Punk Planet Archives

January 28, 2021 10:38 AM

All 80 issues of Punk Planet are now available in full for free on The Internet Archive. -- Punk Planet was a 16,000 print run punk zine, based in Chicago, Illinois, that focused most of its energy on looking at punk subculture rather than punk as simply another genre of music 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, 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. 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, and DVDs.

posted by Ufez Jones (15 comments total)

And the image can be enlarged to be more readable for middle-aged eyes, which I greatly appreciate after finding that I can no longer read many of the old zines I've saved over the years without triggering a migraine.
posted by LindsayIrene at 12:02 PM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]

Eeeeee, this is aweseome! I went through a phase of collecting every issue of Punk Planet I could get my hands right around when the magazine folded and I always wondered if I should scan them and put them online for free, but I was worried that Dan Sinker would get mad at me? I'm glad someone did it though (I assume with permission... though I admit even if they did it without, I'm still glad they're out there for people to read). The graphic design was really pretty, too, once they moved out of newsprint.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 1:42 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Dan Sinker is is definitely on board
posted by Ufez Jones at 1:47 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

At one point I had subscriptions to Maximum Rock'n'Roll, Flipside, and Punk Planet. So this is very welcome news. I also agree that PP felt more inclusive than either MRR or Flipside, both of which seemed to be tied to very specific scenes in very specific places.

Thinking about it some more with the benefit of hindsight, when I read PP I felt like I could be part of something no matter where I was, but when I read MRR or Flipside I felt like I was missing out on something because I wasn't where they were.
posted by ralan at 3:19 PM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

@ralan, if you're interested in a current version that's pretty similar to PP, I can't recommend Razorcake highly enough. It hits all of the same spots.
posted by Ufez Jones at 6:46 PM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

Huh. MRR is still going online.

I'm amused that they're running plain old http. Punk rock!
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:30 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough, but of all the comic book shops, record shops, both new and used independent (non mall) book stores, sci-fi conventions, I visited, I never once saw fanzines on a rack anywhere. Just where were these things sold?
posted by Beholder at 10:13 PM on January 28, 2021

I'm sure it depended on various factors, but in my experience all of the above except the new book stores.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:21 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Just where were these things sold?

Zines were (are–?) definitely sold at Quimby's.
posted by marimeko at 1:25 AM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

Just where were these things sold?

Pretty much every indie bookstore and record store in Atlanta carried a good selection of zines, at least back in the '90s and early 2000s. Criminal Records in Little 5 Points (my old neighborhood) had a huge selection of zines and the staff were very enthusiastic about them.
posted by ralan at 4:49 AM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is great. I'm really enjoying flipping through the ads and checking the records that were being promoted at the time. There's a ton of a super stuff I've never listened to.
posted by voiceofreason at 5:09 AM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm sure it depended on various factors, but in my experience all of the above except the new book stores.

The Borders by my apartment in Dallas in the early 2000s (at Lovers & Greenville) carried Punk Planet.
posted by Ufez Jones at 5:23 AM on January 29, 2021

Shinders in downtown Minneapolis carried a few zines back in the day. Barnes and Noble carried them for a while in the 90s, when they were actively trying to murder independent bookstores. Then once the competition was thinned out, their periodical selection became more limited.
posted by LindsayIrene at 8:15 AM on January 29, 2021

When I lived in a small town in the early 90's being able to buy Maximum Rocknroll and Punk Planet at the Borders (Barnes and Noble?) in the nearest decent-sized city like an hour away really helped.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:16 AM on January 29, 2021

Ufez Jones - thanks for pointing out Razorcake. Just ordered a subscription.
posted by ralan at 9:44 AM on January 31, 2021 [1 favorite]