The cartoonist John Holmstrom, was at the centre of american punk, in the 70s; being a co-founder of "Punk Magazine", and the illustrator behind the Ramones albums - Rocket to Russia, and Road to Ruin.
Above are two covers of "Punk Magazine" and an internal page of the magazine, which once again follow the punk ideology of being very self created, showing a disregard for any mass productive techniques at least on a visual aesthetic level.
Interview with John Holmstrom (extract) 2002 - outsiderzine.tripod.com
there's been alot of books coming out in the last few years about
"the history of punk" and what not. in most of em they make it sound
like punk ended in 79 and the movement destroyed itself. in alot of ways
maybe this is true, but the movement did go on... it just changed.
throughout the last 25 years though, there have always been bands who
kept the same spirit alive as they had in the 70's. what's your
opinion...? do you think punk died and had a revival in the 90's or do
you think it just wasn't in the public eye?
I am ambivalent about ending the story in 1979, but then again, it was an
end. When hardcore started, I rarely got the idea that those kids felt they
were carrying on the punk rock thing. It was a separate movement. I never
felt that grunge was a punk rock revival either.
Punk was definitely considered dead and finished with in 1979 by most of the
civilized world--even though I knew it wasn't. You had to read some of the
stuff in the media: "Punk's rotting corpse" "Punk Rock RIP" etc. Writers and
editors were sharpening their pencils to write "Punk is dead!" as soon as it
began. There was always a reaction against it, and when there was no
commercial success after a while, and then Blondie had a hit with a disco
record, well, it certainly seemed dead at the time. I remember Joey Ramone
saying in late 1979/early 1980 that he felt like the Ramones were the last
rock 'n' roll band in the world because they would never, ever make a disco
record at a time when every other punk band from the Clash to Lou Reed was
going disco. It was F'N scary.
- This extrct again points out the fact that there is initial opposition and denial of the worth of a subculture.
by James
