When I started Rust and Brique, my decision to keep it print-only and have a completely minimal web presence was entirely concious. Having spent years sitting in front of a computer screen, including two years of running a business full-time, I was at a point where I could barely tolerate being near a keyboard. So, RnB was type-written and lo-tech. My thoughts were that you just don't see a lot of print zines around anymore, and the ones that you do see are usually made on a computer and super-slick. Sure, RnB was full of weird typos, but I liked it that way.

Recently I've come to realize a lot of problems with the print zine. Doing everything by hand is incredibly time consuming, and I no longer have nearly as much free time as I did when I started RnB. Even though I get free Xeroxing, it still takes about an hour to do a run, and it's hard to find time to sneak into the magic free-copy place and make copies. Distribution is an uphill battle. I mail out copies free to almost everyone I know, which ends up costing me about $20-$30 in postage every time I make a new RnB. It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but in bad months, that's all the money I might make. I give copies to friends who distribute them haphazardly, and leave what's left-over in record stores, coffee shops, or other hip places I end up. I doubt that anyone ever picks up RnB and reads it. In the two years that I've been putting it together, I've never gotten a letter from someone who picked up a copy. It's starting to seem like a huge waste of effort and time. I did get put into Cleveland Public Library's zine collection, which was very cool, and having something laying around to share with new company or mail off to a distro you just discovered is nice, but the fact is that being print-only means I have a tiny audience which isn't growing.

Still, I had only considered switching to computer layout to alleviate some of these issues until recently. Being someone who remembers the time when the Internet was still just for weird alienated geeks (like me!), the current mass-marketed schlockiness that takes up 99% of the web (just like it takes up 99% of all forms of entertainment) leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It didn't really occur to me that going online would be worthwhile with the current state of the Internet. But when I got a real writing gig from someone who ran across my site, then got an email from the guitarist of a band I loved yet couldn't find any information about days after mentioning the band on my NotABlog, I realized that there might still be ways to use the Internet for good instead of evil. I feel newly hopefully about the web being for something other than cybersex and paid Napster, and I'm starting to put a lot more energy into my existing websites than I have in years, in hopes that it will lead to other interesting chance meetings and random coolness.

So, here's the last full print issue of Rust n Brique, and the first web issue. Depending on the response I get, there may be little to no print presence of Rust n Brique in the future -- probably new flyers with information on each issue, at the most. I've also been asked to put up PDF's of old Rust n Briques, which may or may not happen, and probably won't happen for the very earliest issues, because, honestly, they're embarrassing for me to read. I have delusions about having become wiser in the past two years, but it's more likely that I've just killed enough brain cells to lose the parts of my brain that used to care about things. But, if you want to write me and ask for either a print copy of a back issue, or want me to scan in a certain issue, I'll help you out.

Next: The Lost City of Cleveland - More Pics from The Eastside's Treasure Trove

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