Print Haul

Dispatches from my carry-on bag.

I love shopping on vacation!

It’s some deep lizard brain activity. File next to the scents that casinos pump in to get you loose at the slot machine, or the way airplane oxygen makes the shittiest white wine taste awesome.

The change in daily routine and environment gives everything a pleasant gloss of unreality — and if life’s not real, than neither is money, so let’s pop some tags!

Fortunately for my wallet / suitcase / marriage, I didn’t return to the hotel with armfuls of Selfridges bags, but a tote stuffed with old magazines and weird books instead. Here are some pulls from a week in London and Manchester.

Notting Hill Book Exchange and Notting Hill Comic Exchange are two tiny shops located right off Notting Hill Gate. (Hugh Grant is nowhere to be found, but assuming it’s not raining, you can walk through Hyde Park and ogle dogs on the way over.) At the Book Exchange I make a beeline to old issues of The FACE; at the Comic Exchange there’s crates and crates of dusty surprises.

My dude Mikhail Bortnik blew my mind when he posted this Simon Bisley Punisher painting on his stories a week or two ago; I was psyched to immediately stumble upon it IRL at the Comic Exchange, alongside other rando anthologies of a similar vintage.

MAD x MJ needs no explanation. The Mort Drucker RoboCop parody inside is simply a bonus!

GOSH! in Soho is one of my favorite comic stores in the world. Highly curated, fairly priced UK classics and international indies galore. A stack of hardbound £5 Marshal Law collections had me amped until I realized everything was translated into French; walking out with a signed Jay Stephens Dwellings collection and the oddball anime riff Internal Affairs Tense Anniversary eased the pain.

Village Books in Manchester stocks many fashionable new mags, a handful of polybagged old ones (including a back issue of The FADER where I interviewed Jim Jones while he tore up chicken fingers into a McDonald’s salad on the Koch Records conference room table) and oodles of design-y books and zines. I scooped Klasse Wrecks’ Rudeboys Unlimited, two Masala Noir compilations of US matchbooks and Iranian movie posters, and a bonkers collection of ‘90s NYC gay club flyers.

Microdot is home to Oasis designer Brian Cannon’s personal archives, conveniently located on the same King Street block as Liam’s Pretty Green boutique. Amongst the various concert posters, subway ads and Bonehead’s fireplace mantle (!!!) from the Definitely Maybe cover, I spotted an OG copy of Oasis: The Official Magazine for sale.

“Biblical.”

Cash App Presents Wanna Buy A — earlier this year I conceptualized and created a web series with the C47 Creative team called Wanna Buy A, with Ben Solomon directing an insane lineup in front of and behind the camera. Edutainment! The first episode features T-Pain’s baller gaming setup, tabletop D&D masters, the legendary Chinatown Fair and more; new ones drop in the coming weeks.

Don Was x Stereogum — the peerless, Zelig-like bassist / producer participated in a career-spanning “We’ve Got A File On You” interview and it’s predictably great. Love this bit on the magic of the MC5: “There’s a sound of, like, what I now understand is a shitty PA.”

Stephen Sondheim T-Shirt Collection — missed the hammer for the Broadway legend’s posthumous auction (and as you know, I have just purchased several magazines and don’t have five racks lying around) but damn, what a spread. “IF DADDY SAYS NO ASK UNCLE STEVE” is the champ but there’s fire throughout.

A Definitive Oral History Of Napoleon Dynamite’s “Vote For Pedro” Shirt — in a word… “gosh.”

Go Balls Deep: The Oral History Of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story — have we reached peak oral history? Never! I love anecdotes, old media, and People Making Things, so will continue to read every one of ‘em until the bomb drops.

Sauce Walka “5th Ward” — more livestock in rap videos plz.

As always, playlists updated!