|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- ARTICLE 2--AN OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF ZOPE <-------  ||  Zope  ||  Zope Almanac  ||  -------> (Cup ZPza002, Created v3 (10/3/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = The history of Zope... 13.5 years of zaniness and still going strong... I'm going to relate the history of Zope here, off the top of my head. I'm sure I'm gonna miss some stuff, but this is just meant as an overview of the history of Zope, hence the title, "An Overview of the History of Zope". Okay. I started my college career back in September of 1985, at Drew University in Madison, NJ. No, wait. I should start a bit earlier... I was born and raised in New Jersey. I lived in New Brunswick till I was about 3, and then my family moved to Martinsville, where my parents still reside. It's quite near the Brudgewater Commons Mall, to orient you a little, if you're familiar with the malls of New Jersey. Anyway, growing up I did a lot of creative stuff. I drew comics and did animated Super-8-Millimeter movies, and all that. Before high school, I created a few comic strip characters, such as Olaf the Viking Ghost and Clancy the Dragon. Neither of these characters have ever appeared in Zope, though th Zope character Weasel looks a little like Clancy. Then one day in high school, in Pascal computer programming class, I named a program "Halfevil". It was just a random name, since all the programs had to be named. I guess it was a variation of medieval. Anyway, I later used that name for some new comics I was drawing. I remember one character was a pig guy named Commander Swyne, who piloted a giant tank of some sort. Unfortunately, at a later date, my mother threw out a bunch of these Halfevil comics. It was a very unfortunate event, and I haven't really forgiven her for it to this day. It's not that big a deal, I mean, those comics probably weren't that great. Still, I would have liked to have been able to see them now. Whatever. NOTE FROM THE FUTURE (2/25/06): I found those lost comics a few years ago. Turns out my mother didn't throw them out after all! Anyway, at this point, I think I can zoom forward to Drew University. At some point in the Fall of 1985, I did a collage-comic called "Big New Ark". It had cut-outs from books and magazines, and weird scenarios and stuff. The premise was that Earth was destroyed, but at a later time a superpowerful entity came upon the place where the Earth was, and tried to recreate Earth in a spaceship called the Big New Ark. It was a very warped and strange version of stuff from Earth. Perfect for random images cut out of books and magazines. Anyway, let's now move forward to February 25, 1986. I was in History class sitting next to my friend Andrew. We were both bored, and we were drawing pictures in our notebooks of us killing each other in various ways. One picture I drew depicted me holding a pair of scissors, about to cut a rope that held a mutli-ton wight suspended, where it would fall on Andrew. This drawing of me was the first drawing of Zope. I was very taken with the drawing and I quickly developed a character out of it. I wanted to do a new comic, and this character was perfect. But I had to come up with a name. Well, as it so happened, I had recently run out of soap in my dorm room, so I kept trying to remember to buy soap. So I kept saying "soap" over and over in my mind to try and help me remember. I guess I kept forgetting, though. In any case, it was at this point in time, when I was trying to remember to buy soap, that I needed to come up with a name for the character. And then... the name "Zope" popped into my head (an obvious variation on "soap"), and the rest is history... the history you are now reading... Okay. So one of the first Zope comics I did was called "Kra Wen Gib". Oh! I forgot to mention that I created a character called "Weasel" before this, before college even. I think I still have one of the early Weasel comics... Anyway, in Kra Wen Gib, Zope and Weasel were joined by another new character, Atrov. Each character was given a title. I think Zope was "Wen", Weasel was "Gib", and Atrov was "Kra". I have these Kra Wen Gib comics somewhere. Okay. Well, before Kra Wen Gib--about a week after the creation of Zope--I started a college radio show with my friend Mike, called "Anything But Monday". To make a long story short, it was a comedy show, and we got kicked off the air. In order to continue the show, we created "Anything But Monday Magazine". This was a few months after February. In ABM #1, Zope appears, saying "Read this or die!". NOTE FROM THE FUTURE (2/25/06): Correction: The "Anything But Monday" radio show started 8 days prior to the creation of Zope, on February 17, 1986 Then, on June 7, 1986, I started my publishing company, "Halfevil Graphics", by printing the 4-page first issue of "Big New Ark", which was the stuff I did the previous fall. The next comic, I believe, was "Zope's Big Atomic Party" #1, also 4 pages. This was a major event in the history of Zope, as it established Zope and his world (the planet Halfevil) in a big way. NOTE FROM THE FUTURE (2/25/06): Correction: The next comic was "Franx Comix #1" (June 1986), which featured a Zope comic. The next comic after that was "Zope's Big Atomic Party #1" (July 1986). I published a new comic every week till the following January. Many of these comics were Zope comics. Also, I did Zope comics in the issues of ABM published in this time period. At that time, "small press comics" were in a kind of "revolution". And in fact, "Zope's Big Atomic Party" #1 was reviewed in the "industry rag" of small press comics, Small Press Comics Explosion. The reviewer ripped it apart, saying that the writing was terrible, the artwork hurt his eyes, and it was completely horrible (I'm paraphrasing). And it won the "Golden Lemon" award that issue, for worst comic. Later that year, I won the coveted Worst Small Press Comic of the Year, not for a single issue, but for ANY Halfevil Graphics comic. See, I got more votes than anyone in that category: 2. Two votes. Oh well... Okay. ABM continued to grow, and by 1988, me and Mike started publishing ABM Magazine for real--it was distributed to comic book stores nationwide, and we got an office in Caldwell, NJ. And with the launch of ABM, something unfortunate happened. We both agreed that we wanted "real" artwork in ABM, and we employed the talents of many talented young artists (for free, of course). So Zope was out. In retrospect, I don't know why I didn't fight harder for Zope to be in ABM, but I guess my priorities were elsewhere then. ABM was not a success, and by the end of 1989, ABM went out of business, after 4 "real" issues. I had graduated college that Spring, and ABM died in October. During 1988 and 1989, I kept Halfevil Graphics going, with some new Zope comics, but as the Eighties ended, I was unemployed, my big attempt to be a real publisher had failed, I was living with my parents, and I was all fucked-up and a loser. Okay. Now let's go back in time to the Fall of 1987. I had transferred to NYU as a film major. Living in Manhattan, by the corner of Thompson St. and Houston St., I started a thing called "Nomadi". So... okay. In an animation class at NYU, I did some Zope animation. And I had a girlfriend in 1988, Shannon, and Zope was popular with her and her friends. They wanted Zope T-shirts, and I started working and hand-drawing each T-shirt, but I only made one protoype before me and Shannon broke up. Well, she broke up with me. Whatever. I still have that shirt. NOTE FROM THE FUTURE (2/25/06): Check out the shirt here. Also while at NYU I started making a documentary about myself as the creator of Zope. I shot an "interview" with myself, but the project never got any further. I gotta find that tape... maybe I can transcribe it and put it here in Aerie! NOTE FROM THE FUTURE (2/25/06): A few years ago I made a "Blufftoon" (audio piece) for my Internet radio station Bluffcosm.com where I took some of the audio from this video and played it over the theme music from the animated version of Zope. Here is the audio: bluffcosm-all_about_zope.mp3 Okay! I keep saying "okay"... Okay. So during the early Nineties, I tried to continue with the idea that had begun with Nomadi, only I didn't want to call it Nomadi anymore, because Mike was no longer a part of the endeavour. In 1990 I did a magazine in an experimental format called "rED aLLEY eARTH". It had a blow-up of the first drawing of Zope of the cover, and a number of Zope comics inside. Then, in 1991 I did three issues of a magazine in the same format called "Zope", with more Zope comics, as well as a lot of other content. Then a year or two later, I did a magazine in a more conventional format called "Forge of Wander", which also features some Zope comics. Then... let's see... in 1993 or so I created yet another experimental magazine... and... um... then in 1994 I did yet another experiemental magazine, and then... On July 28, 1994, I started OsoaWeek, the Ezine of Obliviana, which continues on to this day! In OsoaWeek, I did 44 episodes of "Text Zope", and I also transscribed many of the earlier Zope comics as "Classic Zope". Both of these series is available right here in the Zope section of Aerie Obliviana! And they're also over there in the OsoaWeek archive... Wow. Oh yeah, I did a little one-panel thing for Obliviana Day 1999, which is transcribed in OsoaWeek261. But I may as well present it here, also: "ZOPE: Am I as famous as Snoopy yet? No? Well WAKE UP man! For Obliviana Day, you must contemplate your lackadaisical ways!" NOTE FROM THE FUTURE (2/25/06): Here is the panel referred to: This actually refers to an episode of text Zope where Zope "talks" to me and finds out he's a comic strip character and asks me if he's as popular as Snoopy. Well, there it is. The overview of the history of Zope. I will be presenting a much more detailed history in the future, including specific dates, magazine issues, comic titles, etc. So now go and delve into the world of Zope! Okay? Okay! As always... ZOPE RULES! -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----