In the final episode for the show Twin Peaks, in the mythical and odd Black Lodge, Laura Palmer tells Agent Dale Cooper, “I’ll see you again in 25 years.”
In the final episode for the show Twin Peaks, in the mythical and odd Black Lodge, Laura Palmer tells Agent Dale Cooper, “I’ll see you again in 25 years.”
Andrew Blossom, an organizer of The Great Southern, a Twin Peaks convention and co-editor of local independent magazine Makeout Creek, saw an opportunity to celebrate.
Read more about The Great Southern here
The seventh issue of Makeout Creek, available now, is entirely Twin Peaks themed.
Blossom found inspiration for the convention and the issue after deciding to attend Twin Peaks Fest, an annual affair held in North Bend, Washington.
“[My girlfriend and I] were watching Twin Peaks again a couple years ago and we realized that 25 years later from when they filmed that scene was going to be Summer 2014,” Andrew Blossom, co-editor of Makeout Creek, said.
Blossom and his girlfriend decided that if there ever was a time to go to the festival, it was then.
“We went and we had a wonderful time,” Blossom said. “We met a lot of wonderful people and it was a great experience.”
Blossom took inspiration from his experiences there and decided to do something in Richmond in April of this year, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the broadcast of the pilot episode. That’s where The Great Southern, the Twin Peaks convention he organized (rvamag.com/articles/full/24555/the-great-southern-puts-a-little-bit-of-twin-peaks-in-rv), and Issue Seven of Makeout Creek came into play.
Blossom and an editorial board have been publishing Makeout Creek since 2008. The idea for an issue starts by the editorial board kicking an idea around- an issue doesn’t always have a theme- and then they start soliciting creators to find contributions.
Art by Annie Warren
“We also do a lot of accepting of submissions on our website,” Blossom said. “We have an open submission policy so we usually mine that pretty heavily.”
Blossom said that doesn’t hold true for this issue: almost all of Issue Seven was solicited. That was because of the theme.
“The thing that’s a little different [than when Makeout Creek started] is people now know what Makeout Creek is when we approach them now,” Blossom said. “It’s a little bit of an easier sell because its been around and its published a lot of people at this point.”
Over 60 creators are involved with Issue Seven of Makeout Creek. Even though creators are more receptive to participating, Blossom said that the work of those who put together the magazine has changed very little since the first issue.
“For me and for the people I work with its a very similar process to what it was in the beginning,” Blossom said.
The magazine had an easy time getting everything together because of the wild enthusiasm from the creators.
“I put feelers out to a lot of people to see if they would be interested in doing something Twin Peaks-related,” Blossom said. “There was so much good energy brought to the project that it was kind of easy in one sense to channel that energy into the magazine cause there was such an abundance of it.”
Makeout Creek publishes about once a year. Blossom said its because they now also publish books- efforts normally settle down into one issue a year. The magazines are printed with a limited run.
There’s currently 500 of Issue Seven, with Blossom saying that they will keep printing it as long as people want it.
“My apartment doubles as my office, so storage is a little bit of an issue,” Blossom said. “We started with a smaller print run and if there’s demand, we’ll keep printing.”
That demand is there, because this issue’s Twin Peaks related art has received widespread attention.
“I had a feeling that if we publicized this issue well and if we continue to publicize it well in the future their work would get some attention,” Blossom said. “People are so happy about Twin Peaks and invested in the idea of it. And passionate about it.”
Pieces in the issue did find success, partly because of the sheer volume of content in the issue. At 90 pages, it’s roughly twice as large as a normal issue of Makeout Creek, which usually weighs in at 48 pages. Blossom made the decision to expand the issue early in its life.
“That was the solution that presented itself pretty early in the stages of laying it out and designing it was that it had to be bigger than normal,” Blossom said. “The 25th anniversary of Twin Peaks is only happening once, so we thought that making it larger would be part of what was making it special.”
Blossom hoped that success would come to the creators who contributed. That happened when Mashable came to town and featured pieces at Chop Suey related to Issue Seven and The Great Southern.
The art is now being shared with virality to Twin Peaks fans and nerd-interest sites like Nerdist.
Other than the unique covers for each Makeout Creek, Makeout Creek has never really seen widespread social media attention.
“I think that speaks to the power of Twin Peaks,” Blossom said. “Not only among the fandom, but still as a cultural artifact that everyone kind of knows about.
