My house is overwhelmed with boxes of papers I've saved year by year. They are taking up so much space that I have to pull them out and re-cycle most of the papers in the boxes, expired financial documents mostly. There are statements from accounts that don't exist any more, from banks that don't exist any more. I am told I don't need to keep records for taxes that go back more than 7 years, unless I'm under suspicion of doing something wrong, which I am not.
The papers I keep are from conventions I entered, or clients I did commissions for, or from interesting places I visited. And every so often I find a long-lost treasure. This drawing above is one of them. Maybe not a treasure, but long-lost. Back in 2000 I took over the editorship of a small "participatory" literary magazine called "Golden-APA." For those who know nothing of this extinct custom, I will explain. An APA, which stands for "Amateur Publishing Association," is a "do-it-yourself" magazine where the subscribers send in their own content, all prepared and printed. The editor makes enough copies to send to each member and collates them into a sheaf. Then he/she mails out to the participants the bundles of copies which are now in stapled magazine form. About fifteen or twenty members sent in entries every few months.
There may be a couple of paper APAs still active, but most such literary efforts are now internet-based. In 2000, some of the entries were already sent through internet for later printing. As the editor, I was responsible for the cover design and my own entry, as well as the collating and administration. This image is the first cover I did for my tenure at the APA.
"Golden-APA" was originally founded by fans of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's ILLUMINATUS fantasy trilogy. The books are profane, satirical romps through conspiracy theory and American pop culture of the 60s. The "collage" style of my ink drawing mashes together many images from the books imitating the authors' chaotic style. The box at the top was where the title was typeset. This illustration disappeared after publication and I thought I had lost it, but there it was buried in my box of papers from Year 2000.
"Golden-APA" is no more. I closed the magazine down in 2003, due to lack of interest of the participants. They migrated onto LiveJournal and I started the first ELECTRON BLUE blog, which is now active again as ELECTRON BLUE 2.
2 comments:
OMG nudity from Hannah...er Pyracantha!! I like the penwork and it is a shame in many ways that these APAs have gone the way of the DoDo! I used to be part of one called "Paper Phantasies" it was prettyboy art mostly, but I got much inspiration from it and many well know artists participated.
I couldn't find a link to Electron Blue 2 and had to google... I am glad you've got it set up for comments this time!
Post a Comment