Cinema Sewer
Mixes comics, off-the-wall art, and whip-smart writing dealing with bizarre porn, horror, and exploitation movies and the video underground to bring the people perfect toilet-time reading!
Vancouver, Canada
320-440 east 5th ave., V5T 1N5
Email: mindseye100@hotmail.com
- Category: Cinema, Comics, Erotic
- Language: English
- Format: 167 x 260 mm
- Price: $ 4
- Web: http://www.cinemasewer.com
Cinema Sewer is the film journal yo' mama warned you about. Editor and main contributer Robin Bougie mixes comics, off-the-wall art, and whip-smart writing dealing with bizarre porn, horror, and exploitation movies and the video underground to bring the people perfect toilet-time reading!
Exclusive Interview
the market for sleazy degenerate entertainment has changed a lot in the last 10 years
What is your magazine about?
Cinema Sewer is about the sleazier side of film history. It\'s takes a lot of joy in the trashier aspects of exploitation, classic porn, horror, and underground movies. In it\'s DIY style so it\'s a lot like a zine, but it\'s
also got a certain amount of visual polish to it, making it a little easier to digest for people who don\'t buy self published zines or have access to them. It uses comics, illustration and writing to celebrate and delve into a
world of movies that a lot of people don\'t even know about. It\'s a lot of fun to put together.
Who’s behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
I\'m a comic book artist and a writer, and I\'m the main contributer/creator of the magazine. I also have other guest artists and writers who help out, but I do about 80% of whatever is in any given issue.
How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
I do everything by hand, including lettering, layout, and whatever else you can think of in the production of the magazine -- which is almost unheard of in this digital age, although it\'s a very deliberate move on my part. No desktop publishing programs, just pencils, paper, and pens. I want the magazine to have a very organic look, almost like a really fantastic letter from a friend who knows how to write and draw. I spend about 4 months making it, usually putting in about 3 or 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. It\'s a real labor of love, doing it all by hand that way. I\'m probably going to get carpal tunnel syndrome doing all that tiny handlettering! Sometimes I feel like Charles Crumb, in that movie CRUMB (1994) who was the insane brother of
Robert Crumb -- and who filled hundreds of his Journals with tiny scribbly lettering until he went insane and killed himself.
What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
Starting it in 1997 was a big step. I\'d done about 50 selfpublished comics and magazines since I was 17 before I started Cinema Sewer, and now I\'ve done 18 issues of CS. It started as a little photocopied 200 copy print run zine that I just sold locally, and has now grown into a worldwide trash film journal with a print run of 2000 copies. I\'ve also branched off into DVD releases and a massive full color glossy Cinema Sewer calendar that comes
out every year - and to be honest - makes me way more $$ than the magazine itself.
Which are the key incredients for the success of your magazine?
I don\'t really strive for any sort of financial success. Mostly I just want to make myself happy with Cinema Sewer, and in order to do that, I have to not get bored with it. Trying to make each issue better than the last is a way I strive to keep myself excited about doing it. So far I feel I\'ve been doing that. I still get so excited everytime I get to have a launch party for an issue. Putting something out there every six to 7 months that is such a raw extension of myself is a little like giving birth twice a year, or mailing your turds to people.
What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be „the” thing to help the magazine to improve?
Better distribution would help a lot. I\'m in a fair amount of stores, but there are still whole markets that I can\'t get into simply because the magazine is too filthy and not mainstream enough. Getting the magazine into the hands of the people who would appreciate it is the constant struggle for me. If any one has any ideas, please let me know.
Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
Content wise, I like it just the way it is - but there is always room for improvement of course. I\'d like to see the sales of the magazine double, or perhaps triple in that time.
Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
I\'m constantly amazed by who is reading the magazine as opposed who I imagine to be reading it when I create it. Like, I just assume it\'s 22 to 32 year old guys like me who can appreciate the smuttier things in life, but I\'m constantly getting fan mail from unlikely sources. Recently I\'ve been hearing from teenage girls and senior citizens who have written to tell me how much they love what I\'m doing. And when I go to self publishing conventions, at least half of my customers are female. I think the market
for sleazy degenerate entertainment has changed a lot in the last 10 years, with the ladies being a lot less embarrassed to admit that they like to partake in good dirty fun.
Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
Very much so. I want to get as many interested readers as possible, but doing it on my own terms and keeping the magazine the way it is - is very important.
What’s your relationship with advertisement? Does it influence your content? Do you care about advertising-driven-editorials?
I have no problem with advertisers, as long as the product is something very much in keeping with the content of the magazine. Like, I probably woudn\'t advertise cars or wine -- because thats not what I\'m interested in or talking about in the pages of the magazine. Dvd companies, other like-minded magazines, and the like are welcome. I would say that the advertising doesn\'t influence the content at all.
Do you think that magazine readers still need to watch TV?
Hell yeah. I think anyone interested in staying up on current events and pop culture in general shouldn\'t be dismissing any major form of media. If that\'s not so important to you, then fine, don\'t go on the internet, watch tv, read newspapers or whatever you want. But if you want to keep your finger on the pulse, you kind of have to pay attention - even if it all seems to be something of a cultural wasteland most of the time. Knowing what makes up that cultural wasteland is an excellent way to keep from getting swallowed up into it. Knowlege is always preferable to ignorance, as far as I\'m concerned.
Which is your relationship with your printer? Does he play a main role in your development?
Yeah, I go through a local printer who I\'m very friendly with. He loves the content of the magazine - or at least thats what he tells me to my face.
Which magazines did influence you most? What are you looking for in other magazines?
Mike White\'s CASHIERS DU CINEMART, in terms of the way he keeps it pretty slick, smart, and ziney at the same time, and the old SLEAZOID EXPRESS from the \'80s in terms of the level of research and passion put into the writing.
Those two mags are my real inspiration, but CINEMA SEWER isn\'t really all that much like either of them. I\'m definately doing my own thing, but you can\'t get away from that when you approach the creative aspect from such a personal perspective.
What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
I didn\'t know what the fuck I was doing. Also, I didn\'t have the internet, so reseaching facts and dates was a LOT harder, and I got a lot of stuff wrong. It\'s painfully embarrassing to look at now. Thats why I don\'t reprint old stuff. I\'m not so proud of it.
What question did you never ask in your magazine but would have liked to?
Jeez, I don\'t know.
How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself a maniac?
I\'m pretty voracious in terms of books, comics, and magazines. I spend about $200 to $400 a month on all three. That seems like a lot to me! I\'m running out of room in my place for it all, actually.
E-mail interview from “15.01.2006”. © Colophon2007.com – Mike Koedinger Editions SA (Luxembourg)
Staff
Founder: Robin Bougie...contact
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