The idea for doing a sequel to “The Legend of Nick Detroit” began as soon as PUNK #6 went to the printer. Eddie McNeil and I were invited to be Special Guests at the First Annual World Sleaze Convention in Wilmington, Delaware on Labor Day weekend, 1976, and PUNK #6 was finished just a few days before so we were able to go. Edie “The Egg Lady” Massey from John Waters’ Pink Flamingos was the “Guest of Honor,” and since the event wasn’t well-attended we got to meet her. Very nice person. Chris (Stein), Debbie (Harry) and Anya (Phillips) also made their way down and took photos with Edie. That’s when the ideas began to ferment: “How about doing a photo comic with Debbie and Edie?”
I think it must be because of the photo-realistic approach to the images: They really do look like Joey is surfing (in some weird, screwed-up alternative universe!).
Mutant Monster Beach Party (PUNK #15) was a sales disaster for PUNK Magazine after it was released in the fall of 1978, and it happened at the worst possible time for us. Our primary benefactor, Tom Forcade, killed himself shortly afterwards. Then, "Sid killed Nancy" (maybe). I always felt like: "Well, at least we were able to publish Mutant Monster Beach Party before we went out of business!"
It is very weird to me that, 40-50 years later, Mutant Monster is a bigger phenomenon than ever. I think one reason is that the settings gave some great 1970s-’80s rock photographers (i.e. Bayley, Gruen, Hearn, and Stein) an opportunity to shoot some great images that have become iconic. Getting so many people from the CBGB “punk” scene back then before they became famous involved was also amazing. At the time, Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band was the most famous person to appear in it, and it was a great thing to have him involved. Forty-five years later, people are more fascinated that Debbie, Joey, Andy Warhol, Lester Bangs, Tish and Snooky, Paul Zone, Arturo Vega, John Cale and many others appeared in Mutant Monster Beach Party before they were famous.
Can you spot the differences?
So, at some point (in late July 2022), Andrew Watt mentioned to Roberta that he was thinking about printing some kind of booklet in coordination with the new Iggy Pop album. So, Roberta says: "Why don't you hire John Holmstrom? He's a great cartoonist!" (This might go down in history along with someone's: "Why don't you just call it PUNK?" question in 1975...)
Andrew Watt texted me soon after, and everything fell into place very quickly. Andrew wanted some of the classic PUNK Magazine energy from Mutant Monster Beach Party! He wanted me to be sure to include Roberta Bayley and Bruce Carleton's work. He wanted me to include as many original contributors as possible! Roberta Bayley's suggestion turned into a rolling snowball of energy, ideas, cool photos and funny cartoons that resulted in this amazing new issue of PUNK magazine. (Andrew even insisted that it should be just a regular issue, the next in our series, and NOT a "Special Issue." So we did it.)
It's not signed and numbered, but I think it is a small print run. It's expensive, but it's being packaged as a valuable collector's thing. There are still hundreds of copies left, but it ships on January 6th, and once word gets out? It gets sold out and ells on eBay for twice the price.
https://store.iggypop.com/