Bad mags

Tom Brinkmann’s site for Bad Mags, a book “due in 2005,” is such a train wreck you might find it curious that I’m citing it as rich in design resources, but there it is.

Dig deeper: there’s an impressive collection of sixties and seventies zines, sorted by category (Sharon Tate, true crime, occult sex, bikers, punk, blue films) and by publisher (I’m unfamiliar with their names—Seven Seventy, GSN/Classic, TNC/Dominion, Pendulum/Gallery Press, Sari/Press Arts—but almost all of them were based in Los Angeles or the San Fernando Valley and carry particular house vernaculars). Warning: the website loads pretty slowly, so you might want to get a cup of coffee in the meantime.

A small sampling of the wares, displayed here (click through for larger images from the website), reveal some pretty cool work, heavy on the clip art and tabloid look but graphically bold, smart, and fun. (Note that promiscuous font-mixing has a long and glorious history, even in the days of paste-up.)