ZINING INFLUENCES

In my zining there was definitely some zines that profoundly inspired me. One of the earliest was Jim, which was self-published at first by Jim Woodring, but I latched on to the first Fantagraphics issue staring at me on a shelf in the Northern BC town that I lived in. I was in high school, I dared myself to buy it. I'd never seen anything like it, it makes sense that I got into Captain Beefheart at the same time. Then I started corresponding with the man and ordering his mail-order art booklets and wildness. Meeting him at the age of 19 profoundly affected me for life, this big bearded cigar-chomping man took me to Robert Crumb's favourite diner The Doghouse. An incredible man. Those issues are reprinted in the Book Of Jim. Alas, some of those mail-order booklets are unavailable. But I am sure he'd put them up somewhere if he wanted to.
So many other zines have inspired me in my zine-making: Rollerderby, Breakfast without Meat (by Gregg Turkington who later became a great friend, we'd do so many projects together and he'd help me out so much, someone should really put these later issues into a book), and ones that I'd later contribute to such as Flatter and Bananafish.
Zines are a very pre-internet force and have even undergone a nice revival. Roctober and Cinema Sewer still come out, God bless em, and a myriad of art booklets pop up in wonderful random ways. Marco Bello put together Nog a Dod, a book that documents that whole West Coast Canuck scene etcetera where we were all making crazee art booklets. I still do my art booklets and see new doozies pop up.

But there's one, one that never gets talked about.

It inspired me to make a new Bunyon zine a buncha years (late 90s?) back after a two-year hiatus and after the whole zine revolution had puttered. It gave me momentum. This gal, Christine Corlett-spelling? unsure- was working at the Good Jacket store (that place sold vintage but also had the craziest shows, the first Canned Hamm show was there). She saw the July Fourth Toilet easter show (where Jason Mclean and Heather Copeland built me a big foam bunny outfit and we played songs about bunnies, one song about Night Of the Lepus, another about shitting eggs, Here comes Peter Cottontail, The Bunny Hop, et al, odd children's music sound that i loved to explore, I may have puked off the side of the stage, and challenged a biker to a fight but he just kept laughing as I pummeled) and dug it so we started talking. Then she showed me her zines. WHY DOESN'T ANYONE TALK ABOUT THESE? Art Hussy they were called and they blew my mind with their freedom. I haven't seen her in years. Where is she? What else has she done? Can anyone fill me in? I hope she's still making art. I only have two issues, wish I had more. That next ish of Bunyon that these art Hussy zines inspired was the best one.
(natch: if you are her and want these images removed, let me know and I will but the world needs to see these)...