Happy New Year

Above: 2011, the year in haircuts

I started 2012 the way I ended 2011-- with a whopping cold. So here, almost seven days and one bottle of Multi-symptom Cold and Flu Nighttime Relief Liquid into the new year, is a belated wish for a happy new year for you and yours from Lemon o Books and The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music.

Before talking about what 2012 has in store around these parts, let's take a quick look back at last year. It was a good one. The Chicago Zine Fest, the Madison Zine Fest, and, just last month, the stellar Milwaukee Zine Fest were great experiences. Taking myself, my projects and books out of the house and into the world is always a surprising, heartening, and illuminating endeavor.

And the books made in 2011 stand out for me as the best I've made so far. Last winter, The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music Volume Six cataloged drawings made by dozens of individuals (out of the total hundreds of drawings received so far) who contributed their work to The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music project. I am forever grateful to everyone who has made this silly idea of mine into a real and growing thing, and I hope it continues. While the drawers are the soul of this project, I think this book has my best design and craft yet for this series.



This fall saw the release of Actual Bird Song, the first non-hairdo project from Lemon o Books. This project was a collaboration between myself and two Milwaukee musicians, Lucky Bone and Slow Owls, who each contributed a track to a CD packaged inside a short booklet.



Now, with the highlights of 2011 lovingly packed away like so many Christmas lights, let's talk about some of my most anticipated projects of 2012. I'm still so excited by Actual Bird Song that my next project will continue in a similar vein. Two musicians are already on board to create sounds for a compact disc while I'm working on an accompanying book. I'm going to keep my lips sealed about the subject matter and the collaborators until things really start to take shape, but I guarantee that no one will be as disappointed as me if this project isn't just as good as last year's foray into audio-visual collaboration.

Also, the long-rumored seventh volume of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music will become a real thing that you can hold in your hands. This will definitely happen before the project turns four years old in July.

Thanks for reading, everybody. Here's to another great year!