As well as the prose, poetry and band reviews/interviews my fanzines featured some pretty cool artwork. I liked to intersperse the hallmark fanzine cut and paste pages with a variety of drawings and cartoons too.
What generally happened was I would type the individual fanzine pages that required artwork using my portable typewriter (and a healthy supply of Tippex), then hand over the finished page to one of the artists who offered their services. Some of the work they produced was highly imaginative.
Having always been a fan of pointillism I particularly liked the drawing below, by Martin Richardson.
In issue 4 of Kindred Spirit we interviewed a local band called Arthur Askey's Legs (formerly known as Cotton Gussets). All I really remember about the band was they couldn't actually play any instruments and their version of Bela Lugosi's Dead reduced Bauhaus fans to tears. I'm not quite sure what became of the band or their music but one of the members - Dez - drew these two rather neat black and white images, both of which were included with the interview.
The next four pictures were drawn by Sheav. The first image of Morrissey accompanied a review of a 1983 gig by The Smiths at Hull University . If you'd like to read the full review along with more memorabilia, here's the link.
The second and third images accompanied poetry and the fourth was one of my personal favourites, given pride of place on the back cover of issue four!
All fanzine creators knew the true meaning of the term ‘cut and paste’. I included one of my own attempts to accompany the interview featured in issue four with hardcore punk band The Exploited.
PThese are the images I chopped and changed:
- The first was a press clipping I came across announcing The Exploited's new line-up shortly before the gig.
- The second was an advert for a punk extravaganza in December 1983 at Leeds Queens Hall. Check the ticket price!
- The third was the image of a baby wearing the famous Sid Vicious tee shirt on the cover of Punk's Not Dead.
- I'm not quite sure where I found the fourth clipping but it seemed like a good fit at the time!
This stark drawing by Paul Shutt was the backdrop to a poem written by fellow fanzine writer Daniel Dream. Daniel also wrote this cool feature for Kindred Spirit about Chris and Cosey, which was posted on my blog in June 2018 along with other must see items for fans of COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and of course Chris and Cosey.
Xcentric Noise was a Hull based record label active throughout the early 80s. It was the brainchild of post punk outfit Quel Dommage's guitarist Andy Thompson. We interviewed Quel Dommage for my fanzine and you can read the full feature plus more about Xcentric Noise here.
Although the image below was in fact an advertisement for Xcentric Noise, it is what I consider to be a piece of punk art and also a piece of Hull's music history.
The next two illustrations were the creations of Kev and the one below them was drawn by Sally Bentley. I asked Kev and Sally to draw what the poetry suggested to them and they did just that. I rather liked the finished results.
I contributed in my own small way to Kindred Spirit's artwork with my sketches of Sting and Killing Joke's Jaz Coleman. The December 1983 interview we did with Killing Joke featured in issue three of Kindred Spirit and can be found here.
And finally, a special mention has to be given to the covers of issue three and four, both of which were works of art in themselves. Issue three was the creation of Brad Prakash and Rupert Duval and issue four was by Dog.
I can be found on an almost daily basis sharing musical memories and poetry on Twitter.
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