The Rise and Fall of Pissass Magazine

Ed. Note: This piece was intended to run on 4/1/23. However interference from Mr. Piss led to the site crashing for nearly two weeks. The team at ComicsXF is committed to sharing the truth and has presented the story as is. We apologize for the fault in the website. Those responsible have been sacked.

In just two years, Editor-in-Chief Zachary Jenkins had assembled a motley crew of talented writers and critics to transform his once solo operation known as XavierFiles into the respected and growing empire of ComicsXF (CXF). The success of his new website was not enough for Jenkins, who was consumed with ideas of expanding CXF into different markets. This is the story of Jenkins’ misguided attempt to enter the world of magazine publishing as remembered by those who were there.

It started with merchandising. ComicsXF webmaster Jason Large remembers that throughout the summer of 2022, Jenkins wanted to know everything he could about the marketing of the CXF brand:

“First of all, by that point, he wasn’t even calling himself Zack. He was making everyone call him ‘Eddie Piss.’ He thought it was hilarious. He would call me at all hours — day, night, whenever — and ask me about what we could put the logo on. I mean, we had the Redbubble store for T-shirts and stuff, but Za — *ahem* Eddie — would ask about billboards, ad buys. At one point he wanted to know how we could do a Super Bowl commercial.”

The newly dubbed Eddie Piss had big dreams. But he wasn’t blind to the lack of income needed to make his fantasies come true. The CXF Patreon paid small returns to its loyal staff but certainly was not flush with the cash needed for Piss’ entrepreneurial schemes. And so he began to reach out to potential investors about building capital for something truly big. His Battle of the Atom podcast co-host, Adam Reck, recalls his confusion about Piss’ plans:

“Just — set aside the Eddie Piss thing for a second. That drove me crazy. He was completely out of his mind with some of this stuff. I’d get on a call with him and he’d start telling me about some hedge fund manager he met with who was gonna finance a movie about us? And I’m like, who the hell is gonna watch that? But the thing he would not let go was the magazine. He was constantly on about launching Pissass.”

The idea for Pissass came after a late-night brainstorming session via Zoom. CXF staffers just trying to pitch their latest reviews of the week’s comics became frustrated by Piss repeatedly derailing the conversation to talk about a new publishing venture. The idea was one part tabloid fodder, one part bid for industry connection. Each cover would feature a notable celebrity paired with a fictional character to draw in fandoms, but the contents would be largely salacious and speculative, the kinds of things CXF was not particularly known for. Editor Chris Eddleman was as confused as his colleagues:

“On the one hand we were putting in for the Eisner awards, right? Here’s all this quality writing and coverage we’re doing, check out our great podcasts, all of that. And then here’s Zack — I’m sorry, I refuse to call him Eddie, I don’t care how many times he corrects me — trying to hobnob on red carpets and score facetime with celebrities? It just was not what we did. And we were all expected to contribute. I hated it.”

It soon became clear that Piss was not going to back down. He secured publishing through the same group that sold supermarket checkout selections like Woman’s World with the promise of huge returns based on the celebrity covers. Under duress and many sleepless nights, the CXF writers filed their contributions, and in March 2023, the first monthly issue of Pissass appeared on shelves around the country. CXF Editor Dan Grote says the reaction was mixed at best:

“The expectation was suddenly that we were all in on Pissass. Some of us were asked to quit our day jobs. I mean, I know that some of the group lost their health insurance over this. And of course it was a disaster. So much of what was going into that rag was completely made up bullshit. It was practically begging people to sue us. You can’t just write that Vin Diesel is having a baby with Helen Mirren with the headline “Groot Fucks” and not expect a lawsuit. We didn’t even have a legal team!”

Inconsistent sales immediately raised the eyebrows of the publisher, who expected an instant hit. After only two issues, Pissass was asked to find a new distribution deal. The magazine found an unlikely ally in Papa Johns pizza. The national franchise was still trying to recover from its namesake’s racist remarks, offering licensed products with Shaquille O’Neal and others, and became interested after misreading the Pissass logo. After agreeing to publish Pissass, the magazine was suddenly loaded with Papa Johns ads, coupons and promotions. The Comics Journal’s Zach Rabiroff noticed the change immediately:

“In one month they went from this glossy format to newsprint. And you could immediately see they had been co-opted by Papa Johns. Every other page was an ad. Even the articles worked pizza into the text. It didn’t matter what the article was about! I remember a really funny example where they had gotten Simu Liu on the record about not totally loving Shang-Chi and then it was question after question about toppings. It was kind of an industry bombshell — a working MCU actor regretting his work — and then it was just all pepperoni this, mushrooms that.”

Despite the ad push, Papa Johns saw no sales increase whatsoever based on Pissass. To the surprise of investors, the public didn’t seem to have an appetite for Papa Johns’ terrible pizza while they read a magazine called Pissass. Piss was forced to go back to the drawing board. Refusing to go down without a fight, he cajoled a local community college’s graphic design program to print out limited runs of the last two issues on campus. CXF writer Tony Thornley remembers those last two, desperate months.

“I wish I was exaggerating, but we were literally driving around with printer boxes full of these things and delivering them ourselves to local comic book shops. I felt like a paperboy. My family was already weirded out by the mandatory staff expose articles Eddie was running each issue. Here I was practically begging people to take copies when I was really uncomfortable with being the focus of a piece in the last issue. I was so glad when it died.”

Comic shops were baffled. Most had never even seen an issue of Pissass, and now they were being asked to display the magazine on their shelves. Many of them simply put the stacks right into the dumpster. And like that, Pissass lost any chance of sales after its brief six month run. Piss had at least been able to pay back the initial investments through the Papa Johns deal, but the magazine’s collapse was a crushing blow to his ego. His dreams of superstardom and entering the Hollywood elite had evaporated overnight. CXF contributor Austin Gorton recalls the aftermath:

“He was so down after the last issue. Just moping around. It was obvious he was spending way too much time online. But I could only feel so bad for him. He had dug his grave with this thing. He kept talking about the Swimsuit Issue. ‘We never got to the swimsuit issue,’ and I had to level with him and say, ‘Eddie … Zack, there was never going to be a swimsuit issue.”

In the months since, Pissass has been reconsidered by the most passionate ComicsXF fans. Appreciation pieces have praised the magazine for its wit and above average puns. Due to the limited runs of the last two issues, they have become collector’s items for a small but excited audience. A CGC-graded copy of the Star Wars issue recently sold for tens of dollars on eBay, a win for this defunct and largely forgotten experiment. Did anyone learn anything from the publication of Pissass? Piss himself spoke out recently in a rare interview with GateCrashers:

“They keep saying it’s over, but I know the truth. We were just ahead of the times. You wait. Twenty years from now when the technology catches up? Pissass will be a huge money-making blockbuster. Everyone will be reading it. I’ll be an old man then, but maybe I’ll make a cameo here and there. You wait. You’ll see. It’s like I always say, ‘With great piss comes great profit.’”