Mysterious Visions Anthology is a series with a long history. Today, it stands as the flagship title of the Self Publisher Association, SPA Comics, and has presented some of the hottest new talents first works. Before we get into it, let's provide some jump-off points for those of you who know the rest, or just don't care.

Ok, then. With that out of the way, Let's talk MVA. The series was started in 1986 as a minicomic series, by Ian Shires, as an outlet for his poetry. In high school at the time, with learning disability problems, they weren't the best quality productions. But they attracted some attention, and with the addition of artwork in issues past #4, they took on a life of their own in the small press network. Throughout it's minicomic run, 26 issues were printed, featuring work by 10+ artists. You can look over the issue Chronology for all the names. One final minicomic sized issue was never printed, which would have been #27…maybe someday we'll still print it. Around this time, Ian quit college, and spent some time trying to find himself, Self Publisher! Magazine dominated his time, as well as moving to Florida and back, getting married and divorced. It was a different Ian that took the Mysterious Visions name in 1992, and wrote the Vol.2 issues of MVA, which were basically self-examining editorials and poetry/songs, in Digest sized format. A Vol.3 #1 was planned, written, laid out, but never completed soon after this, planned for a full comic book size. It was intended to be a real mix of poetry and art, some drawn, some done in photography, with the poems literally written different places on things, etc. The lay-outs still exist, but it is unknown whether they will ever actually be used to finish the project. In this time Ian's personal life took some unfortunate turns, leaving him barely in publishing in the later 90's. A number of years later, after Ian had remarried, The MVA name was resurrected once again in digest form, this time as a member title for the newly re-formed Blue Plaque Publications group. 4 issues were put out in this Vol.4 series, and it presented poetry and art from a large variety of people. Ian had started a new magazine (Obscurity Unlimited) and was getting back into the swing of the network, not much of his own work went into these issues, as the title turned more of the pages over to other creators to showcase their work. As it turned out, the BPP wasn't the right fit for many things Ian was trying to accomplish, and he split from the group to form the Small Press Association, which spawned the changing of the Vol.4 series, to be re-numbered to what it would have been if all the issues had been printed, and numbering kept going. So #35-37 were produced, still as digests, but with color covers for the first time in Dimestore history. They also introduced the idea of having comic strips in the title for the first time. A number of things lead to the Digest issues ending, as the SPA took hold, and the name changed from Small Press to Self Publisher, and OU became The Guide, and then Small Press Idol hit and took off so unexpectedly…the Final Digest issue went out much like the final Minicomic issue - more planned, but didn't happen. And with the advent of POD printing, and people wanting full size, so #37 was the last. Soon after, Mysterious Visions was adopted in Full Size comic format and renumbered at #1 - to present the winning comic strip of the first Idol contest, as well as other strips from SPA members. As the series has progressed, Small Press Idol has pretty much dominated the content of the series, but it is not fully intended to be that way. Anyone is welcome to submit to it, and we expect to see the title to continue to grow in thickness and readership, as it continues to present the best new talent it can gather. And yes, Ian still reserves a page each issue for his poetry.