The basements of Chicago have spawned a noisy, pugnacious little industry: self-published magazines.
Aimed at the erudite and hip, attention-grabbing local titles from The Baffler to WhiteWalls and TENbyTEN have won small but loyal audiences from New York to Los Angeles and beyond.
Now several of Chicago’s upstart journals are dealing with an unexpected state of affairs: They are encountering small signs of success.
J.C. Gabel, the 28-year-old editor of Stop Smiling, can’t hide the laugh in his voice. Gabel’s art-focused bimonthly “for high-minded lowlifes” recently signed a distribution deal with Rider Circulation Services aimed at expanding its national circulation from the current print run of 10,000 to at least 25,000 copies per issue.
“There is a sense that this is the place to be right now — there’s so much talent here, and a do-it-yourself attitude,” said Annette Ferrara, 31, whose color-splashed art and design journal TENbyTEN is closing a deal with a new publisher who plans to boost its print run from about 4,000 copies to 75,000, add more pages and put it out 10 times a year, instead of one or two.
“Usually these things fold after a couple of issues,” said WhiteWalls editor Anthony Elms, 33, who has seen his most recent issue excerpted in Harper’s magazine and featured on the public radio show “This American Life.”
The cool-kid magazines are getting hot.
“Chicago has shown that it can put itself on the map with smaller magazines,” said Erin Hogan, publicity director for the U. of C. Press, which is negotiating a distribution deal with WhiteWalls, and also distributes a series of pamphlets edited in the Hyde Park home of eminent anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, and published under the imprimatur of Prickly Paradigm Press.
Launched as improbable experiments, Chicago’s small-press journals range from Sahlin’s austere, type-only polemics to the most recent, all-poster issue of Select magazine — which aims to inspire an “interventionist art” of utopian street propaganda and peace activism.
Blowing in from various precincts, the journals share a certain common ground — a schoolyard freshness, an outsize ambition and a refusal to be defined by what you’ve read before. Seizing their place at the interstice between art and politics, several find themselves unexpectedly tipping toward financial stability.
The number of artist-driven magazines is exploding, in large part because of advances in desktop computer publishing, said David Platzker, executive director of Printed Matter, a non-profit New York City artists book and magazine distributor.
Copies of 10 or 15 new artists’ periodicals land in Printed Matter’s mailbox every month. Desperate to snare distribution and publishing deals — or just grab someone’s attention — many of the journals “are poorly crafted or not well thought-out [and] don’t last more than three issues,” Platzker said.
Chicago is a kingdom of these fussed-over labors of love. And if this burgeoning industry has a local epicenter, it is Quimby’s bookstore, at 1854 W. North Ave.
There, self-published journals are stacked in bright rows on wire racks. The offerings morph constantly. One shelf groans with thick zines that review and digest other zines.
Scrambled on a counter by the door are free fliers and giveaways that are quickly grabbed up, like You — each issue includes a single letter, addressed to You, in a stapled paper bag.
Some of the city’s best magazines cost as much as $12 an issue, but most have paid dearly for your attention. What they offer in return is a little inspiration. Take a chance, and subscribe to yourself, Chicago.
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Locating the zines
A few of the area bookstores that feature local small-press magazines:
– Barbara’s Bookstore: 3130 N. Broadway, 773-477-0411; or 1100 Lake St., Oak Park, 708-848-9140.
– Chic.ago Comics: 3244 N. Clark St., 773-528-1983 or 800-509-0333.
– City Newsstand: 4018 N. Cicero Ave., 773-545-7377; or 860 Chicago (at Main), Evanston, 847-425-8900.
– Dusty Groove America: 1120 N. Ashland Ave., 773-342-5800.
– Evil Clown: 3418 N. Halsted St., 773-472-4761.
– 57th Street Books: 1301 E. 57th St., 773-684-1300.
– Museum of Contemporary Art bookstore: 220 E. Chicago Ave., 312-397-4001.
– Quimby’s: 1854 W. North Ave., 773-342-0910.
– Reckless Records: 1532 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-235-3727; or 3161 N. Broadway, 773-404-5080.
– Seminary Co-op Bookstore: 5757 S. University Ave., 800-777-1456.
Women & Children First: 5233 N. Clark St., 773-769-9299.
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Zoning in on some of the best zines
Here’s a look at some of the city’s best zines.
WhiteWalls
When artist Buzz Spector co-founded WhiteWalls in 1977, “I envisioned it as something that would amuse a small number of people for a few years, then disappear,” Spector says.
Spector, who has moved on from WhiteWalls and now chairs the art department of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., launched the magazine as an exhibition venue for artists who use printed words as both material and subject.
Each issue is still “curated” by artists who present cutting-edge work without the filter of reviews and criticism. But now WhiteWalls is enjoying a conspicuous revival.
The most recent issue comprises 128 pages of inventions devised by prison inmates — a dazzling array of handy appliances fashioned from disposable razor blades, Popsicle sticks and dismantled toothbrushes.
The issue was curated by the Chicago artists group Temporary Services, along with a California inmate identified only as Angelo, who produced detailed instructions, laconic commentary and sensible black-and-white line illustrations showing how to make electric cigarette lighters and immersion heaters, as well as a chess set molded from toilet paper, sugar and water.
WhiteWalls’ influence has always greatly exceeded its subscription base. With an annual budget of about $30,000 — some of which comes from grants — it sends just two or three issues a year to about 500 homes, libraries and stores.
In an important 1987 issue, the magazine published Chicago-born artist Christopher Wool’s slang-inflected, erudite and emotional word-play paintings. And WhiteWalls has long championed the serendipitous, minimalist poetry of Chicago artist Helen Mirra.
Editor Anthony Elms is negotiating a distribution agreement with the University of Chicago Press aimed at greatly expanding WhiteWalls’ readership.
Elms, who assumed the editing position in 1997, has rekindled interest in the journal and used it to publish a vinyl record and four books — including Mirra’s lovely “Names & Poems.”
“I am interested in the messiness of everything,” Elms says. “I would rather print everything [an artist presents] regardless of whether I like it or not. I think the artist deserves a shot to present themselves.”
Issues are usually $8: WhiteWalls, P.O. Box 8204, Chicago, IL, 60680. www.whitewalls.org
TENbyTEN
Initially better known for its issue-release parties than the contents of its square pages, Annette Ferrara’s journal celebrates smart art, street-fad fashion, open-air architecture and cheap ways of making cool stuff.
In a recent issue, “Special Assignment” designer Don Guss explained how to make an elegant side table from cardboard boxes.
Named for its boxy format, this plush little square of a magazine isn’t guided by an aesthetic so much as a “code of ethics” that mandates living in style even when you’re just about broke. If you’re on a tight budget, one article begins, “It helps to have the right mental resources.”
TENbyTEN’s back pages are filled with spicy, finger-food reviews of worth-watching-for bands, films, gallery shows and architectural events.
Oldsters will reminisce over the soft-focus photo essay tour of Fullerton Avenue’s punk palace, the Fireside Bowl.
With a degree in art history, editor Ferrara was heading toward a career as a curator and writer when she and friends decided to try putting out their own magazine five years ago.
“There is a real chance for creative people to make a mark here” in Chicago, Ferrara says. “The field is wide open, and people give each other so much support.”
Issues are $7: TENbyTEN, 222 S. Morgan Drive, Chicago, IL 60607, www.tenbyten.net
Stop Smiling
Editor J.C. Gabel is obsessed with the best of 1970s journalism: the high, gonzo stylings of the early Spy and mature Esquire, the unblinking interviews that once distinguished Playboy.
“We want to preserve what made magazines cool,” Gabel says. “We are trying to create a timeless magazine.”
Launched as the literate, music and film fanzine of a 19-year-old drawn to the fluorescent lights of an all-night Kinko’s, Stop Smiling has become a richly framed snapshot of our current culture.
“We are trying to remove the fluff element of what’s become journalism, the dumbing down,” Gabel says.
Produced from Gabel’s Bucktown apartment and a New York office, Stop Smiling sells better in San Francisco and New York than Chicago, Gabel says. Each issue offers readers two or three alternate covers.
A recent issue has three, as it features interviews with actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, writer George Plimpton (likely the last conducted before he died in September) and former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne.
Typical of the Chicago journals, Stop Smiling refuses to exploit a traditional market niche and market itself to music lovers or journalists.
The magazine remains “a labor of love, because we’re not covering anything that will bring in lucrative ad dollars,” Gabel says.
“It took me years to assemble the people I have,” Gabel says. The process was “very Star Wars-ish.”
Issues are $5.95: PO BOX 577999, Chicago, IL 60657, www.stopsmilingonline.com
Prickly Paradigm Press
Often called one of America’s most profound and original living anthropologists, Marshall Sahlins is also a provocative essayist known for his stinging 1960s polemics against the Vietnam War.
Sahlins gathered a group of investors to revive Prickly Paradigm, the successor to a moribund British pamphlet series, and he has opened its pages to scholars who stretch beyond their disciplines to address contemporary culture, politics and issues of broad public concern.
Issues are $10: distributed through the University of Chicago Press, www.press.uchicago.edu
Select
Published and edited by 35-year-old Version Festival organizer Ed Marszewski, Select magazine aims to harness the energy emanating from Chicago’s basements, bars and galleries. Guest-curated by artist and designer Cody Hudson, Select’s most recent issue is made up of colorful, decidedly political 18-by-23-inch posters.
Often enhanced with a CD or DVD that includes music, videos or digital ephemera, Select prints about 3,500 of each issue, selling them at festivals, art events and bookstores, as well as through Tower Records stores.
Issues are $10: Select, 1542 N. Milwaukee Ave., www.lumpen.com
The Baffler
A flashy, snarky compendium of cultural criticism inspired by H.L. Mencken and punk rock, The Baffler has existed since 1988; after falling on hard times, it was recently revived by editor Thomas Frank — an expert at debunking the pomposities of power.
Issues are $7.50: The Baffler, P.O. Box 378293, Chicago, IL 60637, www.thebaffler.com
Bridge
A decidedly highbrow, 4-year-old, artists-produced journal, Bridge seeks to bind the horizons of literature, poetry, visual art and music. “I come with good will to make you a reading machine,” writes contributor Jessica Lowenthal in a recent issue.
Issues are $10: Bridge, 119 N. Peoria St., #3D, Chicago, IL 60607, www.bridgemagazine.org