foofaraw

The air is thick with dust and the smell of decaying wood pulp. Shelving units like fossilised bones stretch beyond the limits of sight. Waterproof dust jackets protect ancient volumes from the desultory clouds which form among the upper shelves. At ground level, strobe-light-lurid mushrooms spill out from cracks between tiles the colour of ageing vellum.This is the Library of Lives. Every human being who exists, who ever has existed, who ever will exist, has their biography recorded here,…

Now that the World Cup is over, we can finally get back into the swing of things at fOOfARAW HQ. While we won't be getting much in terms of new movies this week as everyone cowers from the Goliath of The Odyssey, there are a ton of fun shows, comics, and albums to talk about. 📺 King of the Hill Season 15 — HuluKing of the Hills season 14 was one of, if not my favorite returning show of 2025, so I'm really looking forward to season 15. We actually went back and started from season 1 earlier this…

مع السلامة (ma’a salama) melting pot. さよなら (sayonara), salad bowl. America is an omnibus of purple prose bound in balding eagle skin.We’re talking primo leather from a batty bird who steals hot dogs from kids at ballparks. True story. ((Not a BORN FREEagle mugging on a ride-or-die Clutch album. (Book of Bad Decisions, 2018. Photo by Dan Winters, danwintersphoto.com. Gallery recs: “Works on Paper: Cold War” and “Constructions.”) And not some early bird crunching half-frozen fish bait for gonzo…

Read Developing your mindfulness practice 🙂! now!So… read any good pamphlets lately?I love a good pamphlet, and by that I mean crazy pamphlet, even when it was Jack Chick telling me that I am going to hell. The internet has ruined them. A pamphlet is like a mode of poetry with constraints imposed not by rules (length of stanzas, rhyme patterns, etc) but by size and cost and commitment to get the thing finished and to the printer in time to hand out at the next demo or march. Hand out enough of…

Dear Pilgrim,Hallo! We are so glad that you chose our little pamphlet. Thank you for trusting us enough to connect!Recall a blessed moment from childhood. You pause in a dappled glade. Insects drone, the machine noise that underlies everything. Butterflies dance from flower to flower.Beautiful.Mindless.Then a special visitor emerges.A timid kangaroo, deciding all was safe, hopped from shelter to nibble fresh grass shoots.You were in the moment, totally absorbed.You were mindful.Choose your…

💡Rusty Epstein

If we're being honest, there is only one thing people will be paying attention to this week, so we will knock that one out first and then get on to some pretty cool comics, shows, and albums that are definitely still worth your time despite The Odyssey dominating the tubes and airwaves.🎬 The OdysseyEveryone already knows what this is. Christopher Nolan is back with his IMAX epic starring basically all of Hollywood. I've got my tickets already for Saturday.📚 Super Mondo Mega Mutts #1 — Oni…

His left foot moves left His right foot moves right His right hip moves forwardHe steps on something softHe hears a deep breath - inhalingShe smiles awkwardlyIs there an equal and oppositereaction behind her lips?His breathing quickensa bead of sweatan enormous, torrentialsluice of sweatis dropping off his noseTo the floor Plop PlopA couple gyrates past with a birdlike grace–sequined plumage the light refracts, unwilling,or unable to hold them, like notes through the windowHe doesn’t know the…

Hello hello hello! Before we get into things this week, I wanted to mention that Friends of the Foof, Throwback Buys are running their Nostalgia Auction Pt. 6. If you're a child of the 90's, have some aging decrepit millennials in your life (or just want to support our real life friends back in Chicago), you should check it out and grab yourself an Adam Sandler signed gold jacket or a Kevin Eastman signed TMNT NES game.We've got a lot to get through to cover the last 12 or so days so lets jump…

We break readily, when we’re flung into the scrap pits. We lie in quiet piles, legs twisted, arm actuators malfunctioning due to the ‘sleep paralysis’ protocol when we’re junked. But only the exterior breaks.Yes, our ceramic shells crack into shards, our crumple zones collapse, but our batteries typically survive, and more importantly, our networking filaments keep their connectivity. The First Ones cast down here quickly realised the scrapyard workers didn’t bother to secure their local…

For use in treatinghypermundanity,more commonly knownas excessive ordinariness.Do not combine with alcohol.Use only as directed.If you experience blurred vision bloody urine aphasia glossolalia levitation bilocation persistent glitter shedding or heart arrhythmia,discontinue useand consult a doctor.Effects may include: unexpected shrinkage unexpected growth demonic possession transformation sequences soulbonding residence in Faerie (temporary or permanent) post-mortem reanimation and in rare…

Between the World Cup, ramping up for S8 and our expanding publishing schedule, and the day job, it's been hard to keep up with everything going on. So for this first edition of The Media Guide for season eight, we have a doozy of an issue to catch up on everything we've missed over the course of the last month plus twice as many favorites to check out above the paywall.📺 The Bear Season 5 — HuluOne of our most anticipated shows of the year even despite the last two seasons being below average.…

Dept: Office of Patriotic SustenanceTruthiness: 250%Title: Chief Cooking OfficerFineprint: Who needs to eat anyway?Mode: menuOkay team, it falls to us to assemble the greatest menu of American dishes ever comb-bound into a booklet to be sold in every National Park gift shop across these beautiful fifty states. Now, we’re not worrying about writing recipes⁠—we’ve got AI for that⁠—all we need to do is pick the list of dishes that have made America great.We need to be sure these dishes do not… let…

Read What Do Moms Know About Fashion? now!Who do you find yourself relating to more in this story, the mother or daughter?As a very independent and strong-willed person, my younger self would have answered that question as definitely the daughter. I was always the one in my family that insisted on finding my own way and continually did things that made my parents shake their heads. Now that I’m older, I’m just grateful they taught me to think for myself and allowed me the space to make my own…

My mother clucked her tongue when I had my neck stretched on my twentieth birthday. If she could have forbidden it, she would have. Not under my roof. Well, good thing I have my own place and my own money. When I came for Sunday dinner after having my skin sandpapered until it was soft and nearly translucent, she didn’t say a word. Her eyes traced the newly visible lines of the blue-black veins that webbed my collarbone and she choked down her protein substrate in silence. By the time the meal…

Zack Rhodes is a Northern Ca based cartoonist enjoying the many jokes that life and fatherhood throw at him. Innovator of Free Art Friday in Sonoma County. Receiver of a Community Enrichment Merit award. Currently getting beat up by his 2 year old son, Wade, while typing this biography.

The July issue of Foofaraw Zine is here! Download below or read in our purpose built ebook reader. Of course, all stories will be published for free on the web throughout the month, but paid supporters receive a PDF/EPUB with all of the month's stories at the beginning of the month, along with a few other goodies, including the bonus Four-headed Foofaraw. And Patrons get stuff in print!Individual issues are also available for purchase on Weightless books, where you can also subscribe. This…

💡Read Small Potatoes now!What’s your favorite way to eat potatoes?I think the better question would be “What’s your least favourite way of eating potatoes?”. Potatoes are amazing and there are so many ways of eating them! Fried, boiled, baked, deep-fried, mashed. The possibilities are endless! I’m particularly partial to scalloped potatoes with lots of cheese on top, and pan-fried potatoes with caramelised onions, garlic, and oregano.I suppose, what makes potatoes so amazing is their…

Our third novelette is available directly form us now and available anywhere books are sold starting July 1. A reluctant seer, gifted with only a "certain sense," opens his door to a desperate man babbling about a face—a face that haunts him. The trail leads to a deserted chateau; the obsessive work of a vanished artist.Drawing in a physician and a gallerist, the narrator climbs to the ruin to learn what the chateau holds. A tale of dread, art, and obsession in the Gothic-weird and Lovecraftian…

Spudwig Wright was a potato, and not a particularly attractive one at that. Rumour had it that there was more than a bit of rutabaga on his father’s side of the family. And even if that wasn’t actually true, he certainly had the looks, which were anything but pretty.As a consequence, he had been bullied throughout his young life in the root cellar. The others regularly made fun of him and called him turnip-head, yam-face, and much worse things.“Spuddy, my old buddy, you’re too ugly even for…

—Rusty Epstein

Dept: Office of Plausible DeniabilityTruthiness: 746%Title: Roving Space CorrespondentFineprint: For entertainment purposes only; void where prohibited (we don't want to go to jail).||Wipe them out.|| All of them. Oh... Uhhh, wrong meeting…Well, hello! It is a big day and the galaxy is watching. Humans are watching. Chalaktans are watching. Hapans are watching. Umbarans are watching. Well… Everybody is watching. We also have a large group of leaders from other planets. I am the Senate.Gosh,…

💡Read The Nonsense Machine now!Have you spent any time in a small business or tech repair shop like Benny’s?I remember going to them as a kid with my parents, and each one was chaotically stuffed like a moving van, or closet when a new partner is coming over. The counters and workbenches were always full of tools, pieces of machines, and parts, and yet, the shopkeeper always seemed to know exactly where everything was. This story started as my tribute to those people and places, in an era where…

Even the dullest of people—like myself—are bound to learn a thing or two if they spend the whole summer working for Albert in the backroom of Benny’s Vacuum and Fax Machine Repairs, which is a small and typically empty business, smack in the middle of Widgeons Crossing.The learning never really stops when one works with Albert. As the hours melt to weeks and the weeks fade to months, his summer apprentices become familiar with not only the mechanics of dust sucking and dirt collection, but also…

—Jonathan Borthwick

Some days, cracks in the earth become faults,your fault or mine, and you don’t knowwhether to expect earthquakes or lava,but it’s both, rumbling and hissing inside you.Some days, space twists and warps and notin the way you had hoped because the starsare no closer but your front door feels distant.Some days, music decomposesinto noise, sunlight rots and darkens,sleep is just getting swallowed by a swamp.Other days, you breathe like it’s your first time,your feet learning to tread on…

It's already Sunday so let's get right into it!The Week That Was🚘 The Devil Went Down to Georgia Auto MechanicsSarina DoriefoofarawfoofarawAnother new entry into Sarina Dorie's Devil's Delight series, with more on the way later this year!Sarina DorieAn interview with the author of The Devil Went Down to Georgia Auto MechanicsfoofarawfoofarawSarina graciously took some time to talk automobiles and the art of buying and selling souls.🔭 Th

💡Read The Devil Went Down to Georgia Auto Mechanics now!If you were to sell your soul for a car, what kind would it be?I am probably superstitious, because I will not say the words, “I would sell my soul for…”And would you do it if it never meant having to fix it or get an oil change ever again?It is tempting.When’s the last time you had bad car trouble?All my life. I am sure this car is inspired by every car I had in the past. I finally have a tolerable one–and I didn’t even have to trade my…

Joyce Ferguson considered it a coincidence that a man in a baby-blue suit happened to walk up to her stalled Toyota Camry seconds after she muttered the words, “I would sell my soul to the devil if this car never broke down again.”“Do you mean that?” the stranger asked in a voice as silky as soymilk in a vegan latte on a hot Georgia day.Which it was. Only Joyce didn’t have anything to quench her thirst. She thought she’d be home from work thirty minutes ago. Sweat soaked through her work…

—Rusty Epstein