So, when it is very late at night and the brain is slowly unshriveling, or when it is morning and the daily ration of new sounds hasn’t started spinning on the stereo yet, we ask ourselves the inevitable “where the fuck is it all going??” And no simple answer has come up yet. Maybe it never will. Maybe it will go on developing, fusing and exploding without giving us the time to look back, look ahead, predict and analyze. Music for now means just that. You live it, you experience it, you consume it and you discard it. The record is a disposable item. The music magazine is another disposable item.

– Claude Bessy aka Kickboy Face, Slash #6, December 1977

Dreamers Rise on the early years of Antaeus.

Jonathan Lethem’s issue is entitled the “Chaldron Optical System.” It relates to his upcoming novel CHRONIC CITY and consists of a glasses case, a pair of clear glasses with text on each of the arms, and a care and maintenance manual written in both English and French. Jonathan’s issue is the result of a design collaboration with former Jack Spade designer Matt Singer and Selima Salaun of Selima Optique. This is their first collaborative endeavor under the banner of Project Selima and Matt. The Care and Maintenance brochure was designed by McFadden & Thorpe.

Cover by Ant Farm. Full issue available online here.

Full issue online here.

From a great Flickr set of scans from Omni magazine.

This is an image from the Gay Atomic Coloring Book by Eduardo Paolozzi that was part of Aspen no. 7 (“The British Issue”).

From the newly refreshed and subsequently deceased 02138 magazine.

The final issue never made it to the presses, but is available online here, and worth a look for Pentagram’s design.

I got a kick out of this clever design for the November issue of The Wire, which covers “unofficial channels” in music distribution.

Amazing scans of satirical Russian magazines published between 1905 and 1908. From The Nonist, of course.