Zone 5300

Thursday, 27 December 2007

Somehow comics are not taken very serious in Holland. There are some great comic artists, but they don’t sell much books, and there no comic magazines. Well, there are many small press zines, but you know what I mean. I mean zines that get distributed all over Holland, that pay their artists and that are published weekly.
One the most successful Dutch comic artists, Robert van der Kroft, and Tonio van Vugt, started Zone 5330 twenty years ago (or is it fifteen?), to fill this gap. The magazine is still alive and kicking and considering all the problems they had, this is a miracle. Well, not a miracle, but the work of two handfuls of people, of which Tonio van Vugt is one.
I have been working for Zone 5300 from the very beginning. I write articles, comics, and do lettering. As all the other contributors, I never got paid for that, and, as all the other contributors, I don’t mind that. Zone 5300 has become a precious bridge between the underground culture and the main stream media.
Last week Tonio gave me some presents; a 45 with a sleeve designed by Erik Kriek, and a record-washing–device. The 45 was mentioned in a recent issue of Zone 5300 and I told Tonio that I would like to have a copy, and the record-washing-device has been a hit in Tonio’s household ever since he bought it four years ago, and when he found out that I didn‘t own one, he bought one for me too.
The 45 is a split record: on one side is a recording of stand up comedian Doug Stanhope ( Suicide ), and on the other side is a song by The Quotes, She got me. Very nice present, and you can buy it here.
Tonio and I have a ongoing discussion about Hugh Cornball, the singer of The Stranglers. Well, is not really a discussion; Tonio thinks that Hugh Cornwall is a genius and I do my best to try and turn Tonio on to other music. I have nothing against Hugh Cornhall, but it doesn’t feel right to see a nice guy like Tonio walking around in a Stranglers T-shirt.
So, here is not* a song by The Stranglers, but a rap that I found on YouTube. The rappers is named Mattriks and the rap is called SyntropicSyntactix.

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