I miss Texas. I’ve lived in the Kansas City metro area for almost two years now and I still miss Texas. Strangely I sometimes miss Houston more than Austin, even though I’ve lived in Austin for the majority of 13 years and lived in a suburb of Houston, never the city itself, before that. But growing up in that boring suburb, Houston meant culture and excitement to me as a teen. I drove down there as often as I could, hanging out in coffee shops and wandering through museums. Houston has some really great museums. I’ve spent a lot of time in front Yves Tanguy, Cy Twombly, and Philip Guston paintings.

So when Robert Boyd mentioned this zine Brackish, a collection of great drawings by Sarah Welch and Katie Mulholland, in his write up of Houston Zine Fest 2016, I had to get it. These atmospheric drawings of a transforming Houston make me nostalgic. Here’s one example:

Brackish page 28, drawing by Sarah Welch.

Sarah Welch’s drawing really transports me. I’ve walked down a residential street like that with the Houston skyline in the background many times. Houston is a swamp but it’s my swamp. The lack of zoning laws makes for some interesting architectural juxtapositions.