WHAT IS IT?
A monthly handbound page-a-day calendar (/zine/comic/collage/narrative). Usually around a theme, like a longer podcast or a shorter magazine. Circulation of, like…10 readers a month, so, super exclusive! 39 issues and counting.
The content varies: many are public-domain news clippings from 100 years ago, often around some theme (travel, animals, weird pharmaceuticals, advertisements), but others have been:
an illustrated retelling of a very strange piece of newspaper fiction (The Pumpkin Pie Frolic, November 2023)
a page-a-day cut-and-fold holiday village (Community Calendar, December 2023)
excerpts from a 1920s guide to palm-reading (Chiromancy Calendar, January 2024)
25 paper doll outfits and a cutout cardstock paper doll cover (Costume Calendar, October 2023)
31 unusual diagrams from the patent office (January 2022)
a single forgotten news story told & illustrated over 31 days (March 2023: the Nixon, NJ ammonium nitrate disaster; February 2022: the 1922 efforts to regulate obscenity in movies; October 2022: the 1922 worldwide-headline-making haunting of a house in Nova Scotia)
But the format is always the same: a page-a-day calendar (tree-free paper), in your mailbox by the first of the month, with a cardstock backing that means it stands on its own right out of the box.
WHEN & WHERE
Every month (somehow), in any mailbox in the continental US or Canada.
HOW MUCH? HOW?
Six bucks a month (USD), via my Patreon page. Just sign up for the Calendar Club and be sure to include your mailing address! (Note that signing up for any tier over $6 automatically makes you eligible for the monthly mailings!)
WHY?
Good question. I started digging around public archives during lockdown and produced the first of these in January 2021, thinking I might make, like, 4 of these. As of this writing we’re somehow almost halfway into the 4th year, without missing a single month yet, although one month I did manage to screw up all the weekdays. (sorry again to everyone who was a patron last February)
I guess I work best on deadlines? and this gives me one every month. It’s always hand-made and hand-mailed, it’s almost always something I’m very proud of. I like the idea of a handmade page-a-day calendar just in general - a daily ritual, a personal piece of art to brighten your desk or mantle or whatever - but plenty of folks have told me they just read them straight through, which is not technically against the rules.