Before we begin, a quick history lesson:
The printing press was invented 1200 years ago (give or take a few centuries). It was a powerful technology for its time — like the Internet, a flying car, and some straight-up magic all mixed together— and, like all powerful technologies, was both embraced and feared by the powers that be. Locked up for the next 700 years or so creating religious texts of one kind or another, print remained the exclusive domain of the world’s elites. But, even while they concentrated their power, they must have known that they were sitting on a bomb poised to go off.
It was a bomb known as cheap, simple communication, and once it exploded, print flourished as a populist medium. The invention created trouble for the powerful at the same time that the powerful learned to exploit it to their own means. Bibles were replaced on the press by newspapers, by pornography, by fantasy and adventure, by hopes and dreams and the means to crush the very same. Print became the world, and the world became printed.
Which brings us to today.
Today, a millennia past the cranking of the first printing press, print is slowly being turned into tiny charges of electricity and flashes of light. While the migration from paper to the Internet may be inevitable, it’s nowhere close to complete. And while we still can, we thought it would be nice to once again celebrate those that continue to make books, zines, comics, and other wonderful pieces of printed matter (each of which, in turn, make print matter).
Welcome to the second installment in our “Revenge of Print” theme issues. It’s been a while since our first — three years, actually. What’s taken so long? Well, we’ve been busy making print of our own, with this magazine and our line of books, which continues to grow. In addition, we’ve been struggling with some of the harder aspects of print— like maintaining distribution of printed matter in an increasingly digital age. Yet mostly, we’ve been busy writing about all sorts of other parts of this amazing culture.
But we’re back with “Revenge of Print 2” and with it comes another group of amazing writers, cartoonists, publishers, and more. Like our last Revenge issue, most of the interviews are accompanied by writing samples— a varied and engaging collection of texts that further demonstrate just how vital print still is.
There’s a lot to read and think about in this issue; we hope you enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed putting it together for you.
It’s ironic in some ways to be doing the second“Revenge of Print” issue while
concurrently working on a ground-up rebuild of the Punk Planet website; but in other ways it only reinforces how vital print is — and how different the web is. Where print excels— portability, length, depth — is exactly where the web falls short. And where print stumbles— immediacy, interactivity, community — is were the web excels. While Punk Planet has been online for ten years or so, we’ve never had a website that fully addresses the strengths of the web. I’m happy to say that we now do. Log on and help build a truly independent online community through user blogs, robust forums, comments, and much more. It’s an exciting new world for Punk Planet — join us.
Finally, we’d like to welcome two new columnists to the issue: Johnny Temple, who we work extensively with on our Punk Planet Books partnership, and Josh Hooten, who returns to Punk Planet after a multi-year hiatus. Both Johnny and Josh bring their unique voices to a revamped columns section. We’ll be adding a few more voices into the mix as the year progresses, as well, so stay tuned.
Happy reading!
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