ZINES 02 (RESEARCH): v.2 - Tapa blanda

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Johnny Brewton, interviewee:

Johnny Brewton produces X-RAY, a publication whichmust be seen and touched to be fully appreciated. It features different coloredpapers, inserts, found photographs, color xeroxes and objects such asmatchbooks and Chinese fortunes—each issue is a hand-produced artwork, with notwo copies exactly alike.

Growing up in Ventura, California, Johnny got involved inthe Los Angeles punk rock scene at the age of fourteen. A decade ago, he helpedproduce a zine, Sixty Miles North, and then published KandykornJackhammer, all the while playing bass and drums in bands such as M.I.A.,Missiles of October, the Screaming Things, Frankenstein and Big BiscuitExpress. He has a small collection of early punk records, sixties Mexicanpunk/garage band recordings, and odd jazz, jug band and unclassifiable vinyl.As a hobby he plays the ukulele and musical saw. In his wanderings, Johnny isalways on the alert for found materials to incorporate in his outstanding andamazing X-RAY…

Lynn Peril publishes Mystery Date, a zine drawing on diversesources such as fifties home economics textbooks, etiquette manuals, datingmanuals, biographies of stars and starlets, as well as rereleased films andeducational videos. She grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and in the eightiesmoved to San Francisco, where she lives with husband Johnny Bartlett of thePhantom Surfers…

De la contraportada

More self-expression obsession coming at you: in-depthinterviews with 12 more unusual publishers. From a 15-year-old suburbaniteformer punk, to a filmmaker and “tracker” (8-track collector/expert); a Frenchself-publisher of art books (in the original meaning of the word), to thedishwasher whose goal it is to wash dishes in every state of the U.S.A. Also, ahistory of proletarian novels, zine reviews and much, much more. Read all aboutit in Zines! Vol. 2!

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Precursors of the current zine explosion include allpublications classed as “proletarian”: novels, nonfiction, short stories,magazines, pamphlets, poetry, plus related genres such as tough-guy,freak/carnival/sideshow books, writing by people of color, early feminist writing—inshort, all the voices of the social underclass. (from essay)

Excerpt from Bruno Richard:

Q: Did you make any money off your publishing?

A: A little bit, but it was never enough. Over the past 20years we managed to produce 45 books. Recently somebody asked me if I’d like todo a book with them for no money, just a copy of the book, and I agreed. That’soften the way it works. All the books are different—we change the size, thetype, the topic, every time. It’s all done just to do something before dying.It’s more interesting to do something when you’re alive than just living!

Q: Well, one of your rewards is meeting people all over theworld—

A: Everybody I ever liked, I would send them a free copy ofmy book. I would write, “I like what you do very much. This is what I do. Isthere something you could send me in exchange so I could see more of your work,because it is not readily available to me?” When I travel, I look at magazinesand find things that interest me; then I try and meet the people who producedthem…

I draw three to five hours every morning before I go to work(4:30-9:00 AM) and sometimes I draw at bedtime if I’m alone. That’s all I cando. For me, work is a kind of “regularization”—if I didn’t work and stayedalone in my room drawing all day like a monk—! That’s why I need a regular job,and that’s why I hate weekends! Besides, my job pays for all my publishing…

I like to destroy pictures. Often, I’ll find a photographand then redo it in a drawing my way—only then am I completely satisfied. Whensomething touches me, like a photo of a girl—even if she’s not nude, I’ll makeher nude. When I find a picture that touches me very much, I’ll do it my way,like “Guernica” was for Picasso…

My drawings depict the awfulness and comedy in this world,like George Grosz who did biting drawings of the bourgeois, the military,prostitutes, etc… I also show the bad side, the dark side of “true love”because I don’t think true love exists!