I originally came across Blue Blood magazine in print in Tower Records in the 1990’s. Inside its glossy gothic pages, I found a little advert for a punk humor zine called BLT from the same Maryland zinesters. I sent off like eight or nine dollars in the mail and got a whole bunch of these hilarious little half size zines. Super anti-social and very funny. Assuming you can laugh about tips for picking up punk chicks regardless of sexual orientation, dating rocker guys, syphilis treatments from the 1800’s, the rise of fetish clubs, and walking in on roommates having sex in punk rock group houses.
I can definitely laugh about those all-too-familiar (except the syphilis) things, so I am very excited about the new Kickstarter to celebrate BLT‘s 25 year anniversary. The nice people from Blue Blood are hoping to do a giant 400 page omnibus of every BLT article ever. I’m going to back this project on Friday, when I get paid. I really hope it is successful because I would love a BLT book with all that hilarious writing and T-shirts with that BLT artwork look!
BLT was my first publishing project as an adult. My friends and I did it from various different punk rock group houses. It is hilarious as fuck, especially if you’ve ever spent time in dark smokey clubs or science fiction conventions and related haunts. It was distributed primarily at sex shops, punk boutiques, SF&F and RPG conventions, and in the aforementioned dark smokey clubs. (I managed an adult boutique called Night Dreams, so the sex shop distro just seemed logical.)
I used to get a lot of letters from people who assumed a zine called Black Leather Times was a porn or fetish mag of some sort because it had leather in the title. Especially after it got written up in The Washington Post and such, so a lot of people from very far afield heard about it. So I thought about what sort of adult mag I’d like to be producing, as there seemed to be a demand, and I started publishing Blue Blood magazine in print. Which, of course, eventually led to BlueBlood.com and its suite of spooky naughty membership sites and this SFW entertainment site and a bunch of other cool stuff.
In all fairness to those titillated by the Black Leather Times moniker, BLT has had a lot of funny and insightful writing about sex and fetish and dating. Ever wanted to know how to use stage blood for birth control? Wondering whether to share your crack cocaine on the first date? Considering the finer etiquette points of threesomes? Want to be a goth-industrial strength heartbreaker? Want to pick up punk rock babes? Considering jobs where you have to read things (translated from a Japanese scientific study) like “sperm was harvested from male rabbits using an artificial vagina”? BLT has you covered. Back the BLT Kickstarter and you can get 400 pages of appallingly humorous advice like this 🙂
