(Link in bio • flukemags.com)
Here’s a great Homocore Anthology review in Razorcake. Don’t miss the second printing of the anthology of one of the first ever queer zines. When ordering, please choose from 1 copy or at a discounted rate for 5-20 copies. Thank you for all the orders of the first printing, they went fast! Review by Jimmy Cooper:
Let me just start off by saying that I feel that the Homocore Anthology is already a landmark event in this year’s independent publishing sphere, and will remain a landmark event for queers, punks, and zine people of all stripes. Seven issues may not seem like a lot, but those seven issues make up almost 300 full-size pages, and like any zine worth its weight in newsprint, those pages are crammed with often tiny text (cut out by hand, line by line, with a razor blade) and not-so-tiny images. Homocore originally ran from 1988-1991, and has been more or less out of print since. It reacted and reacts to the normalizing tendencies in both the queer and punk worlds (“…too weird, not butch enough, not femme enough, not S&M enough, too S&M, not “straight” enough. We wore the wrong clothes and we hated disco.” (from the introduction)) that we are still faced with today, in much the same language, in much the same places. It rejects the notion of a homogeneous gay or queer community just as it rejects the notion of a homogeneous punk community. It bites the hands that feed (because it needs to, or because the hand likes it) and in return feeds out a shocking amount of information: bands, zines, news, events, struggles, and a letters section that grows with each issue. The treasure trove of zines and bands alone is enough for a lifetime of now-archival searching, and that trove is a testament to the necessity of preserving out work despite the seeming immediacy and completeness of the digital realm. It’s also a testament to the primacy of one’s relationship to the material world, something I find myself more and more alone in my “queer” “community” by the month.
… (Continued in comments) #homocore #flukepublishing #homocoreanthology
New @nxoeed now available from @flukepublishing !
James and I started Fluke Publishing six years ago this month, with Nxoeed 1. We’ve published dozens of zines (and a few books) since. Head over to flukemags.com to see what else we have in stock. #nxoeed #flukepublishing
Zinelandia book review in the new Razorcake. Link to purchase ($15) in bio!
Zinelandia is a wonderful, compact little tome showcasing zine cover art from the titular Factsheet Five Era (1982-1998). While it’s primarily a vessel for that cover art, with 115 of the pages being full-color (or black-and-white, when original, and the print quality is excellent for all) reproductions of zine covers from this era, arranged chronologically, there’s also a short introduction by the author briefly characterizing zine culture of this time and the transitions evident in stylistic changes in the cover art during the same period.
There’s a lot in this introduction, and it’s a good contextualization, but the art included really does speak for itself. This is by no means a statement of superfluity: Held has done an excellent job curating here, and his knowledge is evident in both his cover selection and in the concision of that introduction.
The art itself is a veritable gold mine of zine culture in the eighties and nineties; for every zine I recognize by title, there are three or four I don’t, making for a whole host of rabbit holes, questions, and curiosities. An excellent reminder that for every Cometbus, there are a hundred publications with just as much to say struggling to be remembered at all, and either they will be, or they’re sitting in someone’s collection waiting to be brought back out. The reminder, then, is to bring them out.
In my work as a bookseller, I often face down this very question as an obscure pamphlet, #zine, or chapbook crosses my desk. Who wants to remember this? How do I find them? This work, whether done in a bookstore, library, zine, your own home, or a book like #Zinelandia, is necessary to the survival of print culture into the oft-narrowing future. -Jimmy Cooper
I’m not really a photographer but I’ll have a few photos I took of buZ blurr #colossusofroads @swim.gallery in SF! Opening reception for The Treasure is the Growth is May 16th. Thank you to my friends @cutpiles & @_itoe_en_ for inviting me, I’m honored to be in such company. Btw, they’re in the forthcoming issue of #flukefanzine and the first 50 preorders get a poster of their artwork within. Great things are happening!
Fluke Publishing has @michaelhyattphotographer book X: On the Road & at the Crossroads! Also, keep an eye out for his interview in the new issue of Fluke (preorder now!).
” …beyond the first ink, beyond the aperture’s first opening, beyond the first note rebounding off the walls of the Masque into history, before the first blue spark was struck on the flint of poetry in Venice, beyond beyond and back, beyond you, beyond me, digging the dug-up mastodons mired in time as I am, digging causes and effects, antecedents and ancestors, history and mystery, a continuum that takes us to the now…”
-from Chris Morris’ foreword
In over 70 photographs, Michael Hyatt explores his decades-long relationship with one of his favorite subjects, the Los Angeles punk band X. The book contains new prints of his iconic black and white images from the 1980s, as well as a selection of more recent color photographs of the band, including some from their 2024 “The End Is Near” tour. We see X as it was first developing and venturing out on the road, and as they are now, in the final stages of their long and storied touring career.
Hyatt captures the original and eclectic style of the band in candid moments on- and off-stage. Long-time fans will find images they may not have seen before, and new details in those they are familiar with. For those new to X and their ground-breaking legacy, Hyatt’s verité style photography and Chris Morris’ sage words of introduction provide us with a valuable historical document.
Fluke 21: The Colossus Compendium available from Fluke Publishing. Link in bio • flukemags.com
“Catfish for Life” comes from a story my friend Andy and I told buZ while eating catfish and bbq together on this day in Gurdon, Arkansas. Years ago, Andy told me he was thinking of getting a Fluke tattoo. I told him that if he did, I’d buy him catfish for life. He got the tattoo and several plates of free catfish before his shuffle off this mortal coil, as buZ used to say. Rest in peace to both of my friends.
@flukefanzine@flukepublishing #colossusofroads #buZblurr #flukefanzine
PHOENIX! I’ll be tabling books and zines tomorrow morning @copperstarcoffee ! I’ll have the new @nxoeed and tons more available. Come through and join in the festivities!
HAIL MURRAY! now available thru Fluke Publishing at a discounted price.
Vibrant images from the San Francisco Bay Area Punk Rock Scene in a deluxe hardcover!
Murray Bowles photographed Bay Area punk for four decades, capturing its infectious energy, wild creativity, and ragged tenderness everywhere he found it.
From San Francisco’s Mabuhay Gardens to Berkeley’s 924 Gilman—and the countless basements, backyards, and warehouses in between—Murray was there, camera in hand, the scene’s beloved documentarian.
Collected here for the first time, Murray’s classic images chronicle a uniquely dynamic and enduring music community in all its chaos and glory.
Featuring hundreds of images of bands such as Green Day, Operation Ivy, Neurosis, Crimpshrine, the Dead Kennedys, MDC, Special Forces, Social Unrest, Spit Boy, Melvins, Gwar, Soundgarden, NOFX, The Offspring and many, many more.
This collection of photographs documents and celebrates the punk music scene from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s.
270 pages
Hardcover
Black and white photographs throughout
12.0″ x 9.0″
9780867199277
Published by Last Gasp
California thank you! You’re always good to me. Thanks to the great friends I have. Thank you to all the stores that are so wonderful to work with. Wow what a week! I’m filled with gratitude for my life today.
I’m now crossing the desert home and filling these orders. Sorry for the delay! I love to work for Fluke Publishing. #flukefanzine
