LITTLE JOE
We love a good magazine launch… and the recent east London party thrown by Little Joe magazine to celebrate its first issue was well ace. Little Joe (named after the nickname filmmakers Paul Morrissey and Andy Warhol had for Joe Dallesandro, who starred in their collaborations) is the creation of London-based movie poster designer and film enthusiast Sam Ashby. As preparations for the magazine’s LA launch are finalised, Sam found the time to chat with Gym Class Magazine.
Little Joe magazine
Hey Sam. Thanks for chatting with Gym Class Magazine. We attended the recent London launch of your new magazine Little Joe. It was a great night. Did you enjoy it?
It’s an age-old dictum that having fun at your own party is never easy and that certainly held true that night. I think I was so busy rushing about, trying to talk to everyone that my memory of that night is just one big anxious blur.
Little Joe’s strap reads: “A magazine about queers and cinema, mostly.” Reading the magazine, it’s apparent movies have influenced your life significantly. What role did movies play in your life as a gay adolescent… and how has that role changed now you’re an adult?
I think I truly discovered my sexual identity through cinema. Films became an escape from the everyday trauma of being an awkward teenager and allowed me to explore ideas and feelings about myself that I would have never been able to otherwise. A documentary about Tom of Finland, Daddy and the Muscle Academy, was a standout examples of this. Watched late at night on Channel 4 at the age of 14, I don’t think I’ve been the same since. Nowadays I think it would be foolish to look to cinema to provide the same revelatory experience, but occasionally you discover something that really makes an impact and it’s the process of looking for those films that makes it so worthwhile.
When you’re not working on Little Joe, you’re a graphic designer specialising in film, books and music. Looking through your portfolio, you’ve designed some well coolio movie posters and cover art. Must be a dream job for a movie buff. This is an area of graphic design we know very little about, what’s the process of designing movie marketing collateral?
It can be a wonderful job. There is a special moment when you create an image that somehow manages to sum up the whole movie. Unfortunately, film marketing people have very different opinions, but occasionally the good ideas make it. It can be very frustrating though, just like any creative job where you actually have to work with people. The industry is having a difficult time at the moment, particularly the smaller, independent films which I specialise in. The distributors get scared and often this can lead to playing it safe. I’m much more of the thinking that this is the time that they should be taking the biggest risks and trying to make sure that their films stand out.
Inside the first issue of Little Joe
How long did it take you to put the first issue of Little Joe together? How did you secure so many first-class contributors?
It took much longer than I would have liked. Since it was my first magazine I really struggled to let it go. It went through numerous designs and I must have designed hundreds of covers for it, but ultimately I had to let it go. It was my baby. The contributors came gradually, but I found with a bit of persistence they were very happy to help out. I think the nature of Little Joe helps, it’s unusual to see a magazine approaching film in this way and people have really responded to that.
We chatted with Peter M Bracke in Gym Class Magazine issue #04. He authored the book Crystal Lake Memories (he’s recognised as an authority on the Friday the 13th franchise) and provided a commentary for the film’s international DVD release. In that commentary he highlights how a number of gay men are horror movies fans, drawing a parallel between the final girl archetype and the experiences of real-world gay men (feeling like an outsider and the process of coming out). Do you like horror movies? And do you believe sexuality has any bearing on that like (or dislike) for the slasher genre?
I am a big horror fan. There are many, many horror films out there that can be enjoyed on levels that I feel gay men might be sensitive to, there is a camp, overstated quality to a lot of them, a celebration of the monstrous. I have an appreciation of trash, and horror films fulfill that like no other genre. But I do believe in the universal appeal of horror films so I don’t necessarily draw parallels between being gay and that enjoyment on the levels that Peter is suggesting, although it’s something I’m going to be exploring in future issues of Little Joe.
Little Joe is being launched in Los Angeles on 12 June. Good luck with it. We think the magazine is great and wish you every success. Thanks for your time. Keep on truckin’.
Thanks Steven. Yes, Rick Castro is throwing me a little party at his Antebellum Gallery in Hollywood. It’s properly exciting!
Thanks Sam! And have fun Stateside!
More information: Little Joe / Sam Ashby / LA launch details
OKTAVILLA
Oktavilla is a Swedish graphic design agency with, perhaps, the most delightful feature wall we’ve seen. It’s created by architects Elding Oscarson from thousands of magazines. We’re suffering from a case of serious magazine feature wall envy.
The above photos are by Åke E:son Lindman, lifted from Elding Oscarson’s site… hope that’s coolio.
Originally seen over on GuteSeiten.
VERONICA SO
Veronica fronting TEETH!!!
A while back we caught up with TEETH!!! front-woman Veronica So for a Q&A in issue #02. Since then she’s started her own zine (it’s called L_A_N and is a celebration of fashion and futurism – win!), she’s written an article for Gym Class Magazine #06, and TEETH!!! has released a single! It’s all go. We caught up with her for a chat…
Hey Veronica, thanks for chatting with Gym Class Magazine. How are you doing?
Great! I’ve been very busy in the past few weeks, art directing look-book shoots for my talented graduating BA Central Saint Martin friends. This is the most exciting time of the year for me – collaborations and graduating projects mean big productions and ideas!
You’ve started a magazine called L_A_N. It’s a fashion-meets-futurism mash-up. Looks ace. What can you tell us about it?
L_A_N was my own graduate project from Saint Martins. I studied Fashion Communications there, but wanted to make a publication that didn’t think from a solely fashion point of view.
I grew up in Silicon Valley amidst legions of budding computer engineers and technology conventions and geek culture. Being close to Hollywood lent some romanticism to the complexity and mystery of technology I didn’t fully understand.
With Skywalker Ranch and Apple and Pixar being next door neighbours, fantasy, science fiction and the realistic future seemed kind of plausible – and that’s excited me ever since. It’s geeky – dressing and studying for the future – but I think that’s what L_A_N wants to be: the guide for that kind of epic and fantastical mentality.
Spreads from the first issue of L_A_N
We understand you’re collaborating with Gym Class Magazine fav Vanessa Lam for L_A_N’s second issue. What can we expect?
Vanessa has handed me all her raw visual and statistical data she used to make her UFO Infographic Zine [check out the Gym Class Magazine Q&A with Vanessa here]. It will probably map out how meticulous her research is and how awesome she is in general.
L_A_N has been flirting with Wired magazine on Twitter. How’s that working out?
Wired is a frigid bitch. Or maybe just shy. It’s cute but I’m starting to think DIS Magazine is hotter. Anyway, if you see him online tell him I said hi.
What’s your background/fashion cred?
I just got some major cred by being Dazed and Confused’s July zine of the month. Sometimes I get street cred by being in TEETH!!!, but that’s cause Simon and Ximon (my other bandmates) are so cool.
In addition to your L_A_N editorial responsibilities, you’ve interviewed an A-list fashion magazine editor for Gym Class Magazine #06. Exciting! Thanks! Without giving the specifics away (we want to keep the person top secret for the time being), what can readers expect?
She. IS. Fierce. This woman is giving a platform to the woman as an individual, not who or what fashion wants you to be. That is rare. Plus she tells amazing stories and is very, very funny.
Gym Class Magazine ran a Q&A with you and your fellow TEETH!!! band members in issue #02. What has the band been up to since last time we spoke?
We seem to have gotten a lot more professional lately. We now have a famous booking agent and PR people. We are going to play Latitude and we get radio play. Our 7” just came out this week with our single See Spaces on it. I can smell management… totally insane!
Thanks again for your time, Veronica. Good luck with L_A_N and TEETH!!! You be rockin’ it.
Thanks, bu!!
More information: L_A_N official website / L_A_N on Facebook / TEETH!!!
MIKE NELSON
Back in 2007 we checked out A Psychic Vacuum, the spooky cool Mike Nelson art installation in New York. After signing a declaration waiving our rights should we injure ourselves, we walked around the self-guided exhibit (in a disused, decaying office/warehouse building in the City’s Lower East Side). We wandered in and out of meticulously choreographed rooms (that looked as if they could have been lifted directly from the film set of an eighties middle-American horror movie) and down disorientating corridors (one with a discarded straightjacket on the floor and baseball bats hanging on the wall – one baseball bat was missing from it’s wall mount… cool touch). I took the above pic in one of the installation’s rooms; set up to look like an abandoned redneck bar. So ace.
Anyhoo… Brit artist Nelson (geez, that sounds too formal… from now on let’s call him ‘our mate Mike’) has another installation up and running, this time in one of the rooms at the Tate Britain in London. I can’t find anything about it on the web to link to. Strange, I know. But it’s definitely worth a look in if your local (it’s meant to rain on Sunday, go on – check it out).
JASON WINGROVE
Ace promo vid by UK-born, Australian-bred director Jason Wingrove for an upcoming documentary celebrating Australia’s love for the coast and ocean pools. Featured here is the Bondi Icebergs ocean pool in Sydney.
I’ve walked by this pool many times and romanticised about how lovely it would be to live in Sydney, to have a corner apartment in this building, to sip flat whites in the sun in the beach-side suburb of Bronte, and to be a Bondi Icebergs member. Ah… how’s that for a Great A-stralian Dream.
WALLPAPER
Inspired by the customised Wallpaper* cover created by We Made This, we’ve gone and created one ourselves. It’s up there… so, watcha reckon?
We can feel a Yellow Pencil coming on. LOL. ROFL. WoOt! Cough… splutter…
Check out some of the other customised covers here.
EVENTS
It’s all happening this weekend in ol’ London town. The Photographers’ Gallery is hosting a photography-based self-publishing event curated by the fine folk over at Self Publish, Be Happy. Looks ace. Sixty contemporary self-published photobooks, selected by Self Publish, Be Happy founder Bruno Ceschel, will be on display. Nice one.
And just a hop, skip and jump away over at the Orange Dot Gallery, the well rad dudes of Zineswap fame will be kicking off their month-long residency. Their vast zine archive – geez, man… must be hundreds of zines by now – will be on show until 25 June. They’ve even had some fancy-pants bespoke shelving created. WoOt!
See ya there, peeps.
JUDY KAUFMANN
Lovely A3 print by Judy Kaufmann available to buy over on Etsy. And it’s just US$28. Hit up the link, peeps.
Originally spotted over on Design Work Life.
QR CODE MYSTERY
Director Joseph Kahn (we like him cause he kinda looks like someone you’d expect to run into at your fav comic shop) has knocked out the latest music vid for Kylie Minogue – All the Lovers. And it’s well ace.
In the vid we see Kylie (a natural treasure, surely) lifted high among downtown LA’s office buildings, atop a mountain of white underwear clad models. Yes, peeps. It’s as good as it sounds. Win! It’s like a mash-up between Kylie’s vid for Slow and a TV advert for skincare products. We likey.
There’s also a white horse running around, a massive Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade style white elephant balloon floating overhead, white doves being released, and more white balloons floating from a white convertible BMW.
Intriguingly, a QR code makes a cameo at the start of the vid. We need to know where this code links. It’s all very exciting.
If you work out the QR code mystery, let us know.
Check out the vid here. Summer anthem, anyone?
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