{"id":106518,"date":"2025-10-21T12:13:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/?post_type=perspectives-article&p=106518"},"modified":"2025-10-21T12:22:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T16:22:28","slug":"punk-magazine","status":"publish","type":"perspectives-article","link":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/perspectives-article\/punk-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"Punk<\/em> Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

In April 1976, in the third issue of Punk<\/em> magazine, John Holmstrom wrote, \u201cAny kid can pick up a guitar and become a rock\u2019n\u2019roll star, despite or because of his lack of ability, talent, intelligence, limitations and\/or potential, and usually does so out of frustration, hostility, a lot of nerve and a need for ego fulfilment.\u201d Holmstrom\u2019s editorial evoked the irreverent spirit of New York City\u2019s punk rock scene, centered on CBGB, a club on the Lower East Side\u2014but it also voiced Punk<\/em>\u2019s guiding philosophy. As a scrappy print publication crafted by amateurs, Punk<\/em> was the embodiment of punk culture\u2019s do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic: a firm belief that individuals should express themselves by creating their own culture on their own terms.<\/p>\n

\"Punk

John Holmstrom<\/p><\/div>\n

When Holmstrom and his friends Legs McNeil and Ged Dunn Jr. founded Punk<\/em> in 1975, \u201cpunk culture\u201d didn\u2019t really exist as a describable concept. Rock critics like Lester Bangs of Creem<\/em> had used the term to describe a raw, stripped-down style of rock music. But it was Holmstrom, the publication\u2019s editor, who narrowed the cultural features of New York\u2019s nightlife into something called \u201cpunk.\u201d As McNeil recalled in Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk<\/em><\/a>, \u201cThe word \u2018punk\u2019 seemed to sum up the thread that connected everything we liked\u2014drunk, obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, funny, ironic, and things that appealed to the darker side.\u201d With Punk<\/em> magazine, its founders kick-started a publication as creative and zany as the scene they were documenting.<\/p>\n

If you were a rock and roll fan living on the Lower East Side in the 1970s, you could have purchased a copy of Punk<\/em> for a dollar or less at CBGB. Flipping through its pages\u2014made of cheap newsprint or glossy paper\u2014you\u2019d find a wide range of coverage. You might have perused a feature proclaiming Marlon Brando to be \u201cthe Original Punk\u201d or read a profile that screamed you just had to be there<\/em> when Patti Smith or the Dictators performed at CBGB. You could have been inspired to thrift a leather jacket by Roberta Bayley\u2019s iconic photographs of the Ramones, or laughed at one of Holmstrom\u2019s comic strips, crammed with caricatures and juvenile humor. If you were lucky, you might have scored a special issue composed of photo comics: stories told through choreographed images of scenesters overlaid with speech and text bubbles. \u201cThe Legend of Nick Detroit\u201d was an action-packed detective story starring Richard Hell, while \u201cMutant Monster Beach Party\u201d featured Debbie Harry and Joey Ramone as its romantic leads. If you had a keen eye, you would have spotted Andy Warhol, Peter Frampton, and Joan Jett making cameo appearances.<\/p>\n

Punk<\/em> wasn\u2019t built to last. As a DIY publication devoted to an underground culture, it had difficulty attracting sponsors, who probably weren\u2019t impressed by its offbeat voice and inconsistent publishing schedule. A single issue was taxing to produce, and it showed. Articles were lettered by hand, as this made them cheaper to print than typewritten ones, and Holmstrom\u2019s bold and comical illustrations\u2014inspired by those of Mad<\/em> magazine founder Harvey Kurtzman, his teacher at the School of Visual Arts\u2014were already time-consuming before the cartoonist took over managing the entire publication\u2019s operations in 1977. Punk<\/em> shuttered in 1979 following the suicide of its primary financial backer, Thomas For\u00e7ade of\u00a0High Times\u00a0<\/em>magazine.<\/p>\n

However, this was far from the end for punk culture\u2014thanks to Punk<\/em> magazine. At its peak circulation, the publication printed over 23,000 copies an issue, but its reach went far beyond its physical distribution across the United States and the United Kingdom. Because of the magazine\u2019s name, its staff were often the first to be interviewed by mainstream media outlets attempting to understand the culture. Punk<\/em> also inspired a wave of DIY publishing that became the foundation of punk\u2019s rich print culture. As Holmstrom recalls in The Best of Punk Magazine<\/em>, his work directly inspired a boom in DIY publications including Sniffin\u2019 Glue<\/em> and Ripped and Torn <\/em>in Britain, alongside Slash<\/em>, Flipside<\/em>, and Search & Destroy <\/em>in California. Punk culture had only just begun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Punk<\/em> magazine embodied\u2014and helped define\u2014the DIY ethic of punk culture in the 1970s. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":106521,"template":"","aha-topic":[],"month":[560],"geographic-taxonomy":[56],"perspectives-section":[602],"post-type":[],"thematic-taxonomy":[18],"year":[875],"class_list":{"0":"post-106518","1":"perspectives-article","2":"type-perspectives-article","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","5":"hentry","6":"month-september","7":"geographic-taxonomy-united-states","8":"perspectives-section-perspectives-ehah","9":"thematic-taxonomy-cultural","10":"year-875","15":"year-2025","16":"has-featured-image"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/perspectives-article\/106518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/perspectives-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/perspectives-article"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/perspectives-article\/106518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106530,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/perspectives-article\/106518\/revisions\/106530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"aha-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/aha-topic?post=106518"},{"taxonomy":"month","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/month?post=106518"},{"taxonomy":"geographic-taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/geographic-taxonomy?post=106518"},{"taxonomy":"perspectives-section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/perspectives-section?post=106518"},{"taxonomy":"post-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-type?post=106518"},{"taxonomy":"thematic-taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematic-taxonomy?post=106518"},{"taxonomy":"year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/year?post=106518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}