Issue 4 Delays AKA The Printer Debacle of 2018

Hey there weirdos!

Issue 4 of Weird Mask, our biggest yet (that’s what he said), was supposed to be out today. It isn’t.

Why?

Because of our printer fiasco.

What printer fiasco?

I’ll tell ya.

We have had an amazing Epson WF-7610(?) for a few years now and have never had any problem with it.

It had been a great machine, but over the last few months, the colors stopped working.

I chalked it up to a clogged head or some other nonsense.

It turns out, there was much more to the problem than that.

So, as we were getting ready for the OC Zinefest, the weekend before the fest, the printer just plain stopped.

An error message would appear on the screen as soon as you turned the machine on and i couldn’t get anything to work.

I watched youtube videos on how to fix it. I read how-to’s and wikihow’s and everything i could find under the sun and nothing worked.

When seeing what other people said of the same printer as far as getting it repaired went, it seemed that it would be cheaper to get a new printer than to fix the old one.

This made us sad because that Epson was like a member of the family.

So, with just a few days left before the fest, we ordered a new HP printer on amazon prime. It got here in two days which meant we still had a day to prep for the fest!

Then I printed a zine. One zine. and the printer ran out of ink.

I figured it was a test cartridge. Those checks bastards, I thought.

I went out and bought a duel ink pack for the printer (I had to go to three stores before I could find the right ink. 65, I think?).

I came home, installed it and made one and one half zines. The ink again ran out.

I figured it had to be something on my end. Something I was doing wrong.

I went out and bought the last (65?) ink cartridge in town and installed it.

I was able to make two masks and almost an entire zine. I was one page short.

WTF?

So at the end of the day. I spent over $100 making two zines.

The thought of that made me want to vomit.

Then, to make matters more ridiculous, the control arm on my car broke. So, we couldn’t go to the fest anyway.

Finally, tail between my legs, I called Epson, ready to beg forgiveness for purchasing such an inferior product and beg them to give me another chance…

Turns out the printer was under warranty and they are sending us a new one.

Yay.

So, as soon as that gets here, I will print out the contributor copies and mail those out. Once that is done, I will post the new issue to the easy store.

Once both those things are done, I will start printing the contributor copies of issue 5, the zombie issue, for those contributors.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I hope this was a good story at least.

Throughout the month of Sept, the serial, Love & Hate by Matt Wall, will have new chapters posted daily. So I hope that can hold you over until the new issue comes out.

Kisses,

Weird Ed.