This is the first item in our nostalgic look back that has a serious cringe element for me. The first couple of posts were not really my work. This one is another story. The very first Wow Cool mailorder catalog is a spectacular mess on the inside. Typography and stats and scans were begged, borrowed and stolen – rendered on every reproductive device available. Ben Jackson did any of the layout and production work that actually looked slick. It didn’t matter because it still got murdered by the terrible printer we went with. At the time this came out the Wow Cool founders had become divided geographically – Sam was still in New York City, Tom was in Kingston, New York and I was back in Schenectady. Each of us were putting out our own things – usually under the Wow Cool banner. The biggest news otherwise here was that we had added distribution and in some cases production for minicomics by Wayno, Dennis Worden and Spookyworld (The Pee Dog people). We’d also put out our first major release by other artists – Left Hand of The Nursery Man/Astronaut Hair – a book and tape set by Steven Cerio and Alexander Ross. I had also joined Brown Cuts Neighbors at that point, so more of the music and video had started to creep into the mix.
The front cover is a collage I made featuring art from various books we sold. Artists include: Ion, Wayno, Gary Panter, Mark Sunshine, Tom Hart, Chris Capuozzo, Mark Marek, Ben Jackson, Burt Schlatter, David Sandlin and Sam Henderson. The back cover is a drawing of Fluffy by Paul Komoda with excessive embellishment by myself.
