Earlier today on The Twitter, we were talking about the decreasing quality of For Better or For Worse, and I was inspired to dig up a zine that I published in high school.
The zine was called "YOU'RE TOO UGLY FOR TV", released May 1, 1995. Somehow I was able to submit it as a project for English class. (Received an A+.)
It was 12 pages, photocopied at the local staples. I typed out the articles on my dad's 30-year-old Olympia typewriter. I wrote some of the articles, and a few friends contributed columns. One of those friends went on to become a well-known journalist. Another was later exposed as a plagiarist and I now suspect his/her entry in the zine was not original.
It was fascinating to read through it. Part media critique, part found photos, mostly fun. I had much the same sense of humour and similar writing style as I do now. Example: "When Hercules held up his fist and shouted "OLYMPIA!", he was shouting for this brand of typewriter."
At 120 characters, that's a direct precursor to the kinds of mildly amusing tweets that I write every day over 16 years later.
But here's the page that made me rummage through the old boxes in the basement in the first place. It's the storyline from For Better or For Worse where Farley dies while helping to rescue the family's youngest daughter. (Heavy stuff.)
I took the text and ran it through a mock-Swedish translation web site. Here is the result (click for larger view):
