The four original, perfect-bound issues of the magazine were published from 2001-2003. They are out of print, and never existed online. If you’re a publisher interested in compiling the original print issues into a book, I’m all ears.
I recently got a kick out of re-reading the Letter from the Editor opening Issue Four. The tone is early-2000s as hell, McSweeney’s infected, but the quitter joke resonates now. It wasn’t long after this issue that I did quit the publishing game, and closed up shop at TNI Books.
Letter from the Editor, 2003
There are gigantic creeping spiders living in my garage. You would not believe these fuckers. I used to keep my scooter parked out there, but no more. It sits on the back patio now, removed from danger. For a time, I thought maybe it would be wise to store luggage and sleeping bags up in the rafters. No! The bedroom closet is much safer.
The fact is that I might have to discontinue TNI Books altogether because this web-oppressed garage also serves as the warehouse; all the cardboard boxes housing many copies of various TNI wares, and no doubt the eggs of these devil-creatures, too. I don’t believe I can handle the mini-heart failures that come with opening each new box, on my guard but still surprised and wet in the pants when some fist-sized fur-beast with eight legs jumps out and onto my arm. Another leap to the floor and the little bastard wedges himself into some crevice in the concrete floor, confines himself to the splintered seam of a wooden knot in the molding, is free from my weak smacks delivered by a floppy old magazine. They say that for every spider you see in your house, there are 20 more in the same room, hidden in the pockets of your wedding suit, crouching into the curling cover of Rick Moody's The Black Veil, dodging the movements of your eye like smart-alec kids in the 4th grade. My heart might not be well enough equipped to take it much longer, this evil and cowering world of warehousing books in a garage.
But this issue has survived! We’ll store these in the trunk of a car. We’ll build a kitchen table and use the boxes of this issue for legs. We’ll stash copies in the freezer. We’ll win! We’ll win! We’ll win!
Welcome to the fourth issue of Little Engines, a wildly irregular collection of things bound together for your pleasure. We’re happy you’ve found us. It’s not always easy. As always, we owe this magazine in full to the writers and artists that helped build it, as well as the advertisers that helped pay for it.
I hope you enjoy, and I’d love to hear from you.
Best,
Adam Voith
Seattle, July 2003