World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
THU—FRI 12—6 PM
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after order date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 2 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected. If you cannot make it in to the bookshop in this time-frame, please choose postage option.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund or exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
1995, Japanese
Softcover, 224 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Data House / Tokyo
$25.00 - Out of stock
"Sniff out!! Our fuckin' rotten brain.... Dedicated to all the gay guys in Japan"
???
The very controversial, very vulgar and very popular inaugural 1995 issue of Tokyo's Danger (or Dangerous) magazine, edited by Masaaki Aoyama (1960-2001), a legendary cult writer, editor and pioneer in the genre of "Kichiku" (cruel) publishing who had a major influence on Japanese subculture in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1995, after a prolific career in underground publishing, Aoyama edited the first issue of the "brutal" subculture magazine "Dangerous No. 1," which quoted the words of cult guru Hassan I-Sabah: "There is no truth. Everything is permitted." Packed with an exhaustive range of deviant, perverted, and bad taste content, Dangerous No. 1, declaring "There are no taboos when it comes to fantasies!", became an immediate hit, selling over 250,000 copies and sparking a craze for "Kichiku" (cruel) and bad taste publishing in Japan in the late 19th century.
The peak of 1990's nihilism publishing from Tokyo's "apocalyptic" Data House to file alongside Too Negative and End of The Century, Dangerous, a "scientific" journal of lunatic subculture, launched onto newsstands with an in-depth international reportage on "Drugs". Editor Aoyama, who in 1992 wrote Japan's first practical drug manual, "Dangerous Medicine," a "bible for junkies", which sold over 100,000 copies, brings together articles on speed shooting, South American cartels, the world's rarest drugs, hallucinogenic plants from around the world from magic mushrooms to ayahuasca, how-tos/maintenance/cultivating knowledge, the history of ecstasy, sex on drugs, music on drugs, a drug slang dictionary, drug-related books and guides, world scene and dutch coffeeshop reports, xxx film director Fumiki Watanabe interview, an exploration of Japan's "dangerous documents", corpse museums, hitmen, sex criminals, "Your personality & cause of death", and genuinely horrible other tid-bits from the darker side of humanity.
Note: Aside from some photographs and violent and absurd cartoons, Dangerous is a "scientific" journal, filled with Japanese texts and info graphics.
"People often talk about humanity and humanism, but what makes humans decisively different from animals is that they betray, deceive, and destroy others. Humanity means being cruel."—Masaaki Aoyama
Masaaki Aoyama (1960-2001) was pioneer of the Japanese underground publishing scene. When he was in the third grade of elementary school, his father bought him a copy of Hiroshi Minamiyama's book "Supernatural Mysteries," which sparked his interest in the supernatural and the occult. Although he never studied, he displayed his prodigy qualities from an early age whilst simultaneously becoming addicted to masturbation. His intense quest for knowledge and perversion continued into his adult life. A self-proclaimed hedonist, Aoyama was hailed as a rare genius editor that had a profound, almost traumatic impact on people. Aoyama openly discussed and pursued a wide range of specialised topics, from drugs, lolicon, scat, and freaks to cult movies, progressive rock, punk, techno, the occult, heretical thought, and the spiritual world. He worked prolifically, editing and writing articles for mini-comics, books and magazines such as Hentai, Hey! Buddy, Billy, Witches' Sabbath, Philiac, Eccentric, amongst a seemingly endless list of fringe "pervert" publications that proliferated after the emergence of vending machine books in the 1970s. In 1992, Aoyama wrote Japan's first practical drug manual, "Dangerous Medicine," a "bible for junkies" which sold over 100,000 copies. In 1995, he edited the first issue of the "brutal" subculture magazine "Dangerous No. 1," which quoted the words of cult guru Hassan I-Sabah: "There is no truth. Everything is permitted." The magazine, which was packed with an exhaustive range of deviant, perverted, and bad taste content, became a huge hit, selling over 250,000 copies in total, sparking a craze for "Kichiku" (cruel) publishing in Japan in the late 19th century.
"No taboos in delusions"—Dangerous No. 1 introduction.
The trend of consuming things that are generally viewed as objects of loathing or pity from a mondo perspective was accelerated all over the world during the nihilist 1990's, but it was particularly popularised in Japan. From V-Zone video culture to comic books like Garo and the works of Kei (Takashi) Nemoto, Suehiro Maruo and Hideshi Hino, to subculture magazines that stimulated spectacle-based curiosity, crime and voyeurism, such as GON!, BUBKA, Sekimatsu Club, TOO NEGATIVE, End of the Century, Weekly Murder Casebook, Bessatsu Takarajima. Around the same time, Aoyama was diagnosed with multifocal posterior pigment epitheliopathy (MPPE), an extremely rare eye disease affecting around 50 people nationwide in Japan, which later became one of the factors that led him to become interested in spiritual matters. Aoyama, the mastermind behind this new genre of "Kichiku" (cruel), bad taste publishing, became disillusioned with the vulgar taste that was being mass-produced as a result of the boom. Aoyama felt the genre lost its substance as a counterculture or literary movement and had been absorbed into popular culture, the historical lineage of erotic underground publishing had become dissolved with the boom of extreme content on the internet. Without moralising, he had stared directly into the abyss. The dark truths he sought fed his own deviancy and addictions. Aoyama became depressed and reclusive. In 1997, Sakakibara Seito, an avid reader of Danger No. 1, committed the Kobe child murders. This led to bookstores removing all bad taste subculture books from their shelves. In 1999, "The Complete Works of Aoyama Masaaki” was published, marking the end of "Kichiku" publishing. Aoyama sought the light and pursued a new theory of happiness related to the spiritual world based on psychoneuroimmunology, molecular biology, and Buddhist resignation. In an interview with the magazine BURST, he declared, "the brutal genre is no longer fresh. From now on, I'll go for the soothing genre." He hanged himself at his home in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture on June 17, 2001, at the age of 40.
Very Good copy, light cover/edge wear. 1995 edition, 1996 printing.
1985, Japanese
Softcover, 290 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Sanwa / Tokyo
$450.00 - In stock -
"People often talk about humanity and humanism, but what makes humans decisively different from animals is that they betray, deceive, and destroy others. Humanity means being cruel."—Masaaki Aoyama
Super rare, first and only issue of cult magazine of erotic obscenity, Witches' Sabbath ("Super Pervert, End of the Century, Abuse History"), published in 1985 by Sanwa Publications as a special edition of SM Mania and edited by Masaaki Aoyama (1960-2001), a legendary cult writer, editor and pioneer in the genre of "Kichiku" (cruel) publishing who had a major influence on Japanese subculture in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1995, after a prolific career in underground publishing, Aoyama edited the first issue of the "brutal" subculture magazine "Dangerous No. 1," which sparked a huge craze for bad taste culture in Japan, with the opening introduction declaring "There are no taboos when it comes to fantasies!". Ten years earlier, at 25 years old, he edited Witches' Sabbath, a call to "Destroy All Orders", a magazine devoted to "Decadence, Ultra-Abnormality, and Maltreatment"; Aoyama's unique, devilish manifestation of a particular convergence of subcultural 1980s Tokyo — punk and industrial music, splatter horror films, underground manga, SM publishing, and occultism. "The Worst Truth of the 20th Century".
Aoyama was deeply attracted to the culture of monsters, the world of the abnormal, the cruel and dark impulses of human-kind. His publishing ventures centred around his fascination with destructive and socially maladjusted people, perversions, social taboos, "freaks" and subjects turned against public order and morality. Profusely illustrated throughout with colour photo galleries, Aoyama, with contributors including Merzbow's Masami Akita, horror manga artists Suehiro Maruo and Hideshi (Guinea Pig) Hino, manga critic and activist Shinichiro Kurimoto, Hisao Nakano, Mongoose Nagayama, Dan Takasugi, Ken Hirukogami, and others, present features on all manner of heterodox culture, everything from an illustrated guide to corpse photography, splatter horror movies, scatology, how-to seppuku/harakiri (Japanese ritualistic suicide by disembowelment), horror manga (new artworks by Maruo, Hino, comic by Jimmie Morita, and others), infant mania, drugs, necrophilia, Industrial Records (Throbbing Gristle, Monte Cazazza, SPK, etc,), Zeitlich Vergelter, Ron Geesin, sadistic crime history, deformities, Georges Bataille, devil pregnancy kinbaku, sorcery, bestiality, witch hunting, SM readers confessions, the latest in fetish publishing, D-Cup extravaganza (big breast video and magazine publishing), and much more. A special Nazi issue was planned for the next issue, but the magazine was discontinued after this first issue.
An important publication in the history of Japan's "Kichiku" (cruel) publishing. Cover artwork by Ran Akiyoshi.
Not for the faint of heart. Strictly mature audiences only.
From the Editor's notes: "[...] That's because my original path was escapist fairy tales, and whether it was manga, photography, or bookmaking, what I wanted to depict was the world of children. There's no doubt that the purest things and madness are side by side... What is abnormal and what is normal? In this day and age when everything man has created is being torn down and all boundaries are being removed, humans are being led astray by the enormous concepts they have created. Is Witches' Sabbath just a pornographic book? Is Masaaki Aoyama just crazy? It has only just begun."
Masaaki Aoyama (1960-2001) was pioneer of the Japanese underground publishing scene. When he was in the third grade of elementary school, his father bought him a copy of Hiroshi Minamiyama's book "Supernatural Mysteries," which sparked his interest in the supernatural and the occult. Although he never studied, he displayed his prodigy qualities from an early age whilst simultaneously becoming addicted to masturbation. His intense quest for knowledge and perversion continued into his adult life. A self-proclaimed hedonist, Aoyama was hailed as a rare genius editor that had a profound, almost traumatic impact on people. Aoyama openly discussed and pursued a wide range of specialised topics, from drugs, lolicon, scat, and freaks to cult movies, progressive rock, punk, techno, the occult, heretical thought, and the spiritual world. He worked prolifically, editing and writing articles for mini-comics, books and magazines such as Hentai, Hey! Buddy, Billy, Witches' Sabbath, Philiac, Eccentric, amongst a seemingly endless list of fringe "pervert" publications that proliferated after the emergence of vending machine books in the 1970s. In 1992, Aoyama wrote Japan's first practical drug manual, "Dangerous Drugs," a "bible for junkies" which sold over 100,000 copies. In 1995, he edited the first issue of the "brutal" subculture magazine "Dangerous No. 1," which quoted the words of cult guru Hassan I-Sabah: "There is no truth. Everything is permitted." The magazine, which was packed with an exhaustive range of deviant, perverted, and bad taste content, became a huge hit, selling over 250,000 copies in total, sparking a craze for "Kichiku" (cruel) publishing in Japan in the late 19th century.
"No taboos in delusions"—Dangerous No. 1 introduction.
The trend of consuming things that are generally viewed as objects of loathing or pity from a mondo perspective was accelerated all over the world during the nihilist 1990's, but it was particularly popularised in Japan. From V-Zone video culture to comic books like Garo and the works of Kei (Takashi) Nemoto, Suehiro Maruo and Hideshi Hino, to subculture magazines that stimulated spectacle-based curiosity, crime and voyeurism, such as GON!, BUBKA, Sekimatsu Club, TOO NEGATIVE, End of the Century, Weekly Murder Casebook, Bessatsu Takarajima. Around the same time, Aoyama was diagnosed with multifocal posterior pigment epitheliopathy (MPPE), an extremely rare eye disease affecting around 50 people nationwide in Japan, which later became one of the factors that led him to become interested in spiritual matters. Aoyama, the mastermind behind this new genre of "Kichiku" (cruel), bad taste publishing, became disillusioned with the vulgar taste that was being mass-produced as a result of the boom. Aoyama felt the genre lost its substance as a counterculture or literary movement and had been absorbed into popular culture, the historical lineage of erotic underground publishing had become dissolved with the boom of extreme content on the internet. Without moralising, he had stared directly into the abyss. The dark truths he sought fed his own deviancy and addictions. Aoyama became depressed and reclusive. In 1997, Sakakibara Seito, an avid reader of Danger No. 1, committed the Kobe child murders. This led to bookstores removing all bad taste subculture books from their shelves. In 1999, "The Complete Works of Aoyama Masaaki” was published, marking the end of "Kichiku" publishing. Aoyama sought the light and pursued a new theory of happiness related to the spiritual world based on psychoneuroimmunology, molecular biology, and Buddhist resignation. In an interview with the magazine BURST, he declared, "the brutal genre is no longer fresh. From now on, I'll go for the soothing genre." He hanged himself at his home in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture on June 17, 2001, at the age of 40.
Near Fine collector's copy!
1994, Japanese
Softcover, 210 pages, 15 cm x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tom Shobo / Japan
$120.00 - Out of stock
The rare inaugural issue of Too Negative (No. 1 October 1994). Now rare and highly collectible, Too Negative, the "Forbidden Picture Book", was a visceral and visually explosive glossy cult arts magazine that reflected the gory-depraved-beyond salvation-bad taste expressions visible in international subculture at the height of 1990s underground publishing, a time when art was pushing the limits of taste and morality. Edited solely by legendary Japanese publisher and gallery owner Kotaro Kobayashi and published by Tom Publication Inc. between 1994—2000, each thick, glossy volume takes on the aesthetics of a vibrant fashion magazine in the great Japanese "mook" format (the magazine book) packed cover to cover with themes of Eros and Thanatos, such as fetishism, erotica, medical/autopsy photography, death journalism, Japanese bondage, grotesque and neo-surrealist art, crime scene photography, tattooing/irezumi, piercing, and all things of the mondo, macabre, bizarro realm. Frequent collaborators and featured artists were Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, Joel-Peter Witkin, Trevor Brown, Kiyoshi Ikejiri, to name a few. With a Japanese publishing lineage that may be found in earlier bounding-pushing periodicals such as the 1920s erotic grotesque magazine Hentai Shiriou (Pervert Documents), Tasuhiko Shibusawa’s incredible 1960s avant-garde journal Le Sang Et La Rose, or Fiction Inc’s SALE2 journal published from 1980—mid 1990s, Too Negative, and affiliated periodicals such as ORG, Spiral, Schizo, etc. took their subjects to another level of extremism, even by Japanese standards.
Not for the faint hearted.
This issue, Too Negative No. 1 October 1994, features the corpse/death photography of Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, fetish photography of Kiyoshi Ikejiri, Trevor Brown artwork, AIDS body theory by Keiji Nakayama, SM photography by David Pearson, Japanese big girl nude portraits by photographer Yurie Nagashima, Yasumasa Yonehara photography, hermaphrodite masterbation, antique Japanese hermaphrodite genital studies and various early medical drawings, erotic assemblage, medical/anatomy photography, you name it.
Very Good copy.
1994, Japanese
Softcover, 210 pages, 15 cm x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tom Shobo / Japan
$140.00 - Out of stock
Too Negative No. 2 December 1994, featuring the first publication of corpse photographer Kiyotaka Tsurisaki.
Now rare and highly collectible, Too Negative, the "Forbidden Picture Book", was a visceral and visually explosive glossy cult arts magazine that reflected the gory-depraved-beyond salvation-bad taste expressions visible in international subculture at the height of 1990s underground publishing, a time when art was pushing the limits of taste and morality. Edited solely by legendary Japanese publisher and gallery owner Kotaro Kobayashi and published by Tom Publication Inc. between 1994—2000, each thick, glossy volume takes on the aesthetics of a vibrant fashion magazine in the great Japanese "mook" format (the magazine book) packed cover to cover with themes of Eros and Thanatos, such as fetishism, erotica, medical/autopsy photography, death journalism, Japanese bondage, grotesque and neo-surrealist art, crime scene photography, tattooing/irezumi, piercing, and all things of the mondo, macabre, bizarro realm. Frequent collaborators and featured artists were Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, Joel-Peter Witkin, Trevor Brown, Kiyoshi Ikejiri, to name a few. With a Japanese publishing lineage that may be found in earlier bounding-pushing periodicals such as the 1920s erotic grotesque magazine Hentai Shiriou (Pervert Documents), Tasuhiko Shibusawa’s incredible 1960s avant-garde journal Le Sang Et La Rose, or Fiction Inc’s SALE2 journal published from 1980—mid 1990s, Too Negative, and affiliated periodicals such as ORG, Spiral, Schizo, etc. took their subjects to another level of extremism, even by Japanese standards.
Not for the faint hearted.
This issue, Too Negative No. 2 December 1994, features the corpse/death photography of Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, fetish photography of Kiyoshi Ikejiri, Kotaro Kobayashi, Setsuko Chiba, the artwork of Trevor Brown, photography of Nancy Burson, doll art by Katan Amano, loads of vintage medical, autopsy and death photography, tattoo and piercing fetish, freak postcards, sex dolls, and much more.
Very Good copy with some cover/extremities wear.
2005, English
Softcover, 412 pages, 28.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Purple Books / Paris
Purple Institute / Paris
$110.00 - In stock -
Now scarce copy of the third Purple Fashion, Spring / Summer 2005, edited by Olivier Zahm, with cover and major photo feature by Terry Richardson featuring Chloé Sévigny (styled by Katja Rahlwes), loads more photography by both Terry Richardson and Katja Rahlwes, plus Rita Ackermann, Jess Franco, Marguerite Duras, Gary Indiana, Gus Van Sant, Hedi Slimane, Camille Vivier, Vanessa Beecroft, Ashley Bickerton, Jonathan Meese, Bernadette Corporation, Martynka Wawrzyniak, Anette Aurell, Chuck Palahniuk, Helmut Lan, Rick Owens, Sonia Rykiel, Los Super Elegantes by Pablo León de la Barra, Yann Andréa, Helmut Lang, Inez Van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, Comme des Garçons, Imitation of Christ, Lutz, Ann Demeuelemeester, Balenciaga, Alex Antitch, Giasco Bertoli, Marcelo Krasilcic, Vanina Sorrenti, Bless, Gaspard Yurkievich, Dries Van Noten, Miu Miu, Tsumori Chisato, Vanessa Bruno, Jean Paul Gaultier, Pierre Even, Christophe Brunnquell, Vava Ribeiro, Marcelo Krasilcic, Andro Wekua, Takashi Homma, Dike Blair, JNeff Rian, Miltos Manetaas, Antek Walczak, Laetitia Benat, and many more.
In 1992, Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm started the magazine Purple Prose as a reaction against the superficial glamour of the 1980s; much as a part of the global counterculture at the time, inspired by magazines like Interview, Ray Gun, Nova, and Helmut Newton's Illustrated, but with the aesthetics of what usually is referred to as anti-fashion. Based on their personal interests and views; Purple was, and in a sense still is, made much in the same spirit of the fanzine. Started "without any means, and without any experience, because we wanted to make a magazine that was radically different. We wanted to support the artists around us that no one else supported, much less talked about."—Olivier Zahm. The magazine became associated with the "realism" of the new fashion photography of the 1990s, with names like Juergen Teller, Terry Richardson, Wolfgang Tillmans, Mark Borthwick, Corinne Day, and Mario Sorrenti. Soon after the birth of Purple Prose, Zahm and Fleiss created spin-off publications such as les cahiers purple, Purple Sexe, Purple Fiction, and of course, Purple Fashion, in which Zahm aimed at fusing together his two worlds, fashion and art. Now one of the most iconic and influential fashion magazines in history.
Very Good copy.
1975, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 130 pages, 27 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Persistence of Vision / Berkeley
$40.00 - In stock -
Scarce issue of Women & Film Volume 2, Number 7, Summer 1975, published in California between 1972 and 1975, it was the first feminist film magazine, "a project that would transform cinema". Edited by Siew-Hwa Beh and Saunie Salyer, this issue includes Jill Godmilow (interview), Eleanor Perry (interview), Women's Film Festivals, Cinda Firestone's 'Attica', Leontine Sagan's 'Maedchen in Uniform', and more. Includes contributions by Connie Greenbaum, Barbara Martineau, Marjorie Keller, Patricia Erens, Eleanor Perry, Marion Weiss, Eileen McGarry, Carol Wikarska, Nancy Scholar, Carol Emmens, Sharon Lieberman, Michael Shedlin, Judith Taylor, Joyce Newman, Bill Nichols, Alexis Krasilovsky, and more. Interviews with Jill Godmilow and Eleanor Perry. Cover by Thelma Soderquist.
From the collection of Australian film critic Adrian Martin (b. 1959), name neatly penned to the first page.
G copy with tanning to edges, toning to pages, minor chipping/tears to cover edges.
1973, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 120 pages, 27 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Persistence of Vision / Berkeley
$40.00 - In stock -
Scarce 1973 double-issue of Women & Film Vol. 1, No. 3 & 4, published in California between 1972 and 1975, it was the first feminist film magazine, "a project that would transform cinema". Edited by Siew-Hwa Beh and Saunie Salyer, this issue includes Eric Rohmer (interview), Christiane Rochefort (interview), Ken Russell and Paul Morrissey, Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin's 'Letter to Jane', Ingmar Bergman's 'Cries and Whispers', Bree Daniels in 'Klute', Armando Robles Godoy's 'The Green Wall', Mai Zetterling's 'The Girls', early suffrage films, and more. Includes contributions by Beverly Walker, Lucille Iverson, Marsha Kinder, Beverle Houston, Jacoba Atlas, Gretchen Bataille, Carol Davidson, Sibyl James, Constance Penley, Diane Giddis, Julia Lesage, Chuck Kleinhaus, Abigail Child, Sharon Smith, Kristina Nordstrom, Jeanne Betancourt, Sashi, Sally Pugh, Donnie, Bill Nichols, and more. Cover by Wayne Thiebaud.
From the collection of Australian film critic Adrian Martin (b. 1959), name neatly penned to the first page.
VG copy with tanning to edges, toning to pages, sticker to cover.
1991—1997, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 70 pages ea. approx x 9 issues, 27 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Musicworks / Toronto
$80.00 - In stock -
Lot of 9 issues (1991—1997) of Musicworks, The Journal of Sound Exploration, published out of Toronto. Launched in January 1978 by Andrew Timar and John Oswald, best known for his plunderphonics, Musicworks was a long-running Canadian avant-garde music magazine devoted to experimental, improvised and Electroacoustic music. These issues together feature an abundance of exclusive interviews, essays, reviews, theoretical texts, scores, colloquies, artworks, features on and by Stan Brakhage, Chris Cutler, John Cage, Tibor Szemző, Pauline Oliveros, Trevor Wishart, Carolee Schneemann, Josef Režný, Jerry Hunt, Kazue Sawai, Glenn Branca, Yūji Takahashi, Tim Hodgkinson, Louis Andriessen, Glenn Gould, Harry Partch, Akio Suzuki, Fergus Kelly, Petr Kotik, Nicholas Gebhardt, Barbara Benary, Andrew Culver, Udo Kasemets, Franz Van Rossum, R.I.P. Hayman, Iva Bittová, Nobuo Kubota, David Rokeby, François Girard, J.S. Bach, Jocelyn Robert, Don Ritter, Glenn Gould, Paul Rapoport, and many more. Scarce and incredible resource for improvised and avant-garde compositional music/performance/video histories from this publisher and cassette label.
Good copy with with general light magazine wear.
2025, English
Softcover, 144 pages, 20 x 14.5 cm
Published by
un / Naarm
$30.00 - In stock -
un 19.1 Resonant Imaginaries
Edited by Lucreccia Quintanilla
Contributions by Anabelle Lacroix, Shareeka Helaluddin, Aasma Tulika, Daisy Currie, Nicholas Currie, Edwina Stevens, Nadeem Tiafau Eshraghi, Ripley Kavara, mgmgmgmg, Hannah Wickramasuriya, Hayden Ryan, Justine Makdessi, Geoff Robinson, Samuel Beilby, Victoria Pham, Wen Pei Low, Suneel Jethani.
1979, English
Softcover, 64 pages, 22 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Whispers Press / New York
$45.00 - Out of stock
First edition of Whispers October, 1979 (Vol 4, No.1/2, Whole Numbers 11/12). Special Fritz Leiber issue with stories by Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Brian Lumley and others. Front and back cover art by Stephen Fabian.
Whispers was a 1970s horror and fantasy fiction magazine. Named after a fictitious magazine referenced in the H. P. Lovecraft story "The Unnamable", Whispers began as an attempt by editor, publisher and avid horror collector Stuart David Schiff to produce a modest semi-professional magazine that hoped to revive the legendary Weird Tales in a small way. The magazine was also a followup to August Derleth's The Arkham Collector, which had ceased after Derleth's death. The magazine won the first "Howard" or World Fantasy Award for non-professional publishing in 1975. Whispers went on to become an important elaborate showcase for dark fantasy fiction and artwork of the 1970s, featuring Manly Wade Wellman, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Karl Edward Wagner, and David Drake. A string of anthologies were published through the 1980s.
Very Good copy.
1985, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 22 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Whispers Press / New York
$45.00 - Out of stock
First edition of Whispers March 1982, a double issue (Vol. 4, Nos. 3/4, Whole Numbers 15/16), Special Ramsey Campbell issue includes three stories by Campbell and an article about him by Dr. Jeffrey M. Elliott. Also contains stories by Karl Edward Wagner, Ray Russell, Michael Shea, William F. Nolan, and others. Front cover by John Stewart, rear cover by Hannes Bok, with interior illustrations by Lee Brown Coye, John Stewart and others.
Whispers was a 1970s horror and fantasy fiction magazine. Named after a fictitious magazine referenced in the H. P. Lovecraft story "The Unnamable", Whispers began as an attempt by editor, publisher and avid horror collector Stuart David Schiff to produce a modest semi-professional magazine that hoped to revive the legendary Weird Tales in a small way. The magazine was also a followup to August Derleth's The Arkham Collector, which had ceased after Derleth's death. The magazine won the first "Howard" or World Fantasy Award for non-professional publishing in 1975. Whispers went on to become an important elaborate showcase for dark fantasy fiction and artwork of the 1970s, featuring Manly Wade Wellman, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Karl Edward Wagner, and David Drake. A string of anthologies were published through the 1980s.
Very Good copy.
1984, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 22 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Whispers Press / New York
$45.00 - Out of stock
First edition of Whispers December 1984 (Vol. 5, Nos. 1/2, whole number 21/22). Fiction by Fritz Leiber, Dennis Etchinson, Tanith Lee, Hugh B. Cave, and others. Front and back cover art by Anatoly Ivanov.
Whispers was a 1970s horror and fantasy fiction magazine. Named after a fictitious magazine referenced in the H. P. Lovecraft story "The Unnamable", Whispers began as an attempt by editor, publisher and avid horror collector Stuart David Schiff to produce a modest semi-professional magazine that hoped to revive the legendary Weird Tales in a small way. The magazine was also a followup to August Derleth's The Arkham Collector, which had ceased after Derleth's death. The magazine won the first "Howard" or World Fantasy Award for non-professional publishing in 1975. Whispers went on to become an important elaborate showcase for dark fantasy fiction and artwork of the 1970s, featuring Manly Wade Wellman, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Karl Edward Wagner, and David Drake. A string of anthologies were published through the 1980s.
Very Good copy.
2025, English
Softcover, 188 pages, 29.5 x 20.5 cm
Published by
AdminAdmin / Melbourne
$45.00 - In stock -
Containing original contributions; artwork, art-historofiction, hagiofiction, critical essays, poetry and prose, some loosely centred around instinct and the mind.
This with contributions by Erik van Lieshout, Peles Duo x Rob Crosse, CAConrad, Robert McKenzie, Mark Beasley, Hany Armanious, Patrick Hartigan, Elizabeth Pulie, Anthea Behm, Luke Stettner, Skyler Brickley, Tommy Miller, Rebecca Holborn, Penelope Latté, Guy Benfield, Jason Vorhees.....and more
1984—1986, English
Softcover (staple-bound), each 52-56 pages, 31.5 x 23.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
A.T.O.M. / Carlton
$60.00 - In stock -
Lot of 4 early 1980's issues of Metro, Australia’s oldest film and media periodical. Founded in 1964 Metro is devoted to critical discourse on Australian screen culture. Includes Issue No. 63 (1984), Issue No. 64 (1984), Issue No. 65 (1984), Issue No. 69 (Autumn 1986), in the old over-sized, stapled format with excellent cover graphics and heavily illustrated throughout. With the subtitle "Media and Education Magazine", Metro was published at the time by the Australian Teachers of Media (A.T.O.M.) with assistance from the Australian Film Commission. Each issue packed with content on Australian film, video art, music videos, film history, film theory, film teaching, film industry, reviews, etc. School kids to Skinheads.
All VG, only light wear.
2007, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 108 pages, 28.5 x 23.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
PIN-UP / New York
$180.00 - In stock -
Rare and collectible early issue of the acclaimed 'Magazine for Architectural Entretainment', PIN–UP. Issue 3, F/W 2007-2008, back when the print-run was surprisingly small and magazines were still fantastic.
"The power of three. PIN–UP’s third issue combines theory with architectural fun and games. An inescapable document of the late 2000s New York scene and beyond. One of PIN–UP’s few staple-bound issues. VERY RARE."—from PIN-UP website
Featuring:
JULIUS SHULMAN
The photography legend shares his love for gardening with a young Los Angeles architect
Interview by Fritz Haeg
Photography by Todd Cole
ROBERT WILSON
The artist and director reflects on the objects of his affection
Text by Horacio Silva
Photography by Todd Eberle
K/R ARCHITECTS
Straight talk with two mellowed New York modernists
Interview by Aric Chen
Photography by Disco Meisch
BALL-NOGUES & GANDALF GAVAN
East and West Coast meet on the threshold of art and architecture
Interview by Pierre Alexandre de Looz
Photography by Gandalf Gavan
Drawings by Ball-Nogues
Also:
A Thierry Mugler fashion shoot from May 1980 conjures up the irresistible dynamic of Gotham’s darker, bolder days. One last visit to Robert Wilson’s former TriBeCa loft for a glimpse at his cargo cult of collectibles. Photographer Chris Mottalini captures the “beautiful ruins” of one Paul Rudolph house in Westport Connecticut, moments before it is demolished. A look back at the work of Tony Duquette, the designer who evoked the exotic strangeness of the natural world. A two-part meditation on the “folly of ruins” — in photographs and text. Lorenz Cugini and Richard Petit provide two distinct studies of the usually veiled dialogue between chairs and bodies. Ben Widdicome examines the position of the architect in popular cinema and, by extension, society-at-large. Ted Trussel Porter investigates the influence of David Whitney on his paramour Philip Johnson’s interiors. A letter sent across the Iron Curtain by German architect Hans Scharoun to his Czechoslovakian student and collaborator Lubomir Šlapeta. Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy stage a critical conversation between avant-garde and kitsch with their installation Heidi at the Krizinger Gallery in Vienna. Some notes on play and architecture in the 1950s and 1960s by Dirk van den Heuvel. PIN–UP takes a fresh look at the aging beauty of Hong Kong’s Cultural Centre. A peek inside the VIP Suites Caracas —a n iconic landmark made over as a boutique hotel by New York architects Ashe+Leandro. Photographs by Marcelo Krasilcic invite you to imagine a scenario of your own in Steve McQueen’s recently restored Palm Springs residence. Simon Fujiwara turns the Documenta town’s ’80s civic architecture into an effervescent intervention. And photographer Adrian Gaut time-travels to Prague to recapture the creativity and forward-thinking work of 20th Century Czech theatre designers.
Very Good copy, light wear.
2003, Japanese
Softcover, 160 pages, 24 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo
$60.00 - In stock -
"Gothic" Special Feature Issue of cult Japanese underground magazine Yaso, published in 2003, edited by Yuichi Konno and Atelier Peyotl (publishers of Night Vision/Yaso/Peyotl/Wave/Silvester Club...). Heavily illustrated with texts in Japanese with in-depth profiles, interviews with and essays on Trevor Brown, Gottfried Helnwein, Kuniyoshi Kaneko, ero-manga master Keizo Miyanishi, influential Gothic Lolita illustrator Mitsukazu Mihara, Floria Sigismondi, Marilyn Manson, Alice Auaa, loads of "Modern Primitive" material (piercing, body modification, body performance, etc.), and much more...
Near Fine copy.
2004, Japanese
Softcover, 176 pages, 24 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo
$60.00 - In stock -
"Doll" Special Feature Issue of cult Japanese underground magazine Yaso, published in 2004, edited by Yuichi Konno and Atelier Peyotl (publishers of Night Vision/Yaso/Peyotl/Wave/Silvester Club...). Heavily illustrated with texts in Japanese with in-depth profiles, interviews and essays on leading artists that work with dolls, including contemporary Japanese masters of doll art, Koitsukihime, Katan Amano, Etsuko Miura, Yoshiko Hori, Yogu, Simon Yotsuya, Ryo Yoshida, Akiyama Mahoko, Mari Shimizu, influential Gothic Lolita illustrator Mitsukazu Mihara, Nori Doi, legendary Czech artist and animator Jan Švankmajer, Polish artist and theatre director Tadeusz Kantor, Japanese photographer Miwa Yanagi, film-maker Floria Sigismondi, Louise Bourgeois, Slawomir Rumiak, Nori Doi, and a fantastic illustrated book guide of doll-related art books and literature, from Mary Shelley to The Surrealists, Hans Bellmer, Ken Katayama, Pierre Mollinier, Makoto Aida, Irina Ionesco, H.R. Giger...
Very Good copy with some wear to cover extremities.
1982/1992, Japanese
Softcover, 192 pages, 21 x 14.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo
$60.00 - In stock -
"Corpse" Special Feature Issue of cult Japanese underground magazine Yaso, first published in 1982, then re-printed in 1992, edited by Yuichi Konno and Atelier Peyotl (publishers of Night Vision/Yaso/Peyotl/Wave/Silvester Club...). Heavily illustrated with texts in Japanese that look at the theme of death and the dead in the arts, literature, occultism, ancient sciences, philosophy, mythology, poetry, film, crime, and much more. Features John Duncan, Tetsumi Kudo, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Masahisa Fukase, Franz Kafka, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Guillaume Apollinaire, Joe Potts (LAFMS), Takashi Ishii, Rudolf II — Holy Roman Emperor, Akinari Ueda, Marcel Duchamp, Chris Burden, Paul Celan, Alain Resnais, Gilyak Amagasaki, Shusaku Arakawa, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Shuji Terayama, Andy Warhol, Charles Manson, Brian Wilson, Kyoko Endoh, Princess Yongtai, Salvador Dalí, Ono no Komachi, Kiyoshi Kasai, Caravaggio, Throbbing Gristle, Takizawa Bakin, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, Manson Family, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Wu Zetian, Genesis P-Orridge, Yusuke Nakahara, Ranpo Lagrange, Mitsusada Fukasaku, Nakai Hideo, Richard Wagner, and many more.
Very Good copy.
1986, Japanese
Softcover, 160 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$70.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.28 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty bookshop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980—90s. Each issue covers different themes and features, heavy on fetishism.
Issue No.28, the "Fetishism" issue features collected writings and images around the theme of fetish by John Willie, Bizarre Magazine, Pierre Molinier, Irina Ionesco, Bernard Faucon (his incredible Summer Camp series), Irwing Klaw, Centurians Publishing Inc. bondage catalogues, Andy Warhol and much more... What's more, this issue comes complete with a green synthetic feather to kickstart your own sensual adventures.
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
1985, Japanese
Softcover, 160 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$70.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.29 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘erotisism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.29, the "Bondage" issue features collected writings and images around the themes of bondage, bdsm and more, including extensive features of photography and illustrations by John Willie, Irving Klaw, Eric Stanton, Carlo, Eneg, plus Andy Warhol and all the usual great advertisements/catalogue clippings, and much more... Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy with tanning to pages.
1990, Japanese
Softcover, 176 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$70.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.40 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘eroticism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.40, the "FREAKS" issue features writings and artwork throughout by Fictcryptokrimsographs by Les Krims, Amputee Love comic by Rich and Rene, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Odilon Redon, Joel-Peter Witkin, Hiromi Itō, Masaaki Oba, Diane Arbus, Erving Goffman, Pierre Molinier, lots of mysterious vintage "freak" and erotic imagery and illustration, and catalogue/advertisments/clippings of Eric Stanton, Irving Klaw, John Willie, Bizarre Comix, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy, tanning to pages and some wear to cover.
1988, Japanese
Softcover, 168 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$70.00 - Out of stock
Issue No.33 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘erotisism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.33, the "Homosex Issue" features Quentin Crisp, Herbert List, Andy Warhol, Pierre Klossowski, David Hockney, Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden, Mel Odom, Jean Cocteau, Aubrey Beardsley, Guglielmo Plüschow, Vincenzo Galdi, and much more. It also features the Fiction, Inc. section that samples a cross-section of content from catalogue publications including the work of John Willie, Bill Ward, Carlo, Guido Crepax, Eric Stanton, Ruiz, Sally Roberts, Irving Claw, Betty Page, and periodicals such as Rubber Magazine, Amateur Bondage, Bizarre Comix, Bizarre Classix, Bizarre Fotos, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy with tanning and age to pages.
1978, Japanese
Softcover, 25.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$80.00 - In stock -
Rare premiere issue (October 1978) of June (magazine), the first yaoi (boys love or "BL") magazine in Japan, founded in 1978, named after the French author Jean Genet, with "june" being a play on the Japanese pronunciation of his name. An underground cult hit, June became synonymous with the BL genre, publishing male/male tanbi ("aesthetic") romances — stories written for and about the worship of idealised beauty, tragedy, and homoerotic romance between androgynous men and beautiful male youths, narratives that emphasise homosociality and de-emphasize socio-cultural homophobia, rich in decadence through the use of flowery language, baroque sexual fantasies and unusual kanji. The yaoi genre was coined by the female manga artists Yasuko Sakata and Akiko Hatsu and originated in the 1970s as a subgenre of shōjo manga, or comics for girls, influenced by the rising popularity of depictions of bishōnen ("beautiful boys"), a term for androgynous or effeminate male characters. June ushered in a new wave of — primarily female — manga artists and writers, including Keiko Takemiya, Tomomi Kobayashi, Kaoru Kurimoto, and Akimi Yoshida, and male artists such as Sadao Hasegawa, Gekko Hayashi, and Ben Kimura, publishing unsolicited manuscripts and homoerotic artworks alongside critical writings, reviews, and historical pieces, all centred around boys. Although it began typically as a genre by and for women, distinct from bara (gay manga created by men), June increasingly appealed to a gay audience, and played a significant role in the construction of a collective gay identity in Japan, alongside pioneering gay manga magazines such Barazoku, which featured many of the same artists. The June imprint ran various editions of the magazine, including the "large format" with many photos of youths and colour artworks, the popular Roman June ("Romantic June") which contained a mix of stories and manga, and Shousetsu June, and the original manga magazine.
The yaoi genre of June (also referred to as shōnen-ai "boy love") was heavily inspired by European decadent literature, philosophy, the homoerotic writings of Japanese authors Taruho Inagaki, Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, and the Bildungsroman (coming-of-age) literary genre as much as it was by pop culture and the androgyny of musicians such as David Bowie, Marc Bolan and David Sylvian, or actor Björn Andrésen's portrayal of Thaddeus in Visconti's 1971 film adaptation of Death in Venice. Early issues are be filled to the brim with lavish illustrations and comic stories, erotic fantasy fiction, photographs of "beautiful boys" (young film stars, catholic choir boys, musicians...), reviews, interviews, and essays, all rich with romantic connotations to the age of Decadence, Symbolism, and the aesthetics of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, as well as Japanese folklore.
Good—Very Good copy of this scarce early issue of June, published by Sun Publishing, Tokyo.
1979, Japanese
Softcover, 25.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$55.00 - In stock -
Issue No 5 (May 1979) of June (magazine), the first yaoi (boys love or "BL") magazine in Japan, founded in 1978, named after the French author Jean Genet, with "june" being a play on the Japanese pronunciation of his name. An underground cult hit, June became synonymous with the BL genre, publishing male/male tanbi ("aesthetic") romances — stories written for and about the worship of idealised beauty, tragedy, and homoerotic romance between androgynous men and beautiful male youths, narratives that emphasise homosociality and de-emphasize socio-cultural homophobia, rich in decadence through the use of flowery language, baroque sexual fantasies and unusual kanji. The yaoi genre was coined by the female manga artists Yasuko Sakata and Akiko Hatsu and originated in the 1970s as a subgenre of shōjo manga, or comics for girls, influenced by the rising popularity of depictions of bishōnen ("beautiful boys"), a term for androgynous or effeminate male characters. June ushered in a new wave of — primarily female — manga artists and writers, including Keiko Takemiya, Tomomi Kobayashi, Kaoru Kurimoto, and Akimi Yoshida, and male artists such as Sadao Hasegawa, Gekko Hayashi, and Ben Kimura, publishing unsolicited manuscripts and homoerotic artworks alongside critical writings, reviews, and historical pieces, all centred around boys. Although it began typically as a genre by and for women, distinct from bara (gay manga created by men), June increasingly appealed to a gay audience, and played a significant role in the construction of a collective gay identity in Japan, alongside pioneering gay manga magazines such Barazoku, which featured many of the same artists. The June imprint ran various editions of the magazine, including the "large format" with many photos of youths and colour artworks, the popular Roman June ("Romantic June") which contained a mix of stories and manga, and Shousetsu June, and the original manga magazine.
The yaoi genre of June (also referred to as shōnen-ai "boy love") was heavily inspired by European decadent literature, philosophy, the homoerotic writings of Japanese authors Taruho Inagaki, Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, and the Bildungsroman (coming-of-age) literary genre as much as it was by pop culture and the androgyny of musicians such as David Bowie, Marc Bolan and David Sylvian, or actor Björn Andrésen's portrayal of Thaddeus in Visconti's 1971 film adaptation of Death in Venice. Early issues are be filled to the brim with lavish illustrations and comic stories, erotic fantasy fiction, photographs of "beautiful boys" (young film stars, catholic choir boys, musicians...), reviews, interviews, and essays, all rich with romantic connotations to the age of Decadence, Symbolism, and the aesthetics of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, as well as Japanese folklore.
Good—Very Good copy of this scarce early issue of June, published by Sun Publishing, Tokyo.