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Post-Mortem
What are the successes and failures of punk and its institutions? What happened to a once-thriving punk underground that paralleled the mainstream in music, publishing, comics, and art? Aaron Cometbus embarked on a year-long quest for the truth, interviewing scene makers like the people behind Epitaph Records, Fat Wreck Chords, Bound Together Books, Left Bank Books, Thrasher, Interference Archive, Fantagraphics, the Center for Cartoon Studies, C-Squat, and many other friends, luminaries, artists, and troubled souls. This is Cometbus at its finest, casting a loose net over an era and giving it meaning that would otherwise slip right past the history books and out of sight.
- GenresNonfictionMusicPunk
139 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2020
8 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
About the author
Aaron Cometbus
47 books165 followersAaron Elliott, better known as Aaron Cometbus, is a drummer, lyricist, self-described "punk anthropologist" and author of Cometbus, a seminal punk rock zine.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
May 8, 2021
In this compelling issue of his long-running zine Cometbus, Aaron investigates a sample of the underground institutions he’s grown up around. Crisscrossing America, he interviews founders and key figures associated with independent record labels and publishers, radical bookstores and infoshops, squats gone legal, and various other collective and community-based ventures striving to offer alternatives to the capitalism and governmental bureaucracy that rules the U S of A. With regard to these efforts, Aaron asks, where have we gone wrong? Is there any point in continuing to fail in the face of so few successes? As usual, Aaron offers no simple answers. But there is plenty to ruminate on here for those of us who have logged time working in the DIY underground realm and/or benefited from its existence.
February 17, 2020
I really enjoyed this. Instead of waxing nostalgic about projects, cometbus interviews founders and denizens ofDIY projects past and present, including “What went wrong? What do you wish you would have done?”
April 8, 2020
Aaron Cometbus conducts a yearlong inquest that spans the length of the country, digs deep into the annals of the US punk and punk adjacent scene and tries to answer many questions about “what happened to our plans?” and “Did we ever have any plans?” It’s a little hard to nail down.
A yearlong inquest into the death of punk? The death of the scene? The death of his/my generation’s youthful fire and ideals? He covers a lot of ground, literally and figuratively. He visits many institutions that still stand (Epitaph Records, Thrasher Magazine, etc.) and references the ones that no longer stand (Maximum Rock and Roll).
If Punk is dead, why is it dead? Who killed it? Why did it have to die? And the punk institutions that survived: why? What is the future of the various punk and punk-adjacent scenes? How can you keep something going long after the kids have moved on and you’re still the one holding the bag? And how can you keep something going and leave something for future generations to build on? How do you take care of the elders of your revolution?
My slow reading ass took 3 days to finish the 139 page “Post-mortem”, the 59th issue of the venerable Cometbus zine. It’s a lot to process, I may gloss over the larger points. But one thing: this is a hell of a value for 5 bucks. Cometbus always has been just that. Aaron’s writing is always a treat. The questions he asks come from one who has been around and around, and around…squatting, playing in bands, writing, selling books, flitting on the edge of society and always on the move, traveling and observing. And in “Post-mortem,” he reports on a great many deaths and a few rebirths, but mostly is it about those who survive.
It is in this tour where he examines the factors that have led to success as well as failures, as what they mean for anyone who is trying to make a difference in the world without succumbing to the path that befalls many a young punk, whether that means jail, death, or even worse, selling out and working for a giant corporation and settling down for the easy life (a-hem).
I know this is not the clearest or most concise of reviews but let me boil it down to this: Cometbus has always been a great read and you should pick this one up.
A yearlong inquest into the death of punk? The death of the scene? The death of his/my generation’s youthful fire and ideals? He covers a lot of ground, literally and figuratively. He visits many institutions that still stand (Epitaph Records, Thrasher Magazine, etc.) and references the ones that no longer stand (Maximum Rock and Roll).
If Punk is dead, why is it dead? Who killed it? Why did it have to die? And the punk institutions that survived: why? What is the future of the various punk and punk-adjacent scenes? How can you keep something going long after the kids have moved on and you’re still the one holding the bag? And how can you keep something going and leave something for future generations to build on? How do you take care of the elders of your revolution?
My slow reading ass took 3 days to finish the 139 page “Post-mortem”, the 59th issue of the venerable Cometbus zine. It’s a lot to process, I may gloss over the larger points. But one thing: this is a hell of a value for 5 bucks. Cometbus always has been just that. Aaron’s writing is always a treat. The questions he asks come from one who has been around and around, and around…squatting, playing in bands, writing, selling books, flitting on the edge of society and always on the move, traveling and observing. And in “Post-mortem,” he reports on a great many deaths and a few rebirths, but mostly is it about those who survive.
It is in this tour where he examines the factors that have led to success as well as failures, as what they mean for anyone who is trying to make a difference in the world without succumbing to the path that befalls many a young punk, whether that means jail, death, or even worse, selling out and working for a giant corporation and settling down for the easy life (a-hem).
I know this is not the clearest or most concise of reviews but let me boil it down to this: Cometbus has always been a great read and you should pick this one up.
October 26, 2020
Certainly one of Aaron’s best. It’s a joy to read. His earnest industriousness is on display, as always, but is even more impressive this time around. It’s evident that significant travel, preparations, interviews, and most of all, reflection was poured into this small but mighty work. The project’s purpose is fascinating: essentially an evaluation of the underground institutions that DIY radicals like him built (indeed, Cometbus is one of them). Some existed before his time, and some continue to exist today. But the focus was really on his years of involvement or at least acquaintance with them: during the 90s.
Generation X countercultural youth built an incredibly robust network of cultural institutions, from DIY record labels, DIY zines, cooperative cafes and bookstores, residential squats, illegal performance venues, etc.
It’s by turns humbling, exciting, and sad to see how much work, effort, and sacrifice marginal culture-makers poured into these collective projects. Some of these ventures became unbelievably successful, some trudged ahead forever in obscurity, some fizzled away, and some spectacularly collapsed.
Aaron’s thorough research causes me to realize that a lot of the stereotypes about Gen-Xers being slackers, lazy, apathetic, etc. are mistaken. Because Gen-Xers youth had such strong aversion to corporate institutions, they simply built their own independent (and sometimes even off-the-grid) institutions, indeed, counterinstitutions. By definition, these counterinstitutions were not on the mainstream’s radar. Therefore, mainstream observers declared this generation of youth to be slackers. Stylistically, satire was very much in vogue, and so Gen-X youth chose to mock and not participate in mainstream institutions, thereby earning their slacker, apathetic reputation.
Anti-corporate culture was pervasive among Gen-X youth. In those days, the worst thing that someone could possibly call you was a “sellout,” and you would definitely risk that kind of social ostracism in the underground for as minor of an infraction as going to Starbucks (instead of the approved local café) or by going to see a band on a major label.
Things, of course, have radically changed. It is now seen as acceptable, even desirable, to have celebrities champion your cause, something that certainly would have qualified as “sellout” behavior in the 90s. Underground culture activists routinely will communicate and participate by using corporate social media platforms, like Twitter (or Goodreads?). It occurs to me that had Facebook emerged in the 90s, that underground culture activists certainly would not participated.
There’s much to be discussed about the simultaneously liberating and limiting independent approach to counterculture-making. What seems evident to me is that for better or worse, there is less of it happening today.
Generation X countercultural youth built an incredibly robust network of cultural institutions, from DIY record labels, DIY zines, cooperative cafes and bookstores, residential squats, illegal performance venues, etc.
It’s by turns humbling, exciting, and sad to see how much work, effort, and sacrifice marginal culture-makers poured into these collective projects. Some of these ventures became unbelievably successful, some trudged ahead forever in obscurity, some fizzled away, and some spectacularly collapsed.
Aaron’s thorough research causes me to realize that a lot of the stereotypes about Gen-Xers being slackers, lazy, apathetic, etc. are mistaken. Because Gen-Xers youth had such strong aversion to corporate institutions, they simply built their own independent (and sometimes even off-the-grid) institutions, indeed, counterinstitutions. By definition, these counterinstitutions were not on the mainstream’s radar. Therefore, mainstream observers declared this generation of youth to be slackers. Stylistically, satire was very much in vogue, and so Gen-X youth chose to mock and not participate in mainstream institutions, thereby earning their slacker, apathetic reputation.
Anti-corporate culture was pervasive among Gen-X youth. In those days, the worst thing that someone could possibly call you was a “sellout,” and you would definitely risk that kind of social ostracism in the underground for as minor of an infraction as going to Starbucks (instead of the approved local café) or by going to see a band on a major label.
Things, of course, have radically changed. It is now seen as acceptable, even desirable, to have celebrities champion your cause, something that certainly would have qualified as “sellout” behavior in the 90s. Underground culture activists routinely will communicate and participate by using corporate social media platforms, like Twitter (or Goodreads?). It occurs to me that had Facebook emerged in the 90s, that underground culture activists certainly would not participated.
There’s much to be discussed about the simultaneously liberating and limiting independent approach to counterculture-making. What seems evident to me is that for better or worse, there is less of it happening today.
November 14, 2021
There's something about Aaron Cometbus's way of telling stories that's perfect for the zine format. Every new issue of Cometbus is a happy event, coming with a bit of relief as well: "Oh good, he's still out there doing it, thank goodness!" I've been reading Cometbus for decades at this point. This time around he presents a book-length dissertation, a research project comprised of interviews with a wide variety of people engaged in "underground projects". From punk labels to squats, comics schools to anarchist bookstore collectives, the goal is to try to understand what has succeeded and what has failed, why that is, and what it means for the future of "the underground", whatever that may be. Not surprisingly, some sections are more interesting than others, but it's a great read. Whether or not Aaron finds a conclusion, a plan, a solution, or even hope, is maybe a little open to interpretation. Which is probably as it should be. Now to wait for issue #60.
April 6, 2020
I read this for a reading group that I ended up not being able to attend. It felt mostly insightful and I enjoyed reading it. I appreciate the use of the term 'wrecker.'
April 23, 2024
I have never loved something like i love this series. Writing about the underground ("poverty, purity, and obscurity"), recognizing places i love in it (places thst have the feeling of "i felt like, no matter what I'd done wrong in my life, to end up there I had done something right") make my brain explode. "Even familiar locations and streets are reassuring to see in print, as if confirmation is needed that they-and we really exist. It's a warm and guilty pleasure, similar to pissing in the pool." Like exactly.
Just like the loooreeeee. This is him writing about Thrasher: "With Eben, the ad guy, I had better luck. He said he'd been hired during a palace coup in the early nineties, when Thrasher decided to have only skaters working at the mag. The flashy media kids with the capes got axed, and Eben rode in on the tide, despite only having experience in retail sales. The shake-up also saw Jake Phelps promoted from the shipping department to the editorship, replacing Kevin Thatcher, who was perceived as having lost touch with the street.
When I asked if there was room for everyone who wanted to advertise, Eben laughed. "We just add pages. But we've denied people. It's not some big conspiracy. Corporate stuff? We've had it all.
We've had ads for rollerblades. We've had ads for fucking Skittles.
I never ran a rollerblade ad, but they were in there in the eighties.
But we have our own defense, which is that we're too obnoxious for most people. We protect ourselves that way. Why, what'd you have in mind? You want to know the line? Here's the line: No longboards.
No army or armed forces. And no anti-drugs."
Other notes:
-So many cool people were junk peddlers.
-"Just run the photo big. Running the photo big will be better than any creative layout trick."
-"Good Times, which bowed out in '72 with the famous last words: "Middle class values are stronger than acid.""
-"Don't save ideas, because you try them, and that's when you find the other ideas the deeper ones."
-"nonviolent revolution is a form of suicide."
Tips for us as young people starting spaces:
-"And the rest of us? We should start planning for our futures. But there's something more pressing in the meantime, which is supporting our elders. The left and the underground have been lousy at setting up safety nets for the people who spent their lives manning the barricades. By that I mean simply doing good works for the common good. I'm not suggesting that Bound Together should've kept their profits over the years instead of giving them away to hundreds of different causes in need. But I am suggesting to other organizations that are able to provide mutual aid: our radical seniors are a worthy cause."
-leaving something for the next generation: "But growing up in Berkeley, I was very conscious of what the hippies had left for us, which wasn't much. I swore that my generation would do better. In part, that's what this study is about, but you don't have to skip to the end to find the conclusion. We did not." BUT THEN THIS PIECE IN ALL OF THE BOOKS:: START SOMETHING AND OTHER PEOPLE WILL FINISH IT ("starting things and leaving them.")
-"When one chain store moved in, we gave up a neighborhood for dead—yet the chains failed as often as we did, if not more." (Bad habit)
So many places i want to visit from this. I need to collect all the cometbus but they are hard to find.
Just like the loooreeeee. This is him writing about Thrasher: "With Eben, the ad guy, I had better luck. He said he'd been hired during a palace coup in the early nineties, when Thrasher decided to have only skaters working at the mag. The flashy media kids with the capes got axed, and Eben rode in on the tide, despite only having experience in retail sales. The shake-up also saw Jake Phelps promoted from the shipping department to the editorship, replacing Kevin Thatcher, who was perceived as having lost touch with the street.
When I asked if there was room for everyone who wanted to advertise, Eben laughed. "We just add pages. But we've denied people. It's not some big conspiracy. Corporate stuff? We've had it all.
We've had ads for rollerblades. We've had ads for fucking Skittles.
I never ran a rollerblade ad, but they were in there in the eighties.
But we have our own defense, which is that we're too obnoxious for most people. We protect ourselves that way. Why, what'd you have in mind? You want to know the line? Here's the line: No longboards.
No army or armed forces. And no anti-drugs."
Other notes:
-So many cool people were junk peddlers.
-"Just run the photo big. Running the photo big will be better than any creative layout trick."
-"Good Times, which bowed out in '72 with the famous last words: "Middle class values are stronger than acid.""
-"Don't save ideas, because you try them, and that's when you find the other ideas the deeper ones."
-"nonviolent revolution is a form of suicide."
Tips for us as young people starting spaces:
-"And the rest of us? We should start planning for our futures. But there's something more pressing in the meantime, which is supporting our elders. The left and the underground have been lousy at setting up safety nets for the people who spent their lives manning the barricades. By that I mean simply doing good works for the common good. I'm not suggesting that Bound Together should've kept their profits over the years instead of giving them away to hundreds of different causes in need. But I am suggesting to other organizations that are able to provide mutual aid: our radical seniors are a worthy cause."
-leaving something for the next generation: "But growing up in Berkeley, I was very conscious of what the hippies had left for us, which wasn't much. I swore that my generation would do better. In part, that's what this study is about, but you don't have to skip to the end to find the conclusion. We did not." BUT THEN THIS PIECE IN ALL OF THE BOOKS:: START SOMETHING AND OTHER PEOPLE WILL FINISH IT ("starting things and leaving them.")
-"When one chain store moved in, we gave up a neighborhood for dead—yet the chains failed as often as we did, if not more." (Bad habit)
So many places i want to visit from this. I need to collect all the cometbus but they are hard to find.
August 21, 2023
brief introductions to a series of fascinating individuals and institutions - some more interesting than others, some more likeable than others, but united by some genuinely fantastic storytelling and passion. i haven't read any cometbus before but the tone has that kind of unique pessimistic but reckless hope that i've noticed in my favourite people i've met in my own dealings in the radical left and diy scene. all in all, a quick read that i really enjoyed.
September 23, 2022
good book .. i like
April 6, 2021
Critically essential and brilliantly written. An instant all-time favorite. Hopefully not just because I’m at a retrospective juncture of my political life.
March 19, 2020
A really strong entry. Cometbus goes around the country asking people who created and persist in underground projects and businesses. He asks them what went wrong. He calls this an inquest. The tone is good and the information is illuminating.
February 16, 2021
It took me a little bit to get into this book. I mean it started out with him visiting Epitaph Records for an interview! But Aaron never seems to disappoint so I kept reading, and each new chapter pulled me deeper in. He set out to investigate the death of punk, I guess. It's bigger than punk though. He definitely interviews people who are/were big names in the punk scene, asking them, "What went right?" But more importantly, "What went wrong?" But he reaches beyond record labels and magazines. He interviews people involved with book stores, Fantagraphics - a publisher of comics, and James Sturm of The Center for Comic Studies. We get to stop into a New York Catholic Worker house with him, visit C Squat, and have a meal at a collectively run cafe. At the end of the book I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple chapters where he's interviewing a friend of mine who builds bicycles.
At first the book was pretty depressing. At first you'd start to get inspired about what this collective was doing, and then it would fall apart and ruin friendships. I had this perpetual debate going on in my head because I've had these ideas for collective spaces or whatnot, but wondering "Is it worth the stress? Is it worth losing friends? Maybe it's better not to dream so big if it's just going to ruin everything anyway." That's not what I really want, but it can be easy to get discouraged when you see people with amazing ideas and piles of ambition fail spectacularly. It's this dichotomous way I see everything where on one hand I have these huge dreams and tons of hope, but on the other hand I see reality looming large. Too often the two just end up canceling each other out.
The more I read though, the more I found myself inspired rather than discouraged. For a book called "Post-Mortem" that seems intent on finding out "what went wrong," there's a lot of what went right. There are institutions accomplishing their goals, perhaps not quite as they envisioned, but successful just the same. At the beginning of the book I was starting to feel like, "This isn't worth it." Especially as he delved a bit into previous generations' attempts at change and their failure to even pass along anything worthwhile. By the end though I was saying, "This is absolutely worth it!" Sure, things rarely go as planned. They accomplish more than anticipated and compromise ideals, they explode scattering pieces and wounded contributors, they fizzle out without anyone even noticing that they're gone... or were ever there in the first place. A couple days ago my partner dragged me along to sign a petition to defund the police. It was a simple thing, but I'd just read about how the city council had unanimously approved a budget increase of $6.4 million for the Minneapolis police, and I thought "What is the fucking point? This was the same city council that less than a year ago claimed they were in support of defunding the police. How is this ever going to change?" But sometimes things work. And I guess all the trying and failing is worth it, if we learn from it and it paves the way for future change.
At first the book was pretty depressing. At first you'd start to get inspired about what this collective was doing, and then it would fall apart and ruin friendships. I had this perpetual debate going on in my head because I've had these ideas for collective spaces or whatnot, but wondering "Is it worth the stress? Is it worth losing friends? Maybe it's better not to dream so big if it's just going to ruin everything anyway." That's not what I really want, but it can be easy to get discouraged when you see people with amazing ideas and piles of ambition fail spectacularly. It's this dichotomous way I see everything where on one hand I have these huge dreams and tons of hope, but on the other hand I see reality looming large. Too often the two just end up canceling each other out.
The more I read though, the more I found myself inspired rather than discouraged. For a book called "Post-Mortem" that seems intent on finding out "what went wrong," there's a lot of what went right. There are institutions accomplishing their goals, perhaps not quite as they envisioned, but successful just the same. At the beginning of the book I was starting to feel like, "This isn't worth it." Especially as he delved a bit into previous generations' attempts at change and their failure to even pass along anything worthwhile. By the end though I was saying, "This is absolutely worth it!" Sure, things rarely go as planned. They accomplish more than anticipated and compromise ideals, they explode scattering pieces and wounded contributors, they fizzle out without anyone even noticing that they're gone... or were ever there in the first place. A couple days ago my partner dragged me along to sign a petition to defund the police. It was a simple thing, but I'd just read about how the city council had unanimously approved a budget increase of $6.4 million for the Minneapolis police, and I thought "What is the fucking point? This was the same city council that less than a year ago claimed they were in support of defunding the police. How is this ever going to change?" But sometimes things work. And I guess all the trying and failing is worth it, if we learn from it and it paves the way for future change.
April 9, 2020
I've said this before and I'll say it again: Aaron and his zine are a National Treasure. This examination of the failures and achievements spreads out from a foundation of punk rock to encompass "the left" in general, and is a passionate examination of the victories and defeats of people working for positive change in the world. Read everything Aaron has written.
May 17, 2020
I love every Cometbus issue/book, but this may be my favorite in years. Just a lovely book.
March 9, 2024
"...the main failure of the underground, as I saw it, was setting our sights [sic] too low. If you'll pardon my Californian, it was our unwillingness to reach for the stars. We'd constantly underestimated our own abilities and overestimated those of our foes. When one chain store moved in, we gave up the neighborhood for dead — yet, the chains failed as often as we did, if not more."
This (59th!) issue of the seminal Cometbus zine is a project to seek out lessons from elements of the (mostly 90s-era) underground that succeeded on their own terms — or nearly did — to seek out lessons for how to survive and realize success without giving in to the terms of a success dictated by the monoculture you're struggling against, a survey that takes Aaron from Epitaph Records to Thrasher magazine's headquarters to C-Squat in New York's Alphabet City, in search of a role model for counterculture 'success'. And in true Cometbus format, the journey is as much a part of the story as the interviews and meetups that make up the bulk of this issue. Sometimes that works, sometimes it seems a distraction, and a reader can't help feel that Aaron gets a little carried away a bit in the romanticized nostalgia that the project seeks to avoid. (But, hey, romanticized nostalgia is one of the reasons I read Cometbus.)
It's a respectable project: to try to peel apart what success actually is for a self-defined countercultural enterprise. Punk's avant-garde ancestors once viewed an overthrow of the status quo as the eventual goal. But it's clear that the socialist revolution is not coming to save society anytime soon; the anarchist utopia doesn't appear to be around the corner. What counts as success? Is it holding onto enough marketshare to live in a quiet corner of the commercial music industry/ youth industrial complex (see: Epitaph, Slingshot, Thrasher)? Is it setting up an ephemeral autonomous zone amid a rapidly stratifying city long enough to claim an ideological win (ie. Black Mask and ABC No Rio)? Is it carving out enough space in the rubble to claim a long-term safe zone for a small segment of cooperative existence for a handful of fellow travelers (see C-Squat, Left Bank, Bound Together)?
This issue, of course, can't answer any of these questions, but it exposes some of the thinking of those who've put their lives into building on these dreams. It might be too much to ask that a counterculture built from the punk ethos — which was so good at taking a wrecking ball to outdated ideas but less adept at building an alternative — to solve these issues. But it's a good start.
This (59th!) issue of the seminal Cometbus zine is a project to seek out lessons from elements of the (mostly 90s-era) underground that succeeded on their own terms — or nearly did — to seek out lessons for how to survive and realize success without giving in to the terms of a success dictated by the monoculture you're struggling against, a survey that takes Aaron from Epitaph Records to Thrasher magazine's headquarters to C-Squat in New York's Alphabet City, in search of a role model for counterculture 'success'. And in true Cometbus format, the journey is as much a part of the story as the interviews and meetups that make up the bulk of this issue. Sometimes that works, sometimes it seems a distraction, and a reader can't help feel that Aaron gets a little carried away a bit in the romanticized nostalgia that the project seeks to avoid. (But, hey, romanticized nostalgia is one of the reasons I read Cometbus.)
It's a respectable project: to try to peel apart what success actually is for a self-defined countercultural enterprise. Punk's avant-garde ancestors once viewed an overthrow of the status quo as the eventual goal. But it's clear that the socialist revolution is not coming to save society anytime soon; the anarchist utopia doesn't appear to be around the corner. What counts as success? Is it holding onto enough marketshare to live in a quiet corner of the commercial music industry/ youth industrial complex (see: Epitaph, Slingshot, Thrasher)? Is it setting up an ephemeral autonomous zone amid a rapidly stratifying city long enough to claim an ideological win (ie. Black Mask and ABC No Rio)? Is it carving out enough space in the rubble to claim a long-term safe zone for a small segment of cooperative existence for a handful of fellow travelers (see C-Squat, Left Bank, Bound Together)?
This issue, of course, can't answer any of these questions, but it exposes some of the thinking of those who've put their lives into building on these dreams. It might be too much to ask that a counterculture built from the punk ethos — which was so good at taking a wrecking ball to outdated ideas but less adept at building an alternative — to solve these issues. But it's a good start.
October 16, 2022
This is an issue of a long-running fanzine. The author dedicated this issue to inspecting indie businesses and asking their owners what had gone wrong over the years. It’s a neat idea and is well-written. These books are generally about punk rock, and the author starts with interviewing folks at record labels like Epitaph. But he spreads out to interviewing people who have been involved in community centers, organizations, and small (“independent”) businesses. One interesting thing is that the author reiterates how much time and energy he spent on the interviews, but the structure of the book seems very thrown-together and stream-of-conscious, hopping quickly from one unknown indie hero to the next. And even though I didn’t know about 3/4s of the people and organizations he talked to and talked about, I still enjoyed the writing, and the author contextualizes things pretty well.
October 7, 2020
I can’t believe I waited this long to read my first Cometbus, but I’m so glad it was this one. The comprehensive cross-country search for the killer of the underground felt like righteous quest to undertake in the midst of (gestures broadly at 2020). And I think Aaron does a good job of admitting to the successes and failures he and the movement have made along the way without being too melodramatic. As the macro-world gets more and more upsetting, I’m glad this zine ends with some micro success stories that offer a more personal message of hope.
August 17, 2022
This latest (?) issue of Cometbus is probably the best I’ve read yet - as always, such personality comes through in his writing, and just enough balance of wit and insight that’s balanced with such genuine humility and curiosity. He looks at some of the ‘90s punk “institutions” I know well but as always brings things back to the non-musical community-driven efforts that are the heart of this whole subculture thing. Deciding now I’ll just read every one of these.
December 30, 2025
A terrific edition of this long running self-published punk zine. Journalist Aaron Cometbus travels the US searching for examples of long running collective endeavors, analyzing what makes them successful or what led to their collapse. He interviews artists, builders, publishers and activists, compiling a loving but clear eyed group portrait of contemporary American anarchists and autonomous movements. Sometimes depressing, sometimes hopeful, always good medicine.
January 5, 2024
I'm a old jaded punk rocker that used to read Cometbus in the 90's. I loved zines and this one in particular. Now, at age 53, I see things and life with older eyes and I found this particular edition - Post Mortem - a fitting evaluation of the punk scene back then and "where are they now" update.
May 25, 2020
I'm so thankful every time a new issue of Cometbus comes out. One of my favorite writers.
December 8, 2020
A nice piece about looking back and seeing how it all went wrong/right (but mostly wrong).
May 6, 2024
Certainly one of Aaron's most critical works.
May 16, 2025
reminded me of how vital DIY cultural projects continue to be
January 3, 2026
Très bon livre sur les lieux de la contre culture américaine
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews