Fishtown publisher optimistically takes on print challenge

IN POINT BREEZE coffee shops, Fishtown pubs and South Street tattoo parlors, Philadelphia has a Secret Admirer.

Every week, flash fiction, comics, trivia, crosswords and other quirky muses fill Secret Admirer's four pages in what its creator, David Commins calls "an art project, more than a journalism project."

There are seemingly no rules for Commins' free, DIY publication, except that Monday is production day and Tuesday is distribution day, a task he completes on his bike. Everything else is a spontaneous flow of prose and lighthearted humor.

Commins, 31, writes under the guise of a couple animal-themed aliases, each with a distinct voice and style.

He is primarily David Otter, who's responsible for "technicals" - content and delivery, according to the publication's masthead. Commins is also the advice and horoscopes expert, Lyra Foxx, an introspective alcoholic whose eyewitness account of a drunken ride on the all-night El led the June 23 issue.

"A policehuman on every car makes it feel safe," Commins wrote in Foxx's voice. "Safe like detention. No one ever died in detention."

This brand of literary cosplay has been the backbone of Secret Admirer since it was first published in early 2010 in Athens, Ga.

Commins moved to Philly in 2011 and started up Secret Admirer again in April 2013.

It's not really advisable to start a print product today, Commins joked, but he "gets by" off the Admirer's advertising revenue. Bars, bicycle shops and tattoo parlors place monthly ads.

Commins, who lives in Fishtown, even traded ad space with No Ka Oi Tiki Tattoo on South Street for a tattoo of the wolf caricature that prowls the top of every issue of the Admirer. Commins calls the wolf that is now inked on his right forearm his "mascot."

Secret Admirer is a way of "trying to wrestle something away from the Internet," Commins said. Our collective dependence on cell phones and the uber-connected premise of social media "bodes very ill" for society, Commins explained over coffee in Old City recently. He said the crossword puzzles especially bring people together as they curiously grab a copy of the Admirer with their coffee or beer.

Those crosswords are the most time-consuming for Commins, as he hustles near the zero-hour to get the paper done in his new office, just around the corner from his Fishtown home. He likens the process to "playing Scrabble with yourself."

An avid cyclist, Commins rode his bike from Georgia to California in 2008 and spent much of 2011 living out of a "GMC grandpa van." He considers himself a "wanderlusty" person in desperate need of a vacation. Given his tendency toward procrastination, publishing the Admirer is starting to stress him out.

His solution? A new, 32-page magazine called the Optimist, which will be a "big brother to the Secret Admirer."

The Optimist will be published according to the 28-day lunar calendar, with the first issue due out before the end of the year, Commins hopes.

Thanks to several Admirer ads, Commins' new publication will have a small but motivated staff to help fill its pages. It will have the same quirky vibe as Admirer but will focus more on well-researched, journalistic writing.

Having a single writer, as Admirer does, is "limiting," that writer said. He thinks readers could get bored.

"It really is just me talking to myself most of the time," he said. Commins' new project will be more of a conversation, with multiple voices.

If all goes well, he'll be able to revisit his "wanderlusty" side and get that long-awaited vacation.