Collection: John Holmstrom

Photo by Giovanni Reda

John Holmstrom is an American underground cartoonist and writer. He was the founding editor of Punk Magazine in 1976 at the very infancy of punk music. History shows us that the media only spoke of punk in terms of misunderstood youth "violence" and that punk was something to protect your children from. Punk Magazine is arguably the first ever punk rock "fanzine" which provided an inside look at the punk rock scene of the mid-to-late 1970's from folks that we actually part of the scene!

The contributions of Holmstrom's role in creating Punk Magazine is enormous to the punk community to this very day as an extremely invaluable asset of influence of journalism, pre-internet information sharing, as well as honest and hilarious interviews. Not to mention, excellent illustrations and now historical photos of who's who in NYC late 70's punk venues like CBGB's and Max's Kansas City. All of the madness that John and his friends endured in the late 1970's NYC punk scene was worth it in order to unknowingly create THE template for every other punker to follow and emulate with proceeding DIY punk publications, some of which still publish to this day!

John is also well-known for illustrating the covers of the Ramones albums Rocket to Russia and Road to Ruin, as well as his characters Bosko and Joe (published in Scholastic's Bananas magazine from 1975 to 1984). Holmstrom has also contributed to Spin, The Village Voice, Heavy Metal and was Executive Editor at High Times. Try and track down John's out of print book THE BEST OF PUNK MAGAZINE

More of John Holmstrom @ PunkMagazine.com