The KRonikle Lives!

When I was a kid, growing up in Northern California in the 1980’s, my friends and I were obsessed with comic books, punk rock, girls, Vespa scooters, and zines.

The zines we made were copied at the Xerox place that the Hare Krishnas ran in downtown Berkeley.  This was in the old days before the tragic invention of copy cards and the evil Kinkos FedEx conglomerate.

In the 1980’s copy shops were dirty, hot, smelly, and loud.   And copy machines were incredible tools for making art -the glass was always in such bad shape that you could make amazing art just by copying images over and over until the images degraded into a beautiful punk rock high-contrast nightmares.

We used to write a new issue overnight, then run 200 copies in the back of the shop, then run out before the guy behind the counter realized we hadn’t paid.

I’m not advocating a pump-and-run approach to making art.  At the time it felt like the end justified the means.

Maybe the end always justifies the means.

Anyway….

Our photocopied zines only covered what mattered:  The Specials vs. The Uptones, Lambretta scooters, The Dead Kennedys & The Circle Jerks, why we hated hippies, the art of Heavy Metal magazine, Rocky Horror, the coming nuclear holocaust and President Reagan’s greasy hair.  And (yes!) Japanese toys.   We also included important local news for our readers, like which liquor stores didn’t card 14-year-old kids or where to hop the fence at the golf course at night.

It’s in the spirit of those old school zines that I welcome you to the Kidrobot KRonikle, the zine of the Kidrobot Community.

The KRonikle is a COMMUNITY MAGAZINE, meaning that YOU can submit things, too.  In fact, you MUST submit.

Kidrobot’s mission is to help all of our friends – artists, fans, customers – fulfill their dreams.  We make art possible. That includes working with many of the greatest artists in the world, and then hooking them up with Kidrobot’s fans & customers.

The proximity between the artists & fans in our community is exceptional.  It’s just one of the things that makes us unique.

So please, please, please contribute – send in your articles, your letters, your pictures and videos. Make gentle suggestions to the editor for improvements. Your participation will help make the KRonikle amazing, undeniable, and keep it from sucking going forward.

One last note. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Kidrobot is, well, kind of geeky. Jay-Z wears our stuff, for sure. Fall Out Boy, Whoo Kid and Madvillian are into our toys & gear. But deep inside, we’re goofy and we’re awkward – and we’re proud to be that way.

So if you don’t like our zine, then you are a jerk, and you suck. Just kidding! If you don’t like it, please send something in and make it better!
Enjoy!

Paul Budnitz
Kidrobot Founder & President