other books, please visit www.spitandahalf.com.

--JOIN my PATREON...

For a pledge of $5/month (US) or $6/month (INT'L) you will receive copies of all physical, self-published zines I produce (King-Cat plus other titles, such as the upcoming Prairie Pothole zine), PLUS a laminated, signed/numbered OFFICIAL® King-Cat Fan Club Membership Card, and exclusive online content like my monthly newsletter THE BONEY ISLAND OBSERVER.

[You can also pledge at lower rates to receive web-only premiums (PLUS a physical Membership Card).]

Patreon info is at www.patreon.com/johnporcellino

THANK YOU!!!

John P.



*AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND CUSTOMERS: Please note the US Postal Service is currently NOT shipping to your countries. HOWEVER I have a workaround in place -- when ordering though, please anticipate delays. Thank you!

Sunday, November 28, 2021

THE BEATLES - GET BACK (dir. Peter Jackson, 2021)

In the fall of 1979, either for my birthday or for Christmas, I asked my mom for some Beatles albums. This is one of the great mysteries of my life, because up to that point, my personal record collection consisted of A) the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, and B) The Stranger, by Billy Joel. My mom had a copy of If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears by the Mamas and the Papas that we played as kids, and my dad had his collection of scratchy Sinatra albums that came out on Saturday mornings, but the Beatles were a non-entity in our house growing up. So I have no idea what prompted me to ask my mom for those records.

In any case, one morning I was presented with the Red Album and the Blue Album. Those two records changed my life in ways that I may never fully realize. They were like receiving a treasure map for some alien land, a land that was mysterious, and wonderful, and even a little bit scary sometimes. 

I used to listen to them over and over, standing at the side of the couch and pretending to play piano. I loved how they told a story. How they started so simple, yet so clever, and got progressively deeper and weirder as you went on. And then at the end they just started rocking again... "Revolution" and "Old Brown Shoe." I don't even think I knew what "Rock n Roll" was, but I was unknowingly receiving a crash course.

Then there was Rarities, with "There's a Place" and "Misery," and "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)," and that bizarre reflective double album, Rock n Roll Music -- with raunch like "Bad Boy" and "Hey Bulldog" on it.

Meanwhile I was checking every Beatles book I could out of the library. I obsessively memorized each detail, learned all the trivia, went to the School Of Cosmic Beatles Fandom. 

The hot lunches at school were $1.90, so each morning my mom would press two dollar bills into my hand on the way out the door. I saved the dimes I got in change and every twelve weeks, when I had $6.00 saved up, I made the pilgrimage to the Flip Side to buy my next Beatles album.

I pored over my Beatles books, learning every tiny detail about albums I'd not yet heard, and ranked them based on how crucial they seemed, creating a long-term Purchasing Strategy... One after the other, they became mine: Revolver, Sgt. Peppers, Rubber Soul. (The White Album was a double so I asked for it for Christmas 1980.)

And then John got shot. I was in the bathroom getting ready for school. My mom knocked on the door and told me, "It was just on the news... one of the Beatles got shot last night..." That day at school was one of the strangest days ever. Beatles music poured from every room in the building. The teachers all had radios on in the classroom that played Fabs tracks nonstop. And they were crying. I was a little too young to understand, in all but the most abstract way, what had happened.

The arrival of the White Album that Christmas was the arrival of a kind of Rosetta Stone, a tool for me to use to understand the universe. Those photo inserts, the crazy poster, the lyrics. John Paul George and Ringo. Dear Prudence. Back in the USSR. Happiness is a Warm Gun. Yer Blues. Revolution 9. I was cosmically proud to learn that Paul McCartney wrote, and the Beatles recorded, the song "Birthday," ON THE ACTUAL DAY I WAS BORN, September 18, 1968.

In High School, my Freshman year art teacher, learning of my Beatles obsession, came prepared with a trivia question for me every morning. I almost can't believe it, but she never stumped me once. I remember one day, almost blowing it, my mind a blank, digging painfully deep in frustration, until finally I blurted out, correctly, "RORY STORM AND THE HURRICANES!!!"

For three or four years, from 1979-1982, all I listened to was the Beatles, all I read about was the Beatles, and all I thought about was the Beatles.

Eventually I started listening to New Wave music, and, oddly, Yes (they reminded me of childhood, and as I entered puberty with its attendant hormonal insanity, my childhood took on a kind of peaceful, hopeful resonance for me). Then of course, punk, and Hüsker Dü, the Replacements, Flipper, and REM; Neil Young, and Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Robyn Hitchcock. But I always loved the Beatles.

Nowadays, once or twice a decade, I fall back into my Beatles hole. I listen to all the records again, read a few new books, and as time goes on, my understanding of them continues to grow and evolve. With each new phase of my life, I see their work in a different light.

Peter Jackson has taken the old, buried film shot to make their 1970 movie, Let It Be, notorious for its depiction of a once inseparable band on its last legs, cleaned it up and re-edited it with modern technology, and gifted Fabs Obsessives with over 7 hours of incredible footage. If nothing else, the story has grown exponentially richer. We all know how it ends, but we now see firsthand how it happened day by day. All the little asides noted in books and bootlegs have been made clear for everyone to see, with their own eyes.

The movie is not perfect. It's boring at times (when the sessions were boring, you really feel it), but if you make it through the dismal early sections, you see the band gradually come back to life, and for a brief moment in time, rekindle enough of the spark to get the job done. The constant quick cutting, and unfortunate slicing and dicing of songs into three second snippets, made my brain hurt after awhile, but that only seemed to make the transcendent moments come even more vividly to life. The scene of McCartney realizing his band, his life, was this close to just disappearing one day, brought tears to both his eyes and mine. As Lennon re-energizes after a heart to heart with ol' Paul, his ferociously smart and cutting brain-tongue steals scene after scene. George settles in and smiles, and Ringo seems relieved at last to be finally playing music.

The famous rooftop concert, now extended to include the full set, is stunning. In contrast to the uncertainty and lack of resolve of even a few days prior, once the lads finally climb the stairs and plug in, they instantly return to being an unstoppable force of nature.

Clearly this movie is not for everyone. But for anyone who loves the Fabs, or loves the sixties, or loves old vintage music/recording gear, it's a stunner. It'll turn your brain inside out for a few days.

(This essay originally appeared in Criterion Diary #9, my online movie review column for Patreon supporters. For information on joining, please visit my site at www.patreon.com/johnporcellino Thank you!)