FUZZNUTT FANZINE • PUBLISHED IN THE PAST

One of the earliest pieces of design that I can remember getting involved with was the Fuzznutt Fanzine. There may have been a few posters or flyers sprinkled in before then, but this by far one of the most involved projects that my 16 year old hands got a hold of. My teenage years were spent playing in a variety of garage and punk bands so there were plenty of opportunities to design and craft print collateral pieces. Building out and xeroxing flyers were one the facets of playing in bands that I always liked the best.

So in the Spring of 1998, my friend Marc and I got together and started up a two piece rock n' roll noise machine called Fuzznutt. It was kind of garage-y sounding because at the time I was really getting into bands like Flat Duo Jets and Bantam Rooster. We drew a lot of elements from that style but threw in our own brand of immature teenage humor. The only shows we played were in garages after school for our friends. Most of the time we'd play our respective guitar and drum instruments, but sometimes we'd karaoke the whole thing in front of a boom box hooked up to a PA system. There were some really silly retarded moments. But hey, we didn't know any better. Besides, it kept us on the streets and out of regulated school activities. 

 Often times, our practices would dissolve into a cut and paste session where we'd create our own newsletter-type zine. It was primarily used as a tool to amuse our friends. The Fuzznutt Fanzine debuted at the Illinois Valley Central High School in the Fall of '98 and lasted well into the following spring semester. Below is the master layout for issue number two. As you can clearly see, there isn't a speck of intelligence that went into this. Anything that had any rational mechanism for thought was way too much for our feeble minds to grasp. This, I felt, was the definition of what it means to come of age in late 90's middle America while our futures were shrouded in uncertainty. Our haunting grounds were deserted parking lots and basements.

I look back at this and try to make sense of how I got from there to here. First off, art and design was never in the cards as a career option. Growing up in a highly industrialized area, one usually succumbs to working the assembly lines instead of pursuing anything artistic or creative. I spent quite a few years after high school on these lines. It really wasn't until I moved up north did I find that these opportunities were made more readily available. My parents were never really the kind of people that pushed me into one direction or the other either. It was like, "Whatever you decide to do is cool with us. Just don't wind up dead or in jail." I guess in that regard, I fulfilled my end of the bargain. High school wasn't that much help either. And honestly, even if they did try to shed some light onto me, I probably would've just thrown it back in their face. I was a pretty obnoxious little brat. 

 
But I can definitely see the seeds being planted. Especially in this zine. Even though I never really saw art and design as a facet of contemporary culture, I was always getting involved with it in one way or another. And I like idea of creating for the sake of creating and not really making any sense or having a concrete goal. Just blindly exploring it's inner workings and discovering something magical. I still sort of hold these truths near and dear. Sometimes, the greatest answers are stumbled upon rather than sought after.