GROOVY ANNOUNCEMENT TIME: So, I used to do a small-press comic book zine back in the 1990s called Amoeba Adventures. Written and drawn by myself and later with the amazing art of Max Ink, it ran for 27 issues from 1990 to 1998.
Together with a bunch of spin-offs, specials and the like, as Protoplasm Press I published around 40 comics in that crazy pre-internet era of fanzine-dom, made a few fans, worked with a lot of terrific fellow creators, and generally had a real blast. But time moved on, I got more into my so-called journalism career and also things like getting married, having a kid, and moving clear across to the other side of the world, and before I knew it, years had passed.
Crazy as it is, 2020 marks the THIRTIETH anniversary of that first issue of Amoeba Adventures. I was an 18-year-old college freshman when I drew most of that first issue, a California kid who ended up in a dorm room, in Mississippi of all places, trying to reinvent himself. Generally I’m still darned proud of Amoeba Adventures, which grew a lot over 8 years – I compare the scribbles of #1 and the almost professional look of #27 and I’m pretty happy.
Small press comics were a pretty transient form, limited print runs and photocopied comics, and the stuff a lot of folks sweated to make back in the day can easily vanish without a trace. An awful lot of my Amoeba Adventures days were stored for years in my parents’ basement in California until I finally got around to shipping them to New Zealand.
Anyway, the point of all this lengthy preamble is that to celebrate 30 years, I’m bringing Amoeba Adventures into the digital era by scanning and making PDFs of all the old issues available for FREE download right here on this website. It’s a lengthy process (some of the issues and artwork are in better shape than others) but I’ve started off by picking five of my favourite issues from back in the day and putting them up right here at the Protoplasm Press link at the menu at the top of the page. I’ve even added ‘bonus material’ to some of the issues from my “Amoeba Archives.”
This middle-aged retired comic creator still gets a kick out of Amoeba Adventures. I hope those of you who were fans back in the day might too, and maybe even some new readers will enjoy ‘em. I plan on adding more issues every couple of weeks, so do check back, and hopefully will have the entire run online at some point.
If you have trouble downloading the PDFs or any comment on ways I can improve ‘em, just let me know!
Nik Dirga 
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