All the cheese that’s fit to print.
Continuing the nostalgia trip from Wednesday’s post are these two free ‘zines which I picked up in the early ’80s at Ralph’s Comic Corner, the Ventura, CA comic shop that would, just a few short years later, eventually become my place of employment.
Here is issue #1 of Gouda Gazette:
…and here is #2:
I don’t know if these were the only two to come out. If there were more, I never saw them. These were 8 pages (two folded pieces of paper, unstapled), mostly handwritten text with illustrations, like this example from the poetry pages the comprised the centerspread of both issues:
…as well as the occasional comic strip:
The last page was given over to a continuing story titled “Beach Pad Blowout ’83” (with part one coming out in 1983, and part two in the second issue from ’84). This tale involved The Rats themselves, the group of folks responsible for the production of this publication (who went by names like “Mojo,” “Doodle,” “Mellow Roast,” and Squeaker,” though their secret identities were given in a credits box).
I can find no information online about them, which, I suppose, shouldn’t be a huge shock. Best I can surmise is that they were a comedy performance group of some sort, as the second issue contains the blurb
“Come see The Rats at Ventura College Theatre perform their political satire ‘Twisted World’ Jan. 29th 9:00 P.M. Yeah!”
Well, darn, 37 years later I’m kind of wishing I’d gone to see that. You know, put some of those names to faces.
Anyway, these two artifacts have been floating around in my possession for decades, in that I knew I never threw them out but I also never had any idea where I had them stored. A rational person would have kept them with my other comics and magazines, but they always seemed to end up in storage boxes with other papers.
Since this week I’d been digging through boxes looking for old computer stuff, I came across them again, and this time I made sure to 1) put them in bags and boards to continue to preserve them (surprisingly they’re still in pretty good shape) and 2) PUT THEM IN THE ‘ZINES BOXES WHERE THEY BELONG. Now, when I’m 70 years old in 2039, I’ll be able to go right to them when I want to look at them again.
Give it a week or two and the creator of the zine will leave a comment here. Pretty sure this has happened at least once on this blog.
Around University of Delaware in the early 90s there was a zine that got some record-shop distribution (and some music calendar ads from bars like The Stone Balloon) called “The Powerful Banana.” With comic strips called “The Gassy Guru” (a scatalogical gag about a holy man who can float on his own farts; at one point he pees on someone looking for enlightenment and says “urine lightened!”) and another one called “The Violent Pervert,” which I thankfully can remember no details about but the name.
I remember one night when I and another aspiring writer (who writes for Bloomberg News these days) were in a bar, talking with the editor/publisher of the mag. He was talking it up, and we were listening eagerly, thinking we were on the verge of getting our first big break. Then he showed us the magazine, and we both took two steps back. “Ummmmm… how about we get back to you?” And that was that. We spent the rest of the night flipping through the thing, alternately perplexed and horrified.
What do you use for Zine storage? Modern boxes are too big. I found some weird boxes at Office Depot that work if you use ‘em sideways, but… I’ve always wanted something proper.
Keef – explanations to come!
[…] past weekend, helping me out with some things and stuff. I still had the Gouda Gazettes featuring in a post here last week, and being that it was from Ralph’s store I originally obtained these back in the […]