HANCES are that you’re a freak. I know this because over the past few years I’ve been inundated by freaks, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the freak-to-normal ratio in this world is something like 1,000 to 1, maybe worse. That’s okay though, because I’m also convinced that without freaks I’d be nothing, since you freaks are the ones buying my Zine.
    My Zine is The Inner Swine, and if you’ve never heard of it, I don’t know why you’re holding this book right now. TIS started out as a vague idea I shared with Rob Gala (who gave us the name and the general attitude), Jeof Vita (who has done all but two of our covers), and Ken West (whose contributions to this endeavor continue to elude me) back in 1993, and debuted in 1995 as my own personal brainchild. What do you find in a typical issue of TIS? What you find in most magazines, actually: paranoid screeds against my enemies, hallucinatory versions of common everyday events (usually involving an imagined worldwide organization of terror that I personally run, cartoon characters, and aliens), and novella-length run-on sentences exploring the wonder of: Me.
    So you can imagine my reaction when Clint Johns at Tower Magazines suggested that we put together a book of articles from TIS. I demanded to know how much he was going to pay me. He said, nothing. I said, I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000. He said, well don’t get out bed then, you moron. I said, wait a second, I think I have a book of articles from TIS under my bed somewhere. Then Clint demanded a tribute of meats and cheeses, which I supplied, and the deal was on!
    First, I’ll take a moment to introduce some of the people that populate most of the articles herein (yes, they really are real people), so you won’t be completely confused when you read a sentence like “Misty turned to me and said ‘Did you know you have a piece of balogna on your head?’, and then Ken hit me again, shouting ‘Loser! LOSER!” Well, it can’t hurt, anyway. Then I’ll take you on a virtual tour of The Inner Swine’s production process so you’ll understand how easy it is to drool this stuff onto the page and be horrified at what you paid for this book. Then, the real fun begins: a long Bataan Death March of articles from seven years of The Inner Swine.
    Enjoy!