Wow Cool has relaunched it’s comics, zines and music mail order shop. All the fun is at: https://wowcool.com/. There are still at least a hundred books in stock that have not yet been posted to the store, but will be very soon. That includes all the in-print issues of Zap, Weirdo and Hi-Fructose; a couple dozen Top Shelf titles and many more. A few things haven’t shown up yet that we’re very excited about, including recent issues of King Cat (and the nearly completed issue 72), Jason Martin’s latest record, and a book and CD set from Dale Flattum (AKA Tooth/Agent Nova) of Steel Pole Bath Tub and Milk Cult Fame.
Are you going to be at APE 2011 in San Francisco this weekend? If so I look forward to seeing you there. I’ll be wandering around, talking to people, buying books and generally promoting Wow Cool.
Make sure you stop by the Sparkplug Booth – #121 – to pay your respects and support the Dylan Williams Memorial Scholarship Fund at Portland’s Independent Publishing Resource Center by purchasing a copy of Skim Lizard #5. Dylan did the cover art. It’s a really great anthology. A box of classic Puppy Toss publications was unearthed last weekend and we’re selling them for a good cause. You can also buy three issues of Skim Lizard online from Wow Cool. All proceeds go straight to the IPRC.
Following the jump is the full text of our press release. Which is also viewable with logos, photos and in different formats elsewhere on this site.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wow Cool Returns to Comic Book And Zine Retailing
Veteran Indie Publisher And Record Label Resumes Mail Order
Business After Thirteen Year Hiatus
Cupertino, California; October 1, 2011: Once a premier destination for fans of many photocopied pamphlets, including Cometbus, Dishwasher and Optic Nerve, during the 1990’s Zine Explosion, Wow Cool faded from view for many years. Now, after over a year of preparation, and six months of development, the long-running DIY clearinghouse has once again thrown it’s hat into the ring of Small Press Bookselling. The new WowCool.com store is being officially launched at 11am Pacific Time on Saturday, October First, 2011, marking the start of San Francisco’s APE, the Alternative Press Expo.
This new web store offers hundreds of titles by nearly as many artists, from comic book legends Alan Moore and Steve Ditko to the fresh talents of Hellen Jo and Michael DeForge. Books from over 20 publishing houses are represented, and new product is added weekly. The site is built on the robust X-Cart e-commerce platform and features SSL – Secured Socket Layer – protection; and, full integration with USPS and PayPal for a smooth and secure shopping experience. Wow Cool is committed to following what founder Marc Arsenault describes as “A greatly improved set of best practices for marketing, stocking and shipping these unique works of art”.
Wow Cool was founded in January 1988 by Marc Arsenault and cartoonists Tom Hart and Sam Henderson, while still students at New York City’s School of Visual Arts. Starting out as the label under which their various solo publications and the anthology Tuna Casserole were published, Wow Cool quickly started adding works by many other artists. The sole constant person through Wow Cool’s over 23 year history has been Marc Arsenault. The label emerged as a proper company and the largest American distributor of self-published comics and zines for much of the 1990s after its move to the San Francisco Bay area in February 1993. After surviving the media attention given to the zine explosion, Arsenault chose to return Wow Cool to it’s East Coast home and focus on the core artists associated with the label. Wow Cool returned to California in May, 2009.
About Wow Cool
Wow Cool is a multiple media studio, record label, publisher and mail order house based in Cupertino, California. Wow Cool operates a full photography studio; audio recording and video production facilities; and, has a range of graphic design and publishing capabilities–from desktop publishing to screen printing and custom manufacture of buttons and guitar picks. Wow Cool has released work in various media by Steven Cerio, Simon Gane, Sam Henderson, Mark Martin, Brown Cuts Neighbors, Evidence, Offset Needle Radius, nickname: Rebel, and many other artists. WowCool.com offers printed and recorded media in a range of styles and formats by artists both obscure and renowned.
Logos, press photos and a copy of this release in RTF and PDF formats can be found at: https://wowcool.com/Press.html
A detailed company history is at: https://wowcool.com/history.html
More information about Wow Cool’s mail order practices can be found here: https://wowcool.com/FAQ.html
