***
At this point, it is worth noting the literary adjective ‘Cometbus-esque’ that has come into use over the years—lacking a wider body of other literary heroes to refer to, punk literary types have come to describe most pseudo-literate fanzines as ‘Cometbus-esque’. It is true that most fanzines bear some debt to the genre-defining Cometbus in terms of content and style, and ethical considerations. Aesthetically, ‘Cometbus-esque’ is any zine that utilizes high-contrast, black-and-white Xeroxes, or rasterized images taken from old 1960s newspapers, blown up on a photocopied. This luddite, lo-fi aesthetic, borne of necessity, is now consciously being reproduced by Internet-era zine writers who romanticize the analog. Strangely enough, the punk lifestyle scene has unconsciously molded itself to Cometbus’s often cartoonish representation of it, like participants in a reality TV show who alter their behavior based on what they’ve seen characters on other reality shows do. So powerful is the effect of the long-running zine, that there is today an entire generation of people who read it in their malleable adolescence and now can’t help but view their own lives through Cometbus-colored glasses. The lead singer of a cult early-2000s punk band called Abe Froman described this effect in a song addressed to the zine writer, titled “Dear Mr. Elliot”, the lyrics of which described an inferiority complex in the face of the persistence of Cometbus’s stories:
Thanks for your help but your stories make me have no voice of my own
My whole life, when compared to yours is really lame
You don’t even know me, you don’t even know my name
Cometbus’s moral fortitude is such that much of his progeny have a reactionary kind of ingrained guilt—any interaction with commerce or ‘the mainstream’ feels contraband and transgressive—like a kid that’s raised vegetarian that grows up and moves out but still sneaks around when he eats meat. It is a strange fate that the steadfastly earnest efforts of Cometbus have, like everything else, lengthened a shadow. The zine has pioneered an entire genre of progeny and copycats—I know a guy who does a zine who is considered “The Canadian Cometbus”—then there is the notorious traveling kid who goes by the name “Aaron Vomitbus” Now, in certain circles, when someone tells an anecdote involving sentimental affirmation of life—such as, say, finding a twelve-pack of beer in the woods and then meeting a pretty girl to share it with, a kind of ironic self-awareness kicks in. It is not simply just a sweet anecdote, but “like Cometbus” or “Cometbus-esque.”
***
There is a cynical suspicion that accompanies writers and musicians who refuse to engage with the market—that perhaps they weren’t able to ‘make it’ and thus turned to negation as a gimmick, a kind of ‘you can’t fire me, I quit’ mentality rather than evidence of genuine conviction. Cometbus has been for zines what Fugazi was to independent music—the progenitor of an entire community and strict ethical guidelines for engaging with commerce (Cheap products, total creative control, no publicists, no PR, no mainstream exposure) When asked during an interview with Punk Planet if he would ever work with a big publisher, Cometbus relied, “People have come to me—I have a list … and when you start talking numbers, talking price … I can sell 11,000 copies of an issue for $2 each. And they’re offering to do a 1,000 at 10 bucks apiece.” While self-publishing is obviously problematic in many ways (much of what is self-published is unreadable crap) Cometbus is the inheritor of subterranean literature of the 50s and 60s, of a world that is rarely represented unless it represents itself. A trade paperback that you buy at Barnes and Noble has to first be injected with perceived value by a top-down PR campaign—blurbed by notable figures, reviewed in prestigious publications, featured on NPR, excerpted in literary journals. Even then, a mass-market book has to surpass the roar of its own publicity to keep readers from saying, “This isn’t as good as I expected it to be.” as was the case with much-hyped fiction like Lowboy. In contrast, Cometbus relies on a much more simple, grassroots approach—the zines slowly acquired value as they passed from hand to hand, people liking the work and giving it to a friend.
Zines are a low-hurdle medium in terms of the readers’ expectations—most people expect so little when they open a photocopied pamphlet, that they are impressed when its well-written and interesting. Cometbus is an incredible subterranean archive, a venerable one-man WPA project for the underground; but the world it embodies seems now historical rather than current and relevant: handwritten letters, posted fliers, run down cafes is now a kind of sweet and sentimental physicality that is under constant threat by the data cloud. Faced with new increasingly digitized generations, there is the question of whether Cometbus will at all be relevant to internet-age youth since it is only available in print—is anything that doesn’t appear on a blog or that isn’t iPad compatible destined to become an idiosyncratic cultural artifact in the papers of some college library? Only time will tell, but the answer is probably yes. The other problem is Cometbus’s audience, who, as they get older, often come to view zines as something they were into when they were young and that they grew out of—a nostalgic part of their personal history. They want to read ‘real’ books, ‘real’ newspapers. And while other writers are malleable and willing to adapt themselves fluidly to the times by starting blogs, Twittering, and digitizing, Cometbus is not. He remains true to his idealized vision of what a writer should be: being mostly occupied with the quality of the work, rather than if the way its being disseminated is gaining the author social capital. Perhaps history will look fondly upon those who don’t go with the flow, but instead stand strong against its current.
12 responses
(Warning: this is very long!)
I was raised to love, appreciate, and look for whatever was weird and eccentric. If no one had ever heard of something, or the only people who had heard of it were unhirable, angsty, and passionate, it was worth checking out.
I’m a part of the facebook generation, but I’ve made a conscious decision not to be a part of it. I still don’t have a facebook account, and the choice, for me, isn’t so much a political one as it is a social one. If I care about you or want to tell you something exciting that has happened in my life, I’ll write you a heartfelt letter, (or email) rather than a ‘status update.’ If I want to ‘network’ with you, which really, to me, means meet you and bounce ideas off your head, I’ll go to an event that you’re sponsoring, rather than leave a comment on your wall.
As a part of this facebook generation, I get to choose what form of media works for me and how I want to communicate with people.
I went to college in the middle of nowhere in Vermont. There was no TV or cellphone reception. In a town of 1000, the internet connection was laughable. You couldn’t download or upload shit. The best and fastest way to get information was through books, magazines, and journals- yes, PRINT. This was in 2004.
In 2005, on a trip back home to California, I picked up my first Cometbus zine. I’d been a part of the punk scene, or whatever you’d like to call the people who were living in a post-punk generation but still tried to live by Fugazi’s code of ethics. I was one of those straight-edge, vegetarian, thrift store wearing, activist types that liked the solidarity of feeling different from everyone else. But, living in a place as isolated as Vermont, the last thing I was looking for was isolation, and instead I looked for connection.
I found that in Cometbus, and I don’t think that is a unique experience, or something that is ‘out of date.’ (sorry for being so quote happy in this post) Think of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It is rooted in a strong sense of time and space, the characters are specific to that generation, and yet, we all know someone like Holly Golightly. We all know an overly ambitious girl who can charm the pants off men, and is very, very lost. That doesn’t make Breakfast at Tiffany’s outdated.
With Cometbus, I think that we’ve all been members of a community that we grew out of. If you think or have recently experienced a heart-palpitation, you’ve been disappointed by the government, haven’t felt that marketers or advertisers have known anything about you, and have felt disenfranchised from a mass culture that is more interested in the Kardashians than anything that you’ve ever read, heard, or watched that left a permanent impression on you. You’ve probably experienced unemployment, questioned the value of your education or degree, and do not appreciate the forward, technological trajectory that turns people into macs and pcs.
Long story long, I think that this article on Cometbus is absolutely fantastic, but I disagree that one day historians, anthropologists, and cultural excavators will look at Cometbus, laugh, and put his zines back on the shelf. Instead, they will ask, why were only 12,000 copies of his zines made, when his work so accurately conveys the frustrations of the Americans of this generation. And then, they will be onto something.
Aaron,
This is an outstanding, outstanding article. Love and clarity. Keep writing and I’ll keep reading. Hope to see you around.
Sincerely,
James
Also, the hands of Cometbus — what a detail. So menacing and lovely.
really loved this essay- beautifully written and insightful and bursting with key questions about what cometbus means/represents in 2010
it’s super interesting to consider the “self-consciousness” of the current punk/zine/underground culture you pointed out, manifested clearly in us buying photocopied zines instead of reading a blog for free or buying a record from a local store instead of downloading it, etc, since these used to be necessary actions to take if you wanted the text/music but now are sort of anachronistic and self-consciously hearkening back to the 80’s or 90’s before the internet.
ditto your points about fliering and the culture of show-promotion. it’s interesting that today, when it’s easier and more effective to promote a show on facebook/myspace/twitter, it seems like the music community still puts a huge value on flier design by local artists or designing DIY or hardcore-style photocopied fliers, even if the fliers themselves are viewed only as an image online 99% of the time, which is cool, and also another somewhat romanticization of the past when fliers were actually used as fliers
it’ll be cool to see if in a few decades we’ll be looking back on the days of touring schedules on myspace and “friend requests” from new bands as a sort of golden age of 2000’s-era underground rock/culture
thanks for the awesome essay and viva cometbus!
Aaron, I’m hardly surprised that you’ve written one of the finest pieces on one of my favorite writers of all time. Thanks for this!
YES!! such a blast from the past for me… i am so glad he’s still doing this, and in the same classic style, too.
Thanks for all the nice comments.
Michelle–Just a note, By 21st century print sales standards, 12,000 copies is actually a pretty impressive figure. More so given that there has been no publicity or PR team behind him, very few reviews (outside of the predictable punk publications) and almost no self-pimping internet presence.
Yes! A story on the interwebs about one of my very very (did I say very?) very favorite writers Aaron Cometbus, and written by one of my new favorite writers Aaron Lake Smith.
ALS – you make some extremely subtle points in your article about AC’s writing that nobody has ever brought out before in all the crap I have ever read about AC. Loved the lyrics by the Abe Froman band about an inferiority complex w.r.t. AC’s writing – something I have felt for a long time and know the “ingrained guilt” that comes with being a fan of his work.
You note “Cometbus is socially reclusive” which was the first time I had ever read that about him. I had an awesomely ego-crushing failed attempt to chat with him which makes it difficult for me to reconcile the breezy, well-traveled AC of his writing with the man I attempted to meet in person – whom I later saw at another event where I swear I saw him try to fold his 6 foot plus frame behind a NYC street sign pole to avoid being recognized.
Well said about “seepage” outward of a scene (punk or any other) – the internal struggle remains for many of us mid-lifers who are reading both the New Yorker and photocopied zines. Now let me print your piece out so I can read it properly and not on this computer screen. Long live ink and paper.
Thank you for writing this, and writing it so well.
Kind regards, Abbey
Great work. Ode to the analog. “This luddite, lo-fi aesthetic, borne of necessity, is now consciously being reproduced by Internet-era zine writers who romanticize the analog.” It’s refreshing to see Cometbus discussed in this context.
I saw something new in The Spirit of St. Louis, too.
“Long walks, lonely diners, and late nights working at the copy shop filled the pages. Tropes like punk love and too much coffee and long trips on the Greyhound bus reigned supreme.”
Sounds like Big Hands….
Seriously good article. Absolutely hit the nail on the head:
“So powerful is the effect of the long-running zine, that there is today an entire generation of people who read it in their malleable adolescence and now can’t help but view their own lives through Cometbus-colored glasses.”
Does Aaron know about this article though? What will he think?
hello, from pensacola
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