Zine World cover #1
As Doug Holland's Pathetic Life neared its conclusion, he informed me that he was about to begin a zine review-zine called Zine World, and he asked me to come up with some covers for the first few issues. At the time Factsheet Five was really the only major publication solely devoted to "zine culture," and I'm guessing he was tired of the relentless boosterism and lack of critical reviews in F5 , wanting to present a more honest - but no less enthusiastic - appraisal of the work that was appearing in the underground. And that was another point of contention, if I remember correctly: he felt it was pointless to review magazines he considered "aboveground," particularly those with ISSNs, so he refused to do so in the pages of ZW. Clearly this was a more political, divisive stance, and he had no qualms about taking it.
Also at this time, the zine and comics communities were still feeling the effects of the Mike Diana and Answer Me! legal cases, and I thought I might address the former on my first cover for ZW. I came up with the most outageous image I could think of, but also one that would specifically relate to the issue in some way. Diana lived in Florida at the time of his conviction and I seem to recall Florida having a history of unusually conservative and backwards political decisions, so... well, you can see the results for yourself. I submitted it to Doug, telling him I thought the cover was essentially a bad joke, and I honestly had no intention of it ever seeing print. Frankly I've never liked overtly political art and never had any intention of ever making any such statements in my own work. So of course, Doug loved it and wrote me the most effusively praising letter I ever received. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he was increasingly resolute that this was the perfect cover for the inaugural issue of ZW. Suffice it to say that most of our readers (and most of the staff!) felt otherwise. The letters we got in response to that first issue were pretty amusing. It's amazing how upset poeple get about nothing.
10 x 12"
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