In a total surprise, the United Fanzine Organization released its 2025 UFO Awards winners last night. Phoenix Productions won two awards – Best Publisher and Best Single Zine/Comic Book for Strange Times #5.
This awards program honors UFO member publications one year in arrears; the 2025 awards are for books, comics and zines published in 2024. The organization had a little turmoil over the 2025 awards that initially caused a cancellation of the awards, but new Chairman Rob Imes parlayed it into a 12-month delay. They were reinstated with a slightly different voting mechanism.
Phoenix Productions was awarded Best Publisher on the basis of its “UFO Member” publications for 2024. UFO Member publications are those circulated gratis to the members of the co-op that carry the UFO logo on the front or back cover and also contain the latest edition of the UFO Checklist. In 2024, Phoenix released the following Member publications:
- FANzine One (ko-fi store link with FANzine Live video)
- FANzine Two (mixtape) (ko-fi store link with FANzine Live video)
- Strange Times #5: My Best Joke (Amazon link, FANzine Live video)
- Strange Times #6: Keith Newsome – Renaissance Man (Amazon link, FANzine Live video)
That’s a lineup of which I’m rather proud. FANzine is my take on “zines” – more text/photo-based, more personal, less “comics”. It hits me that the United FANZINE Organization could use another fanzine or two, so FANzine is my effort.
Then Strange Times – another series that presents fun and unique challenges with every issue! Issue 5 was a full-on anthology, but with a twist: An all-ages joke book! Then issue 6 took on the challenge of trying to present the amazing Keith Newsome (whose work had been seen in issues 2 – Amazon, FANzine Live – and 4 – Amazon, FANzine Live) in all of his different combinations and permutations to the world. Such a great guy, such a strong moral foundation…and a real Renaissance Man.
Regardless of the publication, I do my best as a publisher to present the material in the highest quality manner possible. FANzine is photocopied, and Strange Times gets bound as paperback books. All pieces try to have a degree of graphic design applied to make them look and feel as professional as this amateur (semi-pro?) can make them.
I guess it’s probably appropriate to mention that this is my third straight UFO Award for Best Publisher. Of all the recognitions (and there’s a graphic on the homepage showing off all the awards received here at Phoenix Productions), this is perhaps the most humbling. I continue to strive to be worthy of the members’ support every day. It challenges me to make each publication that much better.
Wow. Just wow.
Interesting in that I only published one “comic” zine with sequential art – Strange Times #5. And then that zine ended up winning the Best Single Zine/Comic Book award!
So yeah, an all-ages book. I had never done that before. Most everything I /create/publish, while not excessively sexual or violent, feels “adult”. As a guy deep into Act II of his life, I’m not sure I would want little kids reading my stuff. I don’t think they would get it.
But this book was different.
My motivation came out of hitting the zine fest circuit. I don’t do many shows/fests, but the few that I have attended left me feeling sad that I had nothing to offer kids. This is especially important when you consider that a lot of comic/zine readers are parents, and they bring their kids to these events. Without any zines for the kiddos, all I had were stickers. And that needed to be fixed.
I put out the word: Let’s tell jokes! Send your best one, and we’ll put them all into one package. The creative community responded, and the result was a nice-looking package filled with material to make folks smile.
This wasn’t a one-person project. It took a lot of people coming together to make it happen, and I’d like to thank each of them for their contributions:
- Allen Freeman (who made an incredible cover)
- Chuck Bunker
- Joe Ely Carrales III
- Jason DeGroot
- Nik Dirga
- Molly Durst
- Matt Feazell
- Alan Groening
- iestyn
- Larry Johnson (who shared work that he made with the late Larry Blake)
- The late Larned Justin
- Tony Lawrence
- Matt Levin
- Jim Mackey
- Simon Mackie
- Dale Martin
- John Muller
- Keith Rogers
- Teri Sue Wood
I don’t know what the kids would call that lineup, but I can only think “murderer’s row.” Top quality, front to back. Great people bringing their A-games. I’m so grateful that they took part and hope each and every one shares in the joy of being part of an award-winning project like Strange Times #5.
And there ya go, the 2025 UFO Awards are in the books. Thanks to everyone who voted! 2026 is a crazy year, but it appears to have started off right on this end.
Phoenix Productions 