One of the entries for Punk magazine’s “Patti Smith Graffiti Contest” from 1976.
One of my very favorite possessions in my home library is the massive 2012 coffee table book Punk: The Best of Punk Magazine, gifted to me by a punk rock pal of mine. If you don’t already own a copy of it, find a way to part with $20 (or so), buy the book, and I promise you won’t ever regret it. Every so often, I pick it up and start reading from a random entry point and am taken back to the magazine’s heyday and its gritty yet comical approach to covering the punks of the scene when it began its glorious print run in 1975.
Core components of Punk were the comic strips based on the fictional exploits of the punk elite, the photo pictorials used for “The Legend of Nick Detroit” (starring Richard Hell) and another epic punk rock tale, “Mutant Monster Beach Party.” Both pictorial “movies” featured appearances by, well, everybody involved in the New York City punk scene and beyond, like David Byrne, Debbie Harry, Andy Warhol and Joey Ramone. Punk marched to the beat of its own high-hat-loving drum kit, but they also did regular magazine stuff like running contests.
In 1979 Punk solicited submissions from readers for their Patti Smith Graffiti Contest, requesting that they deface a press photo of Patti. When Volume I, Issue #5 published in August of 1976, the magazine noted it was still receiving entries commenting they “maybe” might print more, but they “doubt it.” Eight Graffiti-inspired press photos of Patti were chosen for the three-page, black and white layout and run the gamut from Patti looking a bit like Alice Cooper (pictured at the top of this post), to a topless collage of Patti (with her name spelled “Paty”) with tattooed boobs. It would take three more years for Punk to launch the Shaun Cassidy Graffiti Contest, announcing it in Punk #17 in 1979. Submissions were strong, but sadly, Issue #19 was scrapped, Da-Doo-Womp-Womp. Lucky for us, Punk’s John Holstrom included nine of the brutal illustrations of Cassidy, sent to Punk in Punk: The Best Of Punk Magazine. What a time to be alive. Some of the images that follow are NSFW.
Scribbles announcing the winners of the Patti Smith contest. The photo below is the one mentioned, sent in by Bimbo.
The winning submission for the Patti Smith Graffiti Contest, all the way from Japan by Macoto Kaneya.
A submission for Punk’s Shaun Cassidy-themed Graffiti contest.
Rita Cole of Honolulu (age seven), you are my hero.
HT: All photos taken from ‘Punk: The History of Punk Magazine.’
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Poem for Keef’: Patti Smith’s poem for Keith Richards, 1978
Patti Smith on Bob Marley, comics, and opening her own pot cafe when she ‘grows up,’ back in 1976
‘I don’t need no f*cking shit’: Patti Smith on getting bleeped
Patti Smith Group on Letterman: Fuck yeah!
Teen idol Shaun Cassidy goes new wave, covers Bowie and Talking Heads on Todd Rundgren-produced LP