{"id":115292,"date":"2025-01-11T18:33:45","date_gmt":"2025-01-11T18:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/?p=115292"},"modified":"2025-01-22T15:01:49","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T15:01:49","slug":"comical-funnies-an-interview-with-john-holstrom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/comical-funnies-an-interview-with-john-holstrom\/","title":{"rendered":"Comical Funnies: An Interview with John Holstrom"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Holstrom interviewed by John Wisniewski.<\/p>\n

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Picture by by Ella<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

3:AM<\/strong>: When did you begin drawing, John?<\/p>\n

JH<\/strong>: My father was a commercial artist, and my sisters were always winning drawing contests, so we all started early on (like most kids). However, around sixth grade I was getting seriously interested in comics and cartoons. My first comic strip was a parody of a TV show called Diver Dan<\/em>. This was the silliest and worst TV show I had ever seen in my young life, so I made a character called Diaper Dan and it was published in the sixth grade newsletter, along with a few cartoon drawings.<\/p>\n

Later on, in middle school and high school, I got interested in Marvel superheroes like Spider-Man, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, etc. When I would draw them for art classes the teacher would flunk me and scold me for reading trash like comic books. By late high school, I was reading R. Crumb and underground comic books, and the hippie art teacher was okay with it. But other teachers would confiscate them if I smuggled them into school.<\/p>\n

3:AM<\/strong>: You designed the Ramones album covers for Rocket to Russia<\/em> and Road to Ruin<\/em>. What was that like?<\/p>\n

JH<\/strong>: Very last minute. Johnny was making the decisions, and asked me to come up with ideas for the Rocket to Russia<\/em> interior record sleeve. At first, I wanted to use different illustrators and some photos, PUNK magazine style, but he insisted that I should draw everything. I had just a few days to draw all 12 illustrations; he liked them and then asked if I’d like to draw the back cover as well!<\/p>\n

Doing a record cover back then was high prestige, so there’s no way I would say “Nope!” So I stayed up all night once again and knocked out the back cover for Rocket to Russia<\/em>, after Johnny described the scenario.<\/p>\n

I didn’t design the Road to Ruin<\/em> cover. A Scottish fan gave them a drawing the band liked and wanted to use on their next record cover. Everyone was suggesting Wally Wood, the great EC Comics\/MAD<\/em> magazine illustrator, but he was too ill to do it and suggested his assistant who drew in a similar style. They went back and forth, but never came up with a satisfactory design, so at the last minute they asked me to step in.<\/p>\n

3:AM<\/strong>: You also created the characters Bosko and Joe. Tell us about this…<\/p>\n

JH<\/strong>: Joe is a character I developed with Batton A. Lash, my best friend when I was attending the School of Visual Arts. He took me to the first Comic Book Convention I ever saw in 1972, where Vaughn Bode premiered his Cartoon Concert. We were both knocked out. This was a new way to present comic strips: Vaughn displayed his artwork on a slide projecter while he did the voices for the different characters over a sound system.<\/p>\n

Bat Lash and I produced an entire Cartoon Concert (“The JOE Show”) of our own for a school project that we showed in the spring of 1973. People either hated it or were indifferent to it, but I saw potential in the character and continued to develop Joe over the next few years. In 1975 I was given the opportunity to develop a comic strip for a new magazine, Bananas<\/em>, published by Scholastic, Inc. and edited by “Jovial Bob” Stine. They ran a few Joe comics, it got a decent reaction, and I ended up producing Joe comic strips for Bananas<\/em> for the next ten years (until it stopped publication). Once in a while I’d perform “The JOE Show” someplace.<\/p>\n

Years later, “Jovial Bob” turned to the “Dark Side” and became a very successful book author: R. L. Stine (Goosebumps<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Bosko is a character I developed while doing PUNK<\/em> magazine: I did a few strips with “The Blitzkrieg Kid,” then a “DiscoManiac” comic strip with Bruce Carleton and Ken Weiner for PUNK<\/em> #16… Then when PUNK<\/em> was forced out of business for a while, I started doing “Bosko” comic strips for my next ‘zine: Comical Funnies<\/em>. He was meant to be a cross between Daffy Duck and Groucho: an obnoxious jerk who reveals the hypocrisy in society with his stupidity. He never caught on. but was a lot of fun to write ideas for!<\/p>\n

3:AM<\/strong>: What did you think of the punk scene developing around 1975?<\/p>\n

JH<\/strong>: When I arrived in New York City in 1972 the glam rock scene was in full swing. The New York Dolls ruled the club scene in NYC, and a bunch of lesser glam bands were playing the local club scene. I was never too enamored of the glam bands, although they played rock ‘n’ roll music they usually had a campy take on the music. Like, it wasn’t taken seriously (unlike say, a heavy metal band like Black Sabbath or Deep Purple).<\/p>\n

By 1975 the glam scene was over and done with. Most of the bands either broke up or changed their image. I somehow managed to see the New York Doll’ last performance in April at a New York City club called The Little Hippodrome when the up-and-coming CBGB band opened for the Dolls and Malcolm McLaren became their manager. At that show a beautiful woman picked me up and got me into the after-party, but all she could talk about was CBGBs! The dogshit on the floor, the Bowery bums, the Hell’s Angels dominating the pool table, etc. But also the amazing young bands that were playing there. By August, I saw the Ramones there for the first time and my life changed from that moment on.<\/p>\n

The CBGB scene of 1975 was amazing. Bands like Blondie, Talking Heads and the Ramones were raw and still getting their acts together. Max’s Kansas City was a disco! So what we had at CBGB was a dedicated group of rock ‘n’ roll fans. For instance, the juke box depended heavily on Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets<\/em>: most of the bands took their inspiration from pre-San Francisco psychedelic bands. People definitely felt we were creating something exciting. A new music scene dedicated to pure rock ‘n’ roll.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

3:AM<\/strong>: When did you meet Legs McNeil to start PUNK<\/em> magazine<\/a>?<\/p>\n

JH<\/strong>: Eddie (“Legs”) McNeil knew about me in high school, since he was a freshman when I was a senior. I dated his best friend’s older sister, I knew his older brother and sister, etc. Between high school and college I took a year off to figure out what to do with the rest of my life and started an improv comedy group in Connecticut in 1971. I was able to get publicity in the New Haven newspaper, do a performance on the local PBS TV station (that was a big deal back then) and produced a couple of successful nights doing a Eugene Ionesco three-act play at a New Haven coffee shop.<\/p>\n

Eddie showed up on the last night, introduced himself, and offered to be the group’s “P.R. Guy.” He booked the group to appear at a small coffee shop in the center of our hometown of Cheshire, Connecticut as well as several more shows around the state and even in New York City. Then I left to go to the School of Visual Arts in September 1972. We didn’t correspond much after that, he did stay with me for a short time after he left high school when we tried to make something happen with “The JOE Show,” but it didn’t work out. He joined a hippie film commune called Total Impact while I tried to launch a freelance art career, but soon became homeless.<\/p>\n

During the summer of 1975 I ran into him and he invited me to work on an indie comedy film he was shooting in Cheshire: a mutual friend (George Edgar Dunn, Jr. aka “GED”) was financing the movie with a house-painting business over the summer, I could make a few bucks painting houses for Ged, sleep on the floor of an apartment he was renting in the middle of Cheshire, and shoot film scenes on weekends. So I was in.<\/p>\n

After the summer, Ged wanted to work with Eddie and I, and once he heard about how we were both getting work and building our careers he got bored with college and decided to take his savings and start a business with each of us: a film business with Eddie and a magazine with me. So I didn’t actually start PUNK<\/em> Magazine with Eddie. He thought starting a magazine was a stupid idea and thought his film business would be more successful.<\/p>\n

Of course, after the first issue of PUNK<\/em> became almost instantly famous (and infamous), and Eddie had a falling out with Ged and his film editor soon after, he suddenly wanted to be the “Resident Punk” at PUNK<\/em> Magazine.<\/p>\n

3:AM<\/strong>: What was it like covering punk rock in those years?<\/p>\n

JH<\/strong>: Being around the early punk scene was a lot of fun, but putting out a magazine called PUNK<\/em> became a big challenge. None of the New York bands wanted to be a “punk rock” band. They had learned lessons from all the “folk rock,” “acid rock,” and other labelled bands from years before. Bands like the Ramones, Heartbreakers, and The Dictators wanted to be “rock ‘n’ roll” bands, or even mainstream Heavy Metal acts. No one thought punk rock was going to become a big thing.<\/p>\n

By early 1977, punk was being dismissed entirely. Sire Records put out a press release for the Ramones’ newest album Rocket to Russia<\/em> (which features once of their most successful singles: “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker”) describing them as a “new wave” band with a huge banner at the bottom: “DON’T CALL IT PUNK”.<\/p>\n

To this day I just do not understand all of the resistance I had to face from so many people and institutions and companies who absolutely despised the P-Word. But we faced the same kind of resistance that early rock ‘n’ roll faced in the early 1950s, and that was our goal: we wanted rock ‘n’ roll to become dangerous, rebellious and hated again! By the 1970s, crappy music like Simon and Garfunkel and Carole King were being called “rock ‘n’ roll” by Rolling Stone<\/em> magazine. Fuck that!<\/p>\n

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John Holstrom, 2024, by Ella<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

3:AM<\/strong>: Any funny stories about the magazine?<\/p>\n

JH<\/strong>: Too many to list! The First Annual Sleaze Convention in Wilmington, Delaware was one crazy incident, when a bunch of John Waters film fans invited Legs and I to be special guests and met Edie “The Egg Lady” (and
\nwere joined by Debbie and Chris from Blondie along with Anya Phillips).<\/p>\n

3:AM<\/strong>: Is the magazine back these days, John?<\/p>\n

JH<\/strong>: Yeah, we’re bringing out a new issue at the end of September, 2024, planning a few new issues in 2025 to celebrate our 50th anniversary, stuff like that. I am always amused, surprised and happy that punk rock is still alive and well! Let’s party on! PUNK<\/em> is Fun!<\/p>\n

I am hoping to find the new punk rock bands that can keep the scene moving.<\/p>\n

3:AM<\/strong>: Any special issues planned?<\/p>\n

JH<\/strong>: I would love to do a book about our “Mutant Monster Beach Party” photo comic strip, and publish outtakes and tell stories about how much fun it was to shoot that and make it happen.<\/p>\n

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER<\/strong>
\nJohn Wisniewski<\/strong> has written for amfm Magazine<\/em>, Perfect Sound Forever<\/em>, the LARB<\/em> and Chiron Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To this day I just do not understand all of the resistance I had to face from so many people and institutions and companies who absolutely despised the P-Word. But we faced the same kind of resistance that early rock ‘n’ roll faced in the early 1950s, and that was our goal: we wanted rock ‘n’ roll to become dangerous, rebellious and hated again! By the 1970s, crappy music like Simon and Garfunkel and Carole King were being called “rock ‘n’ roll” by Rolling Stone<\/em> magazine. Fuck that!<\/p>\n

John Holstrom<\/strong> interviewed by John Wisniewski<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115292"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115922,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115292\/revisions\/115922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}