Punk Planet
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Punk Planet'' was a 16,000 print run
punk zine A punk zine (or punkzine) is a zine related to the punk subculture and hardcore punk music genre. Often primitively or casually produced, they feature punk literature, such as social commentary, punk poetry, news, gossip, music reviews and ar ...
, based in
Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
, that focused most of its energy on looking at
punk subculture The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of Punk rock, music, Punk ideologies, ideologies, Punk fashion, fashion, and other forms of expression, Punk visual art, visual art, dance, Punk literature, literature, and film. La ...
rather than punk as simply another genre of
music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
to which teenagers listen. In addition to covering music, ''Punk Planet'' also covered visual arts and a wide variety of progressive issues — including media criticism,
feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
, and labor issues. The most notable features in ''Punk Planet'' were the interviews and album reviews. The interviews generally ran two or three pages, and tended to focus on the motivations of the artist (or organizer, activist, or whoever) being interviewed. ''Punk Planet'' aimed to be more inclusive than the well-known zine '' Maximum Rock and Roll'', and tried to review nearly all the records it received, so long as the record label wasn't owned or partially owned by a
major label "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and t ...
. This led to a review section typically longer than thirty pages, covering a variety of musical styles. Although much of the music thus reviewed was, expectedly, aggressive rock, the reviews also covered country, folk, hip-hop, indie rock, and other genres. The Punk Planet reviews section also encompassed independently released comics,
zines A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...
, and DVDs. A number of poor distribution deals and the collapse of the Independent Press Association resulted in mounting debts for the editors. As a result, issue 80 was shipped with a cover reading: "This is the final issue of Punk Planet, after this the fight is yours." Subsidiary business Punk Planet books remains in business.


History and other projects

The first issue of the
zine A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...
was published in May 1994, in part as a response to the perception that '' Maximum Rock and Roll'' was becoming too elitist. In September 2006, ''Punk Planet'' had printed 75 issues of their bi-monthly publication, and in the fall of 2004 launched a book publishing arm, Punk Planet Books, in conjunction with the New York-based small press Akashic Books. Punk Planet Books has published four titles as of May 2006: " Hairstyles of the Damned" by Joe Meno (August 2004, ), “All the Power: Revolution Without Illusion” by Mark Andersen (September 2004, ), “Lessons in Taxidermy” by Bee Lavender (March 2005, ), and "100 Posters, 134 Squirrels" by Jay Ryan (November 2005, ). In September 2006, Punk Planet partnered with the website, ZineWiki, to publish, online, exclusive articles from past print issues. On June 18, 2007, a post at www.punkplanet.com informed the public that after 13 years and 80 issues, Punk Planet's final issue was being sent out. The reasoning pointed to "bad distribution deals, disappearing advertisers, and a decreasing audience of subscribers." As a result, editor Dan Sinker decided to place his focus on the online website, but it has since gone offline. In its place is a statement, "This is it, folks. The Punk Planet website is closed. Two years after the closure of the magazine, it just seemed time.

In January 2021, all 80 issues of ''Punk Planet'' were uploaded to the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
.


References


Further reading

* {{Cite web , last1=Ryan , first1=Kyle , title=Why Punk Planets demise matters , work=A.V. Club , date=2007-07-06 , url=http://www.avclub.com/article/why-empunk-planetems-demise-matters-14749 , access-date=2017-06-28 , df=mdy-all


External links


''Punk Planet'' collection
at
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
Defunct music magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1994 Magazines disestablished in 2007 Defunct magazines published in Chicago Punk zines