About
Circulation
History
Scissor Press Today
Contributors
About
VerbicideMagazine.com is the online companion
to the print magazine Verbicide, an independent
entertainment periodical co-published via Scissor
Press by founding editor Jackson Ellis and
creative director Nathaniel Pollard. Verbicide
is published quarterly and consistently prints
some of today’s most thoughtful and challenging
fiction and interviews. Interview subjects range
from musicians, to authors, to comic book creators,
to actors. Verbicide also regularly features
political commentary, modern art pieces, Abstract
Fantasy comics, and an abundance of movie,
book, and music reviews.
Circulation
As of issue #18, Verbicide’s per-issue
press run is 30,000 copies. Copies can be found
at many independent and major North American chain
retailers, including FYE, Coconuts, Strawberries,
Newbury Comics, Tower Records, Wherehouse Music,
and Hastings, as well as select Borders, Barnes
& Noble, Hudson News, Books-A-Million, Universal
News, Chapters, and Indigo locations. Distribution
is managed by Disticor
Magazine Distribution Services
In addition to our expansive retail circulation,
Verbicide is freely distributed in major
commercial areas of Los Angeles and New York City
by Level
1 Promotion. It is also available for free
in limited quantities at drop locations in New
Haven, Chicago, Rochester, Nashville, Boston,
and Portland, Oregon, and at many North American
small press fairs, including Expozine (Montreal),
Philadelphia Zine Fest, Portland Zine Symposium,
and the Allied Media Conference (Detroit). Free
copies are available for prisoners through Seattle’s
Books To Prisoners.
History
Verbicide was founded in 1999 in New
Haven, Connecticut by Jackson Ellis. The first
issue — inspired equally by early issues
of Ross Siegel’s Law of Inertia
and Leanne O’Connor’s short-lived
per-zine, Save Yourself From The Humiliation
— came out in September 1999. It was
a humble, handmade (cut-and-paste) project, merely
12 pages of photocopied white printer paper, half-sized,
with some poetry, a few photos, and a few shorts
rants. Most of the writing was done by Jackson,
Christopher Connal (who still contributes to this
day), and Leanne O’Connor, who drew the
first issue’s cover artwork.
In October of 2000, Verbicide issue two
(another cut-and-paste zine) was published, and
on election night, November 7, 2000, Jackson met
Douglas Novielli through Chris Connal at a Rancid
show in Boston. Doug ran a literary webzine, Terraspatial,
and Scissor Press was quickly formed as the media
company “umbrella” under which a number
of projects would be produced.
In June of 2001, issue three of Verbicide was
published—48 pages of newsprint with a black
and white cardstock cover, the first professionally
printed issue. Though crudely designed and light
in pressrun, the issue marked a major turning
point, as Verbicide made the leap to
becoming a full-time endeavor.
In August 2002, Jackson met Nathaniel Pollard
in Madison, Connecticut while both worked at a
newspaper company — Jackson as an editorial
assistant, and Nate as a graphic designer. Nate
began contributing his bizarre, dark-humored Abstract
Fantasy comics to Verbicide starting
with issue seven (January 2003), and designed
his first covers for Verbicide with issue
eight (May 2003), which featured a double-cover.
After working with Jackson for two years as co-editor
and co-publisher, and helping to bring Verbicide
from a handmade zine to a nationally-distributed
magazine, Doug Novielli stepped down from Scissor
Press in April 2003, several weeks before the
release of Verbicide issue eight.
Another former partner, writer Jason J. Marchi,
worked with Scissor Press and Verbicide
from January 2002 until early 2004. During this
time, Jason’s non-profit writing competition,
the “New Century Writer Awards,” operated
cooperatively with Scissor Press.
Scissor Press remained headquartered in New Haven
during Jason’s tenure as managing partner,
even while Jackson moved from Connecticut, to
Montana, to Boston, and eventually returning to
his hometown of Ludlow, Vermont.
Scissor Press
Today
Since September 2004, Scissor Press has been
jointly operated in Vermont and Brooklyn, New
York by Jackson Ellis and Nathaniel Pollard. Nate
is now the creative director of Verbicide,
designing every issue cover-to-cover. He is also
the creator of this website, and is largely responsible
for shaping the editorial and aesthetic qualities
that Verbicide possesses today. Jackson remains
the editor-in-chief and handles all the business
administration duties.
A far cry from its inception as a photocopied
zine, Verbicide is now a full-color offset
printed magazine with a full-color glossy cover.
Scissor Press also continues to sporadically publish
or produce other projects, including CDs and comic
books.
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