With art and creativity bursting from the seams in our neighborhood of Bushwick, finding something to do on a Friday night may seem a bit overwhelming. Craving something different and new, I ventured out to Bushwick’s very own record/comic store, Vinyl Fantasy. A quaint shop on the corner of Knickerbocker and Jefferson, a welcoming sign reminiscent of something you’d find deep in the country help to make you feel as if you’ve stumbled upon something truly special.  I wasn’t here on complete whim, though. I was here for the zine/comic drop of The Longest Commute Ever by local Brooklyn artist, Janet Hartman.

The Covers of Janet’s 2 New ‘Zines

The author in all her glory

When prodded about what inspired the zine, Janet simply stated, “I had a ridiculous commute, I think it was about 2 hours door to door, so I began doing a challenge of drawing a picture of myself every day. Because I was pretty miserable living at home and going through a bad break-up and working as a framing consultant, I found myself writing obnoxious things as captions of the ‘drawing a day’ exercise. It was cathartic. The drawings were kind of like my diary of how much my life sucked.”