David St. Albans
David St. Albans is the editor and publisher of HUH? Magazine: The Journal of Neo-Confusionism.
St. Albans began his quest to get into the field of comics in 1970, after going insane for the works of R. Crumb and Robt. Williams in Zap comix . At age 14 he quickly produced "Dick Steel...the man with the Steel Dick!" in high school. After high school he wandered the country for six months as a homeless vagabond, gaining incredible experiences. Upon returning to California to attend Pasadena City College he became involved with another artist who wanted to put out his own comic. It was called "Fantastic Comics No. 1." for which he did several J.R.R. Tolkien illustrations in pen and ink, and produced a Conan the Barbarian homage , since the character was supposed to be Conan's son, called "Drakonak: Adventurer in the Western World!" This was his first officially printed, bound and distributed piece. His fellow artist had literally suck about $500.00 of his own money into the project. Unfortunately he didn't realize the distributors would demand much more than that, so the comic never did fly.
This event, however, compelled him to go searching for alternate venues to publish he work. He fell upon the Fantasy/Science Fiction and Horror world, which was doing a lot of self-published and small press magazines, some of which included the now famous Etchings and Odysseys. He began doing spot illustrations and even cover work for these magazines. He also discovered the art of Scrimshaw at this time and became a professional ivory engraver for over 13 years, perfecting his drawing talents as he went. He put out two or three poetry chapbooks which included his illustrations, as well as doing some short stories in the fantasy/horror market. His wayward life got him involved with people like Harry O. Morris (who was the first person he ever knew to do any sort of computer graphics), R. A. Everts, and Rick Baker who got him in touch with his hero from the 60's, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. He also finally got to meet Robt. Williams and even Timothy Leary because of these connections. Eventually he wound up in Albuquerque where Harry O. Morris lived and fell in with the science fiction and fantasy crowd there.
By 1993 St. Albans had decided to come up with his own 'zine. This was the birth of HUH? Magazine, dedicated to the weirdos he had been meeting throughout my life; people who were anti-Semites who invented anti-gravity machines, crystal waving UFO nuts, alternative street artists who had already gone "over the edge" on drugs and shamanism. He decided to make it a combination of cut & paste Surreal/Dadaist text with artwork by himself and other locals, some of whom were on his "odd-ball" list.
HUH? The Journal of Neo-Confusionism started with Vol1. No.0 under the "Dead Horse Comic Publishers" Logo. This was a black and white, 7.5 X 10.0 format 'zine that included 11 pages plus cover. It is highly detailed and features a lot of ideas that were far ahead of their time. St. Albans produced five of these 'zines from #0 - #4. The last one; The Depression Issue, came out after he had suffered a nervous breakdown 1n 1995. All these were published under the "Baked Trilobite Publishers" label. During this time, he also put out several other comics; "Coyotero: All Southwest Comics" "Comics for Aliens On Earth" "Aliens In The House" and "Illegal Aliens: JIVE." He was also putting out the SWAC newsletter as well. His work was showing up in other 'zines as well, included Road to Hell and Not My Small Diary.
