Description
“The mid-1960s witnessed a boom in underground and selfpublished works. Hectographs, mimeographs, and offset printing not only allowed for the production of small, lowcost print runs but also promote a unique aesthetic: using wild mock-ups, »messianic amateurs« combined typescript aesthetics, handwriting, scribbled drawings, assemblages of collaged visuals, porn photos, snapshots, and comic strips. The typography consciously frees itself, in parallel to a liberalization of linguistic and visual forms of expression in the name of a new »sensibility«. This book is the first to present the underground and self-published works that came out of West Germany in such depth, while also showing the internationalcontext in which they emerged: not as an anecdotal history but as an attempt to tap into the aesthetic cosmos of a Do-It-Yourself rebellion, one that also challenges us to take a new look at the current boom in »independent publishing«, the risograph aesthetic (…)”.
Twenty sections – ‘Underdesign’, ‘Comics’, ‘Pornography’, ‘Cut and Paste’, ‘Ambiguity’ – all with reproductions of examples and essays for each section.
