Your Flesh Quarterly

$4.95 (PO Box 583264, Minneapolis, MN 55458-3264)
distributed by Fantagraphics Books
by Nik Rainey

I hope you know how righteous Your Flesh is by now. If not, maybe having Seattle comix overlords Fantagraphics handling their distro will lead to a higher profile (three-quarters, lots of shadow) and increased availability for one of the smarter kounta-kultcha pulps in the pantheon. (Now if only Conde Nast would return our calls…) The music stuff’s there, of course, as is required by the medium (Chrome Cranks/Bare Minimum/the Country Teasers), and to their credit, it’s usually dealt with in the same literate manner as the book, film, and art material that takes up most of the mag. I loved Lisa Janssen’s appreciation of the late comic genius Terry Southern and the Planet of the Apes timeline, but the undeniable highlight of the mag is the lengthy talk with Ralph Steadman (a man who keeps pushing his art to higher levels while his old boss, Dr. Thompson, keeps turning into a Steadman-esque caricature of his old Gonzo self), incorporating autobiographical fragments, a gen-you-whine interview, and repros of some of the contentious faxes Hunter and Ralphie keep firing back and forth at one another. What else can you say? It’s a big, good-looking hunk o’ Flesh and you should cast yer shekels down fer it now.