Print art: What Is A Woman Really Worth? / Destroy All Monsters and Mimicking Authenticity / My Soft Need 23 artwork

 

RTomens 2026

Revisiting Destroy All Monsters' artworks and music inspired me to create some prints. I was keen to try and avoid blatant copies, of course, although LJ believes that to be impossible. She, bless her, is oblivious to software program capabilities in that respect. Of course you can click on the 'Grungy Xerox' button to give your images that look. But what look is it? The look of old Xerox technology. Or is it only that? I wonder...because it's not only a look, it's the product of a time, place, technology, attitude etc...a culture. 

In the same way that it would be very hard, I imagine, to recreate the sound of Jamaica circa 1972 (is their an Off-Center Pressing button for that slightly warped and woozy sound - oh and scratches) recreating a visual style that perfectly mimics an old one may, technically, be possible, but I doubt it's so good as to be indistinguishable from the real thing. No, I'm not going to research that.

There are plenty of typewriters fonts available online and I've used a few but to these eyes they still don't look exactly like anything produced on an actual typewriter.  The inherent variation in pressure applied to keys and the resulting different shades of type is absent. Don't tell me, there's a typewriter app that does vary the weight of lettering randomly. Huh! 

The Destroy All Monsters magazine, collected in one volume, is a treasure. Unfortunately, both books are pricey nowadays. Their aesthetic, visually and sonically, is spot on - raw, rock'n'roll. 

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I'm not sure when my eyes stopped communicating properly with my brain but it's a worry, naturally. Why do I ponder this? Well, I bought Soft Need 23 (2020) from Typewriter Jim last year, about 10 months ago - flicked through, shelved it, flicked through again more thoroughly, shelved it and had another look a couple of weeks ago, this time noticing the comic panel joke on page 48...hold on...that's mine! I made that years ago! I think...I'm almost sure, but it takes some recall to say, exactly, so I search my old blog, Include Me Out, and sure enough, there it is. I'm uncredited in SN 23 because by the time they sourced it my name had become detached, I suppose. I don't mind. It was funny, though, that I didn't discover it for months.