Rina writes, “Join SF in SF and PM Press for an evening with ON THE GROUND: An Illustrated Anecdotal History of the Sixties Underground Press in the U.S. with Trina Robbins, Billy X. Jennings, Judy Gumbo Albert and Terry Bisson. Join contributors to the original underground press movement in discussion, reading, and what’s bound to be interesting debate!” As with all SF in SF events, it’s free: Mar 31, 6PM, 582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery, San Francisco, CA 94104. Bonus Reading This Saturday – Sixties Underground Press (via Underground press history event in San Francisco this Saturday - Boing Boing) Shouts to Cory Doctorow for the post. Bummed I’m not going to be out there to participate…guaranteed to be a great event. If you’re in San Francisco you should definitely hit this up.
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Rina writes, “Join SF in SF and PM Press for an evening with ON THE GROUND: An Illustrated Anecdotal History of the Sixties Underground Press in the U.S. with Trina Robbins, Billy X. Jennings, Judy Gumbo Albert and Terry Bisson. Join contributors to the original underground press movement in discussion, reading, and what’s bound to be interesting debate!” As with all SF in SF events, it’s free: Mar 31, 6PM, 582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery, San Francisco, CA 94104. Bonus Reading This Saturday – Sixties Underground Press

(via Underground press history event in San Francisco this Saturday - Boing Boing)

Shouts to Cory Doctorow for the post. Bummed I’m not going to be out there to participate…guaranteed to be a great event. If you’re in San Francisco you should definitely hit this up.

Source: Boing Boing

Book signing this Sunday! Founded in New York City in the mid-1960s by self-educated ghetto kid and painter Ben Morea, the Black Mask group melded the ideas and inspiration of Dada and the Surrealists with the anarchism of the Durruti Column from the Spanish Revolution. With a theory and practice that had much in common with their contemporaries the San Francisco Diggers, Dutch Provos and the French Situationists—who famously excommunicated three of the four members of the British section of the Situationist International for associating too closely with Black Mask—the group intervened spectacularly in the art, politics and culture of their times. From shutting down the Museum of Modern Art to protesting Wall Street’s bankrolling of war, from battling with Maoists at SDS conferences to defending the Valerie Solanas shooting of Andy Warhol, Black Mask successfully straddled the counterculture and politics of the 1960s and remained the Joker in the pack of both sides of “The Movement.” By 1968 Black Mask dissolved into “The Family” (popularly known as Up Against The Wall Motherfucker—the name to which they signed their first leaflet), which combined the confrontational theater and tactics of Black Mask with a much more aggressively “street” approach in dealing with the police and authorities. Dubbed a “street gang with analysis,” they influenced everyone from the Weathermen to the “hippy” communal movements. By the end of the 1960s, facing increased police attention Ben Morea “disappeared” into the rural communal movement and anonymity. Galvanized by the current Imperial wars, he is starting to re-emerge to talk of the legacy and history of Black Mask and The Family and their relevance to the struggles today. About On the Ground: In four short years (1965-1969) the underground press grew from five small newspapers in as many cities in the U.S. to over 500 newspapers—with millions of readers—all over the world. Comprised of stories told by the people involved and over 100 full-color images taken from a broad range of underground newspapers, On the Ground provides a true window into the spirit of the times. Join editor Sean Stewart (that’s me, nerds), Ben Morea and Josh MacPhee (inside design/layout) for a book signing and discussion at Book Thug Nation in Williamsburg this Sunday (3/18) at 7:30pm. Hope to see you there…it’s gonna be a dope night. Please help get the word out; reblog, facebook, tweet, take a picture of your computer screen with instagram, all that shit…
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Book signing this Sunday!

Founded in New York City in the mid-1960s by self-educated ghetto kid and painter Ben Morea, the Black Mask group melded the ideas and inspiration of Dada and the Surrealists with the anarchism of the Durruti Column from the Spanish Revolution. With a theory and practice that had much in common with their contemporaries the San Francisco Diggers, Dutch Provos and the French Situationists—who famously excommunicated three of the four members of the British section of the Situationist International for associating too closely with Black Mask—the group intervened spectacularly in the art, politics and culture of their times. From shutting down the Museum of Modern Art to protesting Wall Street’s bankrolling of war, from battling with Maoists at SDS conferences to defending the Valerie Solanas shooting of Andy Warhol, Black Mask successfully straddled the counterculture and politics of the 1960s and remained the Joker in the pack of both sides of “The Movement.”

By 1968 Black Mask dissolved into “The Family” (popularly known as Up Against The Wall Motherfucker—the name to which they signed their first leaflet), which combined the confrontational theater and tactics of Black Mask with a much more aggressively “street” approach in dealing with the police and authorities. Dubbed a “street gang with analysis,” they influenced everyone from the Weathermen to the “hippy” communal movements.

By the end of the 1960s, facing increased police attention Ben Morea “disappeared” into the rural communal movement and anonymity. Galvanized by the current Imperial wars, he is starting to re-emerge to talk of the legacy and history of Black Mask and The Family and their relevance to the struggles today.

About On the Ground:

In four short years (1965-1969) the underground press grew from five small newspapers in as many cities in the U.S. to over 500 newspapers—with millions of readers—all over the world. Comprised of stories told by the people involved and over 100 full-color images taken from a broad range of underground newspapers, On the Ground provides a true window into the spirit of the times.

Join editor Sean Stewart (that’s me, nerds), Ben Morea and Josh MacPhee (inside design/layout) for a book signing and discussion at Book Thug Nation in Williamsburg this Sunday (3/18) at 7:30pm.

Hope to see you there…it’s gonna be a dope night.

Please help get the word out; reblog, facebook, tweet, take a picture of your computer screen with instagram, all that shit…

On The Ground mention at Justseeds

Shouts to the homie Josh MacPhee from Justseeds.org who did the inside design of my book. 

“As a writer, I didn’t care about Simon & Schuster; I wanted to be in the East Village Other. That was my idea of the standard of excellence—the underground press.” —John Sinclair in On the Ground

As far as publishing goes, PM Press is my idea of the standard of excellence and a large part of that is being able to work with people like Josh, who went above and beyond in designing the interior and tackling the layout. Perhaps the best praise for what Josh did with the book comes from Ron Jacobs who said:

“Like the papers his interviewees are remembering, the most striking thing about On the Ground is the layout. Even though I know the book was composed on a computer screen, the book looks as if it were laid out via the old cut and paste method by folks possibly stoned on weed and a day or two with minimal sleep–just like many issues of almost every paper Stewart discusses.”

As a reminder signed copies are available in my webstore with free priority shipping, and is also available from: amazon, b&n, your local indie, and from the publisher

One of the many visual manifestos by the Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers featured in my book, On The Ground, which was just released by PM Press. Robert Newman just put up a review and preview of the book over at the Society of Publication Designers. Check it out: http://www.spd.org/2011/11/on-the-ground-new-book-collect.php Appreciate the kind words Robert!
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One of the many visual manifestos by the Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers featured in my book, On The Ground, which was just released by PM Press.

Robert Newman just put up a review and preview of the book over at the Society of Publication Designers. Check it out:

http://www.spd.org/2011/11/on-the-ground-new-book-collect.php

Appreciate the kind words Robert!

PM Press just released my book, On the Ground: An Illustrated Anecdotal History of the Sixties Underground Press in the U.S., and it should be in stores this week. Shouts to the homie Simon Benjamin who designed the cover. also on vimeo Above is a short video of amateur hand model and expert book flipper Kensey checking out the book. I’m really happy with how it turned out and whether you’re new to this shit, have read the history, or lived through it, there’s plenty here for you. There are over 120 full color scans from my collection of underground newspapers and comix, the great majority of which have never been published before. In addition to the images, I also have testimony from 24 veterans of the sixties underground press. Included are: Judy Gumbo Albert, Bill Ayers, Jeffrey Blankfort, Paul Buhle (preface), Emory Douglas, Thorne Dreyer, Alice Embree, Al Goldstein, Billy X Jennings, Michael Kleinman, Paul Krassner, Art Kunkin, Ben Morea, Abe Peck, Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez, Jeff Shero, Skip Shockley, Peter Simon, John Sinclair, Howard Swerdloff, Ron Turner, Harvey Wasserman, John Wilcock, and Allen Young.If your local bookstore hasn’t already ordered it their buyers should be fired or at the very least harassed. If you are a more gentle and forgiving soul than I am, you can politely request it and they should be able to get the book as easily and quickly as they can get a restock of the latest tween fantasy novella. It’s also available directly from the publisher, and is of course available from all the usual suspects online. In addition, I’m selling signed and personalized copies in my webstore.  I’m charging the full $20 sticker price but am offering free priority shipping within the U.S. and $10 global priority everywhere else in the world. I also have some die-cut stickers of the iconic Frank Cieciorka clenched fist coming in sometime this week that I’ll add to every order that goes out. No matter where you buy, steal, or flip through it, if you like the book definitely leave a review on Amazon—those reviews help more than you would imagine.Hope you guys dig it.
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PM Press just released my book, On the Ground: An Illustrated Anecdotal History of the Sixties Underground Press in the U.S., and it should be in stores this week. Shouts to the homie Simon Benjamin who designed the cover.

also on vimeo

Above is a short video of amateur hand model and expert book flipper Kensey checking out the book. I’m really happy with how it turned out and whether you’re new to this shit, have read the history, or lived through it, there’s plenty here for you. There are over 120 full color scans from my collection of underground newspapers and comix, the great majority of which have never been published before. In addition to the images, I also have testimony from 24 veterans of the sixties underground press. Included are: Judy Gumbo Albert, Bill Ayers, Jeffrey Blankfort, Paul Buhle (preface), Emory Douglas, Thorne Dreyer, Alice Embree, Al Goldstein, Billy X Jennings, Michael Kleinman, Paul Krassner, Art Kunkin, Ben Morea, Abe Peck, Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez, Jeff Shero, Skip Shockley, Peter Simon, John Sinclair, Howard Swerdloff, Ron Turner, Harvey Wasserman, John Wilcock, and Allen Young.

If your local bookstore hasn’t already ordered it their buyers should be fired or at the very least harassed. If you are a more gentle and forgiving soul than I am, you can politely request it and they should be able to get the book as easily and quickly as they can get a restock of the latest tween fantasy novella. It’s also available directly from the publisher, and is of course available from all the usual suspects online. In addition, I’m selling signed and personalized copies in my webstore.  I’m charging the full $20 sticker price but am offering free priority shipping within the U.S. and $10 global priority everywhere else in the world. I also have some die-cut stickers of the iconic Frank Cieciorka clenched fist coming in sometime this week that I’ll add to every order that goes out.

No matter where you buy, steal, or flip through it, if you like the book definitely leave a review on Amazon—those reviews help more than you would imagine.

Hope you guys dig it.

Was walking past St. Mark’s Bookshop last night and Kensey spotted my book (On The Ground) sitting in their window display. That’s love! and here it is inside on the shelf, not bad company. If your local store doesn’t carry it you should definitely order it and/or harass them…the book has full distribution and it’s as easy for them as ordering Oprah’s latest selection. Tomorrow I’ll put up more info and a little preview of the book.
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Was walking past St. Mark’s Bookshop last night and Kensey spotted my book (On The Ground) sitting in their window display. That’s love!

chilling with chomsky

and here it is inside on the shelf, not bad company. If your local store doesn’t carry it you should definitely order it and/or harass them…the book has full distribution and it’s as easy for them as ordering Oprah’s latest selection.

Tomorrow I’ll put up more info and a little preview of the book.

I recently completed work on a book about the sixties underground press, On The Ground (PM Press), and in the process of putting it together I’ve gathered way more content than I could ever hope to possibly cram into the thing. Instead of sitting on it all, I’ll be sharing a series of left over interview snippets and scans that didn’t make the final cut, but which I still think you’ll dig. First up is a studio visit at the San Francisco home of comix legend Spain Rodriguez. Continues here
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I recently completed work on a book about the sixties underground press, On The Ground (PM Press), and in the process of putting it together I’ve gathered way more content than I could ever hope to possibly cram into the thing. Instead of sitting on it all, I’ll be sharing a series of left over interview snippets and scans that didn’t make the final cut, but which I still think you’ll dig. First up is a studio visit at the San Francisco home of comix legend Spain Rodriguez.

Continues here