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Vice Blog

NEW YORK - WHEN U WERE ZINE

Oh hello. Today we are so, so proud to present "The Vice Obscure-Zines-that Our-Friends-Made-in-the-90s Preservation Project." We begin with Vice NY's managing editor and her acclaimed 90s zine, If Prince Was My Girlfriend, which, in 1997, received glowing reviews in Factsheet Five, Queer Zine Explosion, Screw, and every teeny lesbian publication in existence at the time. The zine was about Prince, but more so, it was about love. Haha, no, it was about the author, and her thoughts and dreams and ideas about love and sex and gender (she was a women's studies major, which explains a lot) and how it all ties in to PRINCE. It was pretty funny. Let's begin our journey to a time long, long ago, before blogs, before MySpace, when zines told the world, "This is me, world! And I am angst-ridden!" Come with me…

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The cover was drawn by Jim Krewson, who does lots of illustrations for Vice now. It's supposed to look like a coloring book, and it's Prince walking two mutated versions of the symbol he changed his name to. Hahaha!

I still write exactly the same now, ten years later. Is that good or bad? (PS: Click on the thumbnails and they'll get big enough for you to read, hopefully.)

I think the "Formative Sexual Experience Involving Prince" article holds up pretty well, truthfully.

You can't really tell what those pictures on the bottom of the left page are, but they are Apollonia's boobs in Purple Rain, from the scene when she takes her shirt off and jumps in Lake Minnetonka. I had to keep pausing it on my VCR and I took a whole roll of photos of it and then had to go get them developed and cut and paste and blah blah. God, things used to be so much work!
Also: Neoprints were really new and exciting back then.

My friend Itchie, who goes by her normal name Jenny now, wrote this article. I think it's really funny. She used to do a zine called Everything I Touch Turns to Shit and Garbage. She was one of my favorite writers. I don't know why she gave it up!

"Did U know that Prince's pseudonym/alter ego "Camille" is a reference to the nickname of Herculine Barbin, the famous 19th century hermaphrodite?" BAH-HAHA! Gender studies much?
The thing on the right was a crazy rant about some garden they were bulldozing, written by my friend's crazy dad who we used to buy weed from. He's a real LES stalwart. I still see him at the Fish sometimes and it freaks me out.

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A live show review of Prince at Jones Beach. I was so excited about stuff back then! Sigh.

I think these two pages are pretty funny. Richard Wang, another amazing writer who stopped writing for some lame reason. Oh yeah, he became a doctor.

"Prince=Punk" is good for a chuckle. Also notable is my statement "I don't care much for 'the web.'"

A rant by this guy Justin who I used to go on lots of road trips with. He was so cute. He dressed like an effeminate mod and I had a shaved head and we drove down to New Orleans and we looked like such freaks I can't believe we never got our asses kicked by some rednecks in Alabama. I tried to track Justin down recently but it's like he's disappeared. Last I heard he was living in LA selling acid. Anyone got any leads?

Some funny breakdowns of Prince lyrics.

Itchie had an issue of Hustler with a Prince lookalike on the cover and a whole "When Doves Cry"-style centerfold. It was so beautiful, but of course it wouldn't be a zine if it wasn't so poorly Xeroxed that it looks like total shit.

The centerfold.

A funny article called "Slut Wars: Apollonia vs. Vanity" that was reprinted from Blair, which was a hilarious, pioneering online magazine that Richard Wang did. Hey it's still online!

JF Ryan, currently of Excepter, but back then of No-Neck Blues Band, contributed a lil' Prince diatribe of his own.

Here I define the word "hegemony."

I reprinted an essay (in its entirety, which I will spare you) from an academic queer journal about how Prince changing his name to a symbol was a big fuck-you to gender and sex and language and I don't remember what else.

With a bibliography and everything! I love that little Morris Day and Prince cut-out thing I made. It's so riot grrl! Yeah, I was pretty cool. The end.

AMY K