Martha Southgate discusses the dearth of black people in the literary world.

Flickr Finds: Vintage Marilyn Monroe/Norma Jeane Baker Magazine Covers

The nerve! Jane Magazine Folds! Jane moved on already anyway.

I was trolling around the internets just now looking for back issues and scanned spreads of old magazines I once loved... And I ran into the website for the great My Comrade, a sexy rag by drag queens and weird queers, that published regularly from 1987 to 1994. It came back in 2004 and has published two issues since. Their site has a covers gallery, go look at it. And if you can, donate some money to the fabulousness. I need more issues of My Comrade!

The Kin Series
Published by These Birds Walk Press
4 books, editions of 300
5" x 7", full color, 40 pages, perfect bound
$75.00 for unsigned subscription
$150.00 for signed subscription

The Kin Subscription Series is the fourth effort from These Birds Walk, a small press started by photographer Paul Schiek out of Oakland, California. The Kin Series is a set of four books released quarterly throughout the year. You can buy them signed or unsigned. Each book is the work of a single artist exploring Schiek's idea that "all lessons of photography are handed down through the
generations, inter-linking all photographers knowingly and unknowingly." Looking at the books all together, I can see what he means. It's obvious--conscious or not--that Mike Brodie's polaroids of train-hoppers have learned something from Magnum photographer Jim Goldberg's amazing Raised By Wolves series from the '80s. I first saw Brodie's photographs while working at Nerve. They were putting together a gallery of his work and it was love at first site. I'm so happy to see his work again in book form. In some way, all the photographers are also looking at notions of family, biological or contructed. I love Ari Marcopoulos' kids. They are such scrappy little dudes--always bruised and cut up, running around, making forts, etc. The first two images in his book--a wall with pin-ups of sexy ladies and the wreckage of a plane crash--make me think of how fleeting boyhood dreaming can be. This is the first time I've seen Paul Schiek's work and I like it. I'd say he seems to like these kind of boring off-moments but because of flash blow-outs or other camera weirdnesses they become almost surreal, definitely pretty, abstract sometimes. Ordinary moments are captured and printed in a way that allows deeper emotions--sadness, aggression, loneliness--to bubble to the surface. You can buy The Kin Series from These Birds Walk's site. The Jim Goldberg book comes out September 8th and we'll keep you posted about the party they're having for it.

Continue Reading The Kin Series

Arthur Magazine is a free bimonthly news/music/culture magazine that shows up all over the country in record shops, cool bookstores and coffeehouses. Unapologetically anti-war, nerdy and a bit hippy—Arthur eschews the irritating faux-irony and snarkiness of most American lifestyle/culture magazines. We got all frightened because Arthur looked DOOMED—but this summer it is back!

How did you come up with the name Arthur?

Around the time that the project needed a name, sometime in 2002, I was baking bread and the flour I was using was King Arthur.

What is Arthur's editorial mission? What made you put in so much effort to produce an independent national magazine?

Arthur's editorial mission, at least at its inception, was to give writers the freedom to write about what they wanted, in the way that they wanted to, at the time that they wanted, and at the length they wanted, in a magazine that would reach an audience they wanted to reach. Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that. We don't accept the work of just any writers, and we have to balance subject matter in each issue so that the magazine will offer a compelling mix. In practice that means articles sometimes get commissioned and then held for publication. In some cases, writers have waited for up to a year to see their piece in print. Our guiding principle has been 'writer knows best.' When writers ask me for advice on how to approach a piece that they are working on for Arthur, I often tell them to do what the piece requires. Serve the piece. Serve the audience. If it demands 12,000 words, with first-person narration, so be it. So, the writer, now freed, shoulders a responsibility that's been usurped by house editors in American publishing in the last 30 years. The result, hopefully, is more engaged writing that cuts closer. Remove the rules; ratchet up the responsibility; see what happens. Same goes for photo essayists, cartoonists and columnists: they all, pretty much, have carte blanche. And they deserve it. These people are very, very smart. The readers deserve it, too, of course. What we're going for is highest common denominator; nothing gets dumbed down at Arthur, but at the same time, everyone is aware of their responsibility to communicate, not simply self-express.

Continue Reading PF Interview: Jay Babcock, Editor of Arthur Magazine

I don't know about you but I'm a little sleepy after so much 4th of July running around. We laughed, we cried, we bbqed, we saw bands play, we snuck onto rooftops, we set off bottle rockets, etc. In the spirit of a slow post-holiday workday, here are some links to look at/read/waste time with:

Sarah Ball, taker of the above photograph, has some new work up on her site. It's lovely and shot with a large format view camera in her hometown of Natchez, Mississippi.

Bernd Becher, 75, Photographer of German Industrial Landscape, Dies. (via avisualsociety, and nyt)

While we're on the subject of photography, I've been looking at/reading the Magnum Agency blog all morning.

All is quiet... it's gray out and the 4th of July. Where are all the raucous BBQers in my hood? I think the fact that it is our nations birthday is a good time to see if there is anyone out there in another country who would like to contribute to Print Fetish. Please, insert your big lady liberty on our shores!

What we are looking for isn't going to be easy - we want someone, somewhere in Europe who can write about non-English magazines. Therefore, they will probably need to speak multiple languages AND be able to write well in English. It goes without saying that whoever it is must have good taste and read more than just commercial magazines. If you are interested please send us some writing samples and a short but sweet bio.

OK... here is yet another psychotically expensive magazine rack solution - BCXSY's See-Saw Bookshelf. Yes, a bookshelf - but as the product-shot illustrates with copies of National Geographic - it works quite well for magazines. It's made with walnut wood and powder coated steel parts. I absolutely adore this kind of playfulness in design - I just wish it didn't cost so much! However, I do think that this is an easily replicated design with a bit of carpentry and some sturdy croquet hoops.

Available at Generate for $1,899.00

ANP Quarterly's new issue has Phyllis Diller on the cover! Photographer Lisa Eisner shot Ms. Diller and her paintings. I imagine that's all I really need to say to get you to run out and find it. Just in case it's not... Also in the issue is pictures by amazing Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama, with interview by Ed Templeton, nice big pictures of the choppy, weird work of Swedish artist Jockum Nordström, and cool math-y genius/artist Xylor Jane.

Me Magazine is always going around changing their whole design, even logo, based on the subject/guest editor of each issue. While I j'adore that about them, my personal tastes go for certain issues over others. This new brightly colored jam featuring rapper, performance artist, general hot freak extraordinaire Tara De Long is particularly pleasing to me. Jack Pierson took the photos featuring Tara and her team of geniuses, back-up dancers, pr sluts, and fashion collaborators and it looks like the shoot was fun. The party was also fun though I wish I'd gotten there in time for the whole show...

The Summer 2007 issue of Hamburger Eyes is a special music issue. I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for music photography though I'm not really sure why because most of it is a serious bore. In usual Hamburgular fashion, this issue is far from boring. It's packed with fabulous images from new names as well as the names you'd expect to see: Boogie, Ricky Powell, Alissa Anderson, Jim Jocoy, Ed Templeton, and many others.

Aw man. After 13 years and 80 issues, Chicago-based fanzine turned magazine Punk Planet is folding. Their distribution house went bankrupt last year and they took a big hit. Sound familiar? Punk Planet's first issue came out while I was working in a record/zine shop. I've been reading it on and off since and am sad to see it go. If you're unfamiliar with the mag, I'd suggest buying their collected interviews book. Here are some other responses: Chicago Tribune, The Portland Mercury, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

In 2004, Jon Buonaccorsi and Shea'la Finch of Providence, Rhode Island, historical home of many a cool printmaker, looked around at all their talented pals and decided to start Tiny Showcase, a website gallery of small artworks. Each week they choose someone’s tiny work and fine art printer IO Labs does a limited run of it. I like this idea. There's not a lot of overhead cost, the artist gets to make a little money off their work, and the art enthusiast gets to take home an art work for about the cost of a record or a book. Go browse around and buy stuff... If it wasn't sold out, I'd buy this one. I love zombies.