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6 - Snarl

May 2006

PRINT EDITION: Sold out

The world would not be in such a snarl had Marx been Groucho instead of Karl.
– Irving Berlin


Original blurb:

Get hooked on Snarl for alley cats, a sneering child, the god of hurt feelings, a short, illustrated radio play and many mouthfuls more. Fuselit's never been this fierce!

Snarl gave us another first – a radio play. Prior to our dalliance with CDs, Daniel Gay’s tale of a monster and an unimpressed damsel was laid out with illustration by Jon, and bounced merrily across the pages. Tom Chandler’s tale of wolves and children was another highlight, and the cover, a watery snarl-up of alligators, was designed by long-time friend of Fuselit and Birdbook poet Cliff Hammett.

One of the original big ideas I had for Fuselit was that the spur word should also inspire a different layout and visual theme with each issue, rather than pertaining only to the writing. With Snarl, we finally started to push this idea forward. Each poet's name was written on a rag 'snarled' on a piece of barbed wire that stretched across the top of the page. In retrospect, it looked crummy, but the idea was solid. Looking back at the radio-play-turned-comic, I was still using that style of illustration that relied entirely on pencil strokes and high contrast. I'm a slow learner! Meanwhile, the quality of the actual contents continued to go up.