Ben is Dead

“Law is where you buy it in this town.”

Raymond Chandler

Ben is Dead is the zine I made with Darby Romeo, the founder and publisher. For a punk zine, we did pretty well—Ben is Dead was carried in Tower Records nationwide and no one called us a sellout. We covered more than music, with political and cultural stories, art (I interviewed Jeffrey Vallance, a hero), and some admittedly out-there editorials. My favorite thing we did was this cover, which was our first issue following the 1992 Los Angeles uprisings.

I spotted the graffiti on a sidewalk near my apartment, Wild Don Lewis came over to take the picture (those are my toes on the left), and Darby wisely didn’t put any other type on the cover. I wish I had a copy!

You can read the issue on archive.org, which has almost every issue of the zine. Have mercy on our young souls.