Wednesday, August 21, 2024

THE RETURN OF FANZINE FANABLA!!!

Lots of fanzines to brag about here, with an added emphasis on those of the English variety which is sure peachy keen since England pumped out its share of good home-produced rags (in and out of the music idiom) that are worthy of documentation lest they become even more forgotten than I am. And if this article seems way too overloaded, too longwinded and too congested for you well, just read part of it now and another part later, and yet another part later onanonanonanonanism kinda like the way R. Meltzer said you should tackle THE AESTHETICS OF ROCK. And you know he's right.
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I must admit that I'm prouder than proud over the fact that I have actually obtained a copy of PANACHE #1 to have and to hold for my very own. Of course there are a whole lot more important things that could have happened to improve my life like being inundated with a bazillion dollars or finding a peephole at the cute young girls who ain't overweight and don't have tattoos and metal doo dads all over their bodies nudist colony, but for now this will suffice.

Having a few of the other issues moiling in my collection it's sure nice to have this premier issue if only to see how the mag twisted and turned throughout the years. The later PANACHEs, at least the ones that I own, are firmly rooted in the mode of the music as it changed underground style but this 'un is, surprisingly enough, closer in spirit to the early pre-punque fanzines that covered a wide variety of music on the rock spectrum. I'm talkin' mags like DENIM DELINQUENTBACK DOOR MAN, CAN'T BUY A THRILL or more likely (given this is a one-sided corner-stapled affair) the early issues of such wonders as THE NEXT BIG THING, TB SHEETS, JUNGLELANDSNIFFIN' GLUE or even that Maryland wonder VINTAGE VIOLENCE in the way that PANACHE goes beyond the borders of "underground" rock and reviews things that just might seem somewhat alien to the typical punquist attitude. 

But golly ned, the writing's so good you don't mind reading about groups of a definitely non-punk variety because the vim and vigor that comes with these mags is just brimmin' full! Editor Mick Mercer really knew his turds when it came to what the fanzine idiom was all about and like, if you want to see a true music fan at his humble beginnings I guess this would be one of the better places to start.

The cover says it all from the snap of Iggy (not exactly the most original thing a rock 'n roll fanzine coulda done at the time but a smart move since Iggy sure needed all of the exposure he could get and better him than Gene Simmons!) to the large print come on which not only promotes a number of recently-bootlegged acts but proves that when you're laying out a cover its best to plan ahead. But even that lends to a somewhat overall charm worthy of all of the block-outs on the cover of the first issue of FUTURE not to mention some incredible gaffes on my own part.

The innards ain't no slouch either what with the loads of reviews of live shows, recent singles and naturally the bootlegs which would figure since you gotta admit that the form was starting to really take off at the time what with even legit record stores selling these wares out in the open for everyone to see! (Heck, the White Wing Records shop in Niles Ohio even had their own bin proudly emblazoned "bootlegs" which really does show how brazen record shop owners could get!) Of course this was at a time when legit offerings seemed to be lacking in the rawness and low-fidelity needed to appreciate music so we could all thank the bootleggers for doing us a fine public service.

Mercer's late '76/early '77 views are shown to be about as much on (and off) target as many of the upsprouts on the fanzine scene of the day. The Iggy live report written by a fellow named "Graham" (undoubtedly a pseudonym for Mercer --- in fact Mercer's name is nowhere to be seen anywhere in this ish!) is somewhat lacking in the fine social graces of a Murray, Ingham, Dadomo, Goldman or Kent but is still stimulating enough to pour through. The live takes on the Doctors of Madness and Ted Nugent are pretty much what one would have thought part and parcel to the whole mid-seventies fanzine drive, especially considering how the latter seemed to pop up in just about every home-produced mag of the day (at least those dedicated to the high energy creed in those pre punk unto punque times when loads of people sorta lumped Nugent in with the likes of Iggy!). It's obvious that some people were desperate for anything that wasn't Laurel Canyon way back when.

In case you're that blind that you couldn't/didn't gaze upon the cover above, maybe I should mention that the inclusion of some of the acts that appear in these pages would definitely seem alien to many seventies-era under-the-underground fanzines. Stranger still, these particular performers (if you can believe it!) tend to get the high holy praise while the ones who were usually given the red carpet elsewhere are actually trounced upon! Sure there are plenty of writeups you'd would expect to get the ol' huzzah like a thumbs up for the Pink Floyd bootleg entitled THE MIDAS TOUCH (one of the better platters documenting the late-sixties Floyd available at the time), but seeing things like Linda Ronstadt's LIVE AT THE ROXY getting raved about while Patti Smith is demolished in a review of her then-recent SUPERBUNNY does tend to boggle my mind somewhat. And sheesh, I thought that the Runaways' LIVE AT THE STARWOOD would have been up these guys' somewhat expansive ally but nooooooo.... 

And you should check out the singles reviews...Kansas's "Dust in the Wind" gets a positive mention which I must admit is something that shouldn't exactly make it easy for someone like you to go to sleep at nights. However, I sure do love the go against the grain creepiness of it all which should send me straight to the loony bin.

Back to the swift kicks right up the ass, David Bowie's LOW gets decimated which I would guess is something to be expected from a mag such as this although The Sensational Alex Harvey Band Without Alex's live appearance at the Marquee (they being an act that I was under the impression wasn't exactly anything to cheer about although the people who told me so could most likely be bonkers) was actually appreciated by whoever it was that wrote it up. Like I said, anonymity seems to be the rule rather than the exception in this mag!

Of course I love this fanzine which really lays down that long gone seventies vibe of new and fresh music, even if such sounds are sometimes lambasted in favor of old and stale music you think a mag like this would stand against. A copy of PANACHE numbers two and four would be greatly appreciated, although after that we were settling into a new and quite different rock era and like, sometimes I wish the earth woulda spun off its axis and hightailed it into deep space at that time.
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Do I already have this issue of COMSTOCK LODE in my collection? My mind must be getting rustier than the lock on a bedwetter's chastity belt if I can't even remember a simple fact such as this. Sheesh, I always thought I knew the fanzines in my collection just as if they were my own children, even better than I'm sure Screamin' Jay Hawkins knew who all his 57-plus offspring were which I most sincerely doubt!

But snatch it up I did just in case I was not a lucky owner and well, I'm rather happy I did. Former Bonzo Dog Band leader Vivian Stanshall's the featured figure here and is presented via a quite informative interview done around the time of the Rawlinson End album (btw did you know that the cover photo to that particular spinner was snapped by none other than Cleveland legend Brian Sands?) Also included's an interview with Charlatan/Loose Gravel/Flamin' Groovies member Mike Wilhelm which also sheds that ol' proverbial light on those San Francisco inner workings that the people at ROLLING STONE seem to have conveniently forgotten for some reason or another. 

And if you like all that you'll just love all of the interesting things that editor John Platt had to write about the new breed of underground swing that was just making its name known, from the reconstructed Red Crayola to their pals Pere Ubu (or so I think as far as the "pals" part goes---I heard that David Thomas himself had some curt things to say about Mayo Thompson later on!) and other wowzers of the day from the Soft Boys to Wire! Not only that but there's part two of an International Artists discography which lays down the line on all of those obscure singles the label unleashed, and you can bet that there's plenty of Roky hosannas and praise to be found therein.

I wish a whole lot more fanzines of the day were as well-laid out and informative as COMSTOCK LODE. This title will pop up for sale or auction on occasion, so if you scour the internet hard enough who knows, you might latch onto the entire run which would be worth the time and effort.  If you're one who is heavy duty on this type of rock fandom that does go beyond the usual hagiozine antics that I tend to get into you'd do yourself a favor doing just that!
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The next two English fanzines might not be as professional as COMSTOCK LODE but they're fine in their own everyday kinda people get in on the rock music upheaval way. The first of these on the chopping block is TEAR IT UP #3, a mag that does have the standard amateur paste it up in the kitchen look that I like in a fanzine (who'm I kiddin' --- I like fanzines whether or not they have glossy covers   OR look like they were quickly run off and collated in the dark!) and, like the best of the batch boy does this one have that same sorta spirit that we'd find in all of the better rock scribing that was seen back when even peons like these kidz knew how to peck out a good article!

Like the best of the "punk fanzines" of the seventies and eighties, the tastes espoused in HIT AND RUN run far and wide (maybe not as far and wide as PANACHE #1 but still...). And thank heavens that it is not one of those cover the big underground growlers of the day in the most pedestrian way mags either...n fact, the only act in these pages that would have been part and parcel to any of the rank and file English home made mag at the time was John Cooper Clarke! The rest of HIT AND RUN is taken up with articles and interviews with the likes of Marquis de Sade (not the pervo but a French group who seem worthy of my Gallic groveling), Jackie Wilson, John Cage (!) and (now get this!) those old dance marathons which produced tired feet and THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY.  It's all professionally written and definitely worth the effort to seek out, and each and every word in TEAR IT UP (especially the Jackie Wilson obit) could have popped up in any of those English weaklies they used to have and it would have fit in snug as well. Many of the other fanzines that were beginning to come out at the same time coulda taken a few lessons from this 'un!
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DIRT was in no wayshapeform a "crudzine" despite the lack of visuals and one-sided printjob, but like with PANACHE it makes up for looking oh so bare with some fantastic writing that could only have been laid down by real deal FANS who threw every bit of blood, guts and sinew into a mag that lived and breathed the rock underground throb. Believe you me, the writing and general "aura" of DIRT really does make ones heart palpitate as fast as the actual music itself.

I've read enough fanzines with one-dimensional toss off blab passed off as one's erudite opinion --- in fact, I've engaged in such self-centered and masturbatory spurt-spurt writings myself. But the minds behind DIRT really knew how to put their critiques onto paper and come up with an end result that ain't just one of those carbon copy hypesheet aw gosharootie efforts that quickly bores one to tears. I mean, does any of that 80s/90s/00s amerunderground blather that used to pop up all over the place have any real meaning or downright "relevance" in the here and now? Did it have any even then??? Well, this 'un sure does and it's way over forty years old as well which should tell some of you young whippersnappers a thing or two!

Like with TEAR IT UP the writing here could easily have appeared in any of the more professional rags that were willing to get down to biz. Too bad that this, along with a whole smattering of worthy wonders, hadda drift off into total obscurity once the eighties issued in the age of glitz and ultraslick showbiz jive that continues to haunt us lo these many years later. 

Like I said there are no illustrations to pretty up the pages, but this effort does manage to lay it on the line as far as that youthful teenbo spirit that drove many a fanzine as well as many a group as well. It's nice to know that, even at a time when underground ideals and mores were changing right in front of our ears, there were people on this planet who were young, gifted and could put two letters together without coming off like a bunch of morons who even would make me look like Meltzer in comparison.
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As you should know since I've mentioned it more often than I go through cans of 1000 Flushes, the English rock fanzines of the early/mid-seventies were so overtly influenced by ZIGZAG to the point where I'm surprised there weren't quite a few lawsuits flying about. Unfortunately, some lacked the same spirit of the original and tended to come off somewhat arid, void of the adventurous and snide side of rock writing that could easily enough be found in the fanzines emanating from a variety of other nations at the time.

I could say the same thing about OUT NOW, yet another entry into the English fanzine canon that looked fine enough but lacked a whole load of snizzle and snide which this mag should have abounded in. I mean, they had no excuse given that they were up and about in one of the better periods in UK rock scribedom what with all of those great (aforementioned) writers working for NME and SOUNDS doing for the locals what the likes of Meltzer and Saunders were doing for us lunks over here! Well, thankfully they DID learn since I reviewed a later issue here which was a marked improvement over this 'un, so at least these guys did get the message. A message that somehow unfortunately never managed to make its way to my own sense of fanzine editing/published acumen but nobody said I was Speedy Gonzales when it came to mental speed and accuracy. 

Actually OUT NOW succeeds as an "amateur" genzine that tries to cover a variety of rock acts of the day w/o trying to look "punque" yet not as counterculture staid as DARK STAR. Articles on Tom Petty, Blondie and Cherry Vanilla show that the guys who put this out were doing a good job trying to be "up to date" and "with it" and the Tom Verlaine interview must have been a real coup for such a bubbling under publication. Still there's plenty of coverage regarding the less exciting moments that made up the English music scene of the day including a "special 8 page pullout" regarding a local music festival that seemed about as exciting as that quilting bee that Gomer Pyle went to on Saturday afternoons, the one that Sgt. Carter thought was some kind of wild swinging orgy full of bikini clad girls. Sheesh Sarge, given what we have heard about Gomer for years you shoulda known better than that!
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Hey, I also got another issue of MOONLIGHT DRIVE that tickles my innards way more'n Mountain Dew ever did. Yeah these guys can get somewhat dry and collectors oriented at the expense of letting any of their appendages hang down, but the rave and spirit is there and the folk who put MOONLIGHT DRIVE out knew their onions and potatoes and maybe even cabbage and if they were Irish they coulda made a pretty good colcannon outta this 'un.

This is a "New York Special" though I don't know how coverboy  Jim Morrison could be considered New York by any stretch of the imagination! But whatever, he's in these pages (in a roundup of recent Doors bootlegs) along with acts who did constitute NYC in the beautifully dank and dark 60s/70s. Groups like the Velvet Underground (in an article that doesn't really shed any new light but which ones have as of late?), Ramones, Patti Smith and how the Stooges got in there as well I dunno as well unless it's via their '73 Max's Kansas City appearance. It's an overall fun fanzine which was professionally (at least for this type of mag) laid out, reprinted the right things and at least gave us all a reminder of a time in rock 'n roll that was pure magic and soul/life reaffirming, at least until everything seemed to topple into the Gowanus Canal never to be seen again.

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And finally for today's English fanzine segment's this particular effort that I must admit I never purchased back when the mag was up and about, but it wasn't like I was made outta money like you rich kids were. I forget exactly where I first heard about WHAT A NICE WAY TO TURN SEVENTEEN but I'm sure the name had been floating around in the caverns of my mind for quite awhile. However, a somewhat recent review of this effort caught my attention and like well, given that the reading material that's available today just ain't exactly stimulating my wants and desires for the cataclysmic sounds that make up my entire being I knew that investing in a buncha these rags would be a good way to dump my money had I used it to go towards such frivolities as food and utilities.

It really is too bad that I missed out on 'em the first go 'round because WHAT A NICE WAY TO TURN SEVENTEEN was something that I sure coulda used a whole lot more of back inna eighties 'stead of the pious hippie drivel that we were (and still are) inundated with that's just as rotten as the hippoid tripe you thought all those punques wanted to eradicate! 

The mag covered a wide range of music, wide that is if your tastes ran towards the BOMP! school of past + present better equal future what with boffo coverage of our sainted forebearers (Paul Revere and the Raiders, Beach Boys, Monkees, Marc...) intermingling with the more appetizing portions of what was then prevailing (Fleshtones, the Antipodean scene...) and too bad the equation hadda end up the way it did but it still was a nice, if futile, try for all of us to overcome the Pantsiosesque dinge that permeated (and continues to permeate) music in general lo these many years later.

Kinda like a cross between a mid-seventies ish of BOMP! and THE NEXT BIG THING (whose editor Lindsay Hutton contributes quite some space), WHAT A NICE WAY TO TURN SEVENTEEN was a noble attempt to keep the seventies rock fandom spirit moving at a time when I just gotta admit that most of what was passing for (and still passes as) "rock 'n roll" is rather loathsome and, like people in general, to be held in contempt. A few ex-Swell Maps types help editor Chris Seventeen out so you can get the gist of what sorta squall is mentioned in them thar pages --- pieces on then-current up and abouts such as the Barracudas (a group who got plenty of fanzine praise at the time because, what else was there?), Alex Chilton and some of those south of the equator acts that never really appealed to me get more'n just a few lines of praise amidst retrospew on everyone from Beefheart to...Woody Guthrie??? Like the best of the Golden Age of Rock Fanzines out there you never could tell what you were in store for when you opened up them pages.



WHAT A NICE WAY TO TURN SEVENTEEN is quite similar to the other mid-eighties fanzine efforts covering the same territory of rock 'n roll stylings --- I'm talking such astute publications as the aforementioned NBT, RIPPLELOSERS and many more I probably never even heard of. Fanzines that were heavy into the sound sway of the mid/late-seventies "underground" yet were stuck a good ten years later trying to make sense of what happened while reviewing the remnants of those days, trying to kid themselves that it had the same energy that was abounding in 1976 rock 'n roll fandom. I sure knew how that felt given that my own crudzine attempted to uncover the same spirit that seemed to get washed away by the tide of mediocrity and bitchy girls in cheap jewelry. That was one good reason that I obtained solace via the older sounds, most of which I was unaware of or could not afford to latch onto at the time but by then were going for mere pennies at some of the lower class flea markets. 

I do give WHAT A NICE WAY... a whole load of hosannas for giving it the ol' college try and succeeding rather well (B+ at the most) and like, maybe if the music situation was better and people were still flocking to THE BIG BEAT like they were during them wild and wooly sixties (the sixties of the 13th Floor Elevators, not Joan Baez) maybe it woulda gotten out more to the general populace. But when the populace's minds were (and in many cases still are) clouded by the sad taint of eighties-vintage MTV and Springsteen what else would you expect?
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Hey looka here. Izza fan-a-zine from-a Italy. Izza call MAGIC-A FUZZ an' itta talkaboutta thingz-a like-a old-a psych-e-delic groups anna lotza sixtie stuff like-a da Fugs, da Strawbs anna Amon-a-Duul notta fagettin' that old pisano him-a-self Frank-a Zappa! Even bandz like-a the Syn a which one-a dem guys from Si or somethin' like-a dat come-a from! Itta look good too, real nice-a job they did a-here. Lotta udda good-a things-a here too like-a thing-a on-a Lon-a Chaney an-a that-a comic book guy Jim-a Steranko (Steranko --- watt-a kind-a name izza dat?). Itta be-a funna thing-a t' read, an' if you don' like it you no fool-a me, you fool-a you-self! Now you wanna some ice-a-cream?
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And now, back to the good ol' red white and blue balls Amerigan fanzines that I know you'll really get a nice and hearty kick outta. That is unless you're a culturally-inclined snob or something but then again who isn't these days, other'n me that is.

Anway, lemme tell you that I owe some of the knowledge regarding the fanzine biz after extracting a little bitta information from Kenny Aronds, the guy who put out LIVING EYE back in the early-to-mid-eighties. Frankly, if it weren't for his sound advice my mag woulda turned out a whole lot worse than it had. I never got all of the issues of the mag at the time but over the years have acquired a couple, this third one being just the latest and boy am I glad I paid about twenty times the amount that I would have hadda had I got this 'un back when it originally came out!

This issue of LIVING EYE features an all gal tribute which is sorta like that issue of BOMP! with Cherie Currie on the cover from back '76 way. If you liked that one you just might like this 'un as well. There's more on ish #1 cover gal Nancy Sinatra as well as Jackie DeShannon, the Shangri-Las and even a buncha them English tarts that musta seemed to exotic to the pube sproutin' boys o'er here at the time. Whazzername from the Fuzztones (as well as Whazzizname too) gets interviewed plus there's a ton of reviews of everyday garage bands, Texas garage bands, English garage bands and surf garage bands singles (each with their own special section) that were sorta like a continuation of those "Juke Box Jury Junior" columns in BOMP! It is nice to know that the rough and tumble fun aspects of seventies fanzines like DENIM DELINQUENT lived long enough into the eighties, and considering what a boring time that decade was it was no small feat.
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CONTEMPO CULTURE was one local outta-the-flow fanzine that seemed to get more than its fair share of notoriety if only for the fact that none other than Lester Bangs spent some time writing for these guys during his brief stay in Austin Texas (terminally hip capitol of the state). Lester's in both of these recently-acquired issues, one as an actual contributor and the other via some snapshot (he had vamoosed back to NYC after a drunk 'n disorderly) and for that these fanzines are shall-we-say all the more important given their time and place. They really do fit in with the entire seventies-unto-eighties under-the-underground musical upheaval, one that would fizzle out once the entire "movement" decomposed into self-centered mewls that I thought punk rock (in just about any wayshapeform convolution you can think of) stood AGAINST!

As typical of these "small press" endeavors the quality is definitely local print shop while the splodge layout is of the kind that would be put to use by a zillion other "'zines" as the years wore on. And like I said, Bangs shows up with two pieces in the fourth ish, the first being an article on the no wave group DNA which I gotta say typifies the mad obsession Bangs had for the concept of "horrible noise" that he would extrapolate on in the pages of THE VILLAGE (retch!) VOICE just a good year or so later. The other one is a saga entitled "Trapped By The Mormons" which I get the sneakin' suspicion would NOT have been published by the same sort of snoots who put this rag out even a good five years later due to Bangs' use of a certain word to describe people of African heritage, a word which I thought he wouldn't have used after that big anti-racism heartbleed article he wrote a year earlier which was one reason the noted rock journalist originally left NYC in fear of his life!

Although Bangs' scribing does not appear in the next ish VUAS founder and creative entity in himself Philip Milstein's does with a piece on one of his then-current obsessions, none other than the once-obscure but soon to be legendary Shaggs. 'tis a goodie too where he spills the legumes about the true identities of the Wiggins gals who in fact were Jonathan Richman, Don Van Vliet and John Lydon engaging in their own Masked Marauders sesh! The piece works out too unlike all of the sad attempts I've tried at humor and satire ever since I was strong enough to pick up a crayon I'll tell ya.

One thing that bogs CONTEMPO CULTURE down is the lack of compatico music that would have suited the rag's cuttier-than-cutting-edge attitude. A focus on the likes of Grace Jones and the B-52s (who at the time were just beginning to heavily get into their overtly twee gay campiness which didn't seem to grate so much at first) dampers things quite, although I don't think anyone involved was privy enough to even know about the existence of Von Lmo, Bernie and the Invisibles, Brian Sands and other acts that were getting my juices flowing in the early-to-mid-eighties! But sheesh, you'd'a thunk that these guys woulda had their finger up some sort of nerve-grinding u-ground sphincter that might have been bobbing about deep in the heart of... Well, there does appear an interview with PIL conducted by Mary Harron which I assume is not a reprint and if true this piece was a major ostrich-sized feather in these fanablas' hats.

'n of course, this being late 1980 and all, there's an anti-Ronald Reagan commentary (complete with one of those typically doctored up pix of the dude that was considered so haute by the creme de la fanzine personnel of the day 'n I should know since I dabbled in some of it myself!), one that was done up back when we all thought the ol' turdburger was gonna tumble us into an atomic abyss and other creepy things that unfortunately never did happen. But somehow I get the impression that the folk at CONTEMPO CULTURE weren't as gung homo on the anti-prez bandwagon as many of their compatriots in the rock fanzine game were...I mean, just read what these people wrote about the guy: "He's against the ERA, abortion rights, gay rights, and gun control. He's trigger happy, & pro-nuke in arms of weapons and power plants. He's "outraged" at the way 52 Americans were mistreated in Iran, but not at how the U.S.-imposed Shah had thousands of Iranians tortured or killed, or at how the U.S. backed military government in El Salvador is currently murdering countless thousands. He's against "government interference" when it comes to a national health plan, a guaranteed decent wage for everyone, or interfering with the oil companies' right to charge sky-high prices. But as for a woman's right to control her own body, forget it..."

All I have to say is, if these guys hated Reagan so much why were they portraying him in such a POSITIVE light?
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Y'know, I do remember buying one or two issues of Miriam Linna's BAD SEED, a fanzine devoted to the seamier side of pre-hippie youthdom...y'know, juvenile delinquents and the sordid doings they were engaged in (as documented by the cheapo paperbacks of the fifties/sixties) and I hadda do something with the credit I had from See Hear. I forget what I thought of 'em and am too lazy to check my pile of back issues to see exactly what kind of drivel I did spew about the things but anyway well, if I do recall I believe that I was somewhat disappointed that these mags didn't have the same sort of sartorial finesse as Miriam's other fanzine endeavor KICKS. But I get that way sometimes.

Thank goodness for ebay because thanks to that modern miracle I latched onto two more of 'em and I thought they were pretty boffo reads which looked and felt like a fanzine should. 's got it all from underage hijinx during the Golden Age of Kiddie Crime to the sleaze and the books that documented it all and everything that surrounded it --- things that never did get brought up in those nostalgia movies and television shows that were all the rage back inna seventies. BAD SEED (or at least Miss Linna) has the hots for the devious side of teendom past what with all of the details on kids gone bad and the price they hadda pay for their downright EVIL (remember that word?) and after reading these mags you get the idea that she sure wish she coulda spent her teenbo years in such a criminally inclined fashion!

All the stories on lurid paperbacks and fifties kids gone wrong do have a strange appeal, kind of like looking at Andy Warhol automobile accident silkscreens even though you know the people in 'em died horrific deaths and you're getting your jollies at their expense. And if you like what the entire KICKS empire gave us back in the eighties and nineties BACK WHEN WE REALLY NEEDED IT you too'll enjoy getting your own throb thrills reading BAD SEED. Only you'll be doing it in the comfort of your secluded shack far from the carnage that kids that I'll never feel sorry for in a millyun years continue to wreak on people who really never did deserve it. Kinda makes me wanna go and read some old MR. A comic where the kind of justice I sure wish there was a whole lot more of in this sick and sad (because of people like you) world prevails.
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I must say that I do feel it a feather in my cap, or better yet a real wowzer in my collection, to have a copy of NOPE! #11 intermingling with the rest of my much-prized fanzine booty piled in the corner of my otherwise farted up bedroom. The brainchild of 'zine regular Jay Kinney (who was a pretty snatty underground cartoonist in his own right), NOPE! was part of that burgeoning fifties/sixties satire mag trend that cropped up in the world of comics fandom, and along with the Crumb brothers' FOO!, Art Spiegelman's BLASE, Jay Lynch's JACK HIGH and plenty more, NOPE! was one of them mags that set the stages for various late-sixties things to come as far as them comic books you hadda hide from your parents (or even wife!) go.

One bad thing about this NOPE!...too much text and not enough funny har har satire to scarf up. Well, by the time this ish hit the mailboxes (no actual date to be found anywhere though the reference to Lennon's "Instant Karma"'s gets me thinkin' mid-1970) the underground comix scene was pretty much in full flight. Perhaps Kinney was extending the satire fanzine format just a little longer than necessary, but anyway it's no big surprise that NOPE! comes off more like a personalist mag rather than one that seems eternally indebted to the fifties-era MAD comic book.

The GOOD things --- the contributions from Lynch including the Nard/Pat cover as well as Crumb (a spot pic but eh!) and Jonh Ingham, who not only was writing in but delivered on two illustrations. The only actual cartoon done up in the old satire 'zine realm to appear here was by former ODD publisher Dave Herring, a three-page tale about the day in the life of some pseudo Sad Sack cum Ziggy (I guess) guy and the miseries he endures throughout. A pretty good story too which makes me wish that maybe Kinney or some of the other undergrounders woulda done more along these lines to pepper up the mag, but I got a copy of NOPE! and right now that's the only thing that matters in my sick and sorry life!
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I never considered Skip Williamson to have been the same kinda underground cartoon genius as Kinney and a few other miscreant scribblers out there, but I will give him some thumbs up the ass for him being part of the late-fifties/early-sixties comic fanzine scene that produced alla them other satire rags that are in such short supply, at least in my collection. SQUIRE was Williamson's own and even though it has some of the perhaps hackneyed attitudes and invert snobbism of many of the fanzines of the period (you know, the right attitudes and proper opinions...) it is rather shallwesay a good effort that makes for interesting reading even sixtysome years after the fact. But then again what doesn't anymore?

Big beef with this one is the fact that some guy I never heard about who calls himself Blick Blickhan does a hefty portion of the cartoons to be found herein including a spoof of THE BULLWINKLE SHOW as well as an extended saga about a Joe Jitsu lookalike who repels a gigantic mugger. Neither of them are particularly funny and look as if they were hastily drawn by a ten-year-old (very similar to some of the stuff I was delineating at that age) with all of the juvenilia that one would expect with such slapdash affairs. Williamson's art was somewhat developed by this time and well, I sure wish that he had taken up more space in this 'un than Blickhan but wha' th' hey. At least Blickhan was well versed in the Sci-Fi/horror/fantasy tradition of edgy bad taste as the cartoon on the right (which I reprinted only to offend you) surely does prove even if the guy did misspell "Belsen".

Further study of the 50s/60s satire fanzine realm is due for a sturdy examination and who know, perhaps one just might be heading our way rather soon (maybe with some choice examples printed en toto). So little has been researched other than through THE COMPLETE CRUMB, a few Bill Schelly fanzine collections and the underground comix history by Mark James Estren that came out in the mid-seventies. You'd think by now someone would have worked out a thoroughly researched book detailing of the various satire rags and how they all intertwined to the point where an underground scene sprung forth but eh, if nobody did that regarding the sixties/seventies rock fanzine movement why would they even bother documenting this???
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Gotta fanzine (old or new) that'cha'd think'd fit in with the types that I've been writing about for many a year on end? I'd sure like to read the thing, but knowing you you'd never wanna deal with scum such as I so why bother mentioning anything inna first place?

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