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| Answer Me! The First Three • Scapegoat Publishing |
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'Answer Me!', Jim and Debbie Goad’s early 90’s manifesto of hate, disgust and revulsion lasted a mere four issues. But in those four issues, Answer Me! pushed the boundaries of zine culture more than any independent publication in the past twenty years. Bold statement? Consider its resume, then: Martin Duran quoting “The Murder Issue (AM#2)” before unloading 29 bullets into the White House, three British tourists offing themselves with “The Suicide Issue (AM#3) in close vicinity, and the infamous final “Rape Issue” spawning an obscenity trial against newsstand owners who had the audacity to sell it.
Most zine writers can’t get the attention of the chick that they wrote the poem on page 6 about.
Of course, time has moved on; Debbie Goad has been dead for several years, Jim went on to write 'The Redneck Manifesto' and 'Shit Magnet', and 'Answer Me!' clones in various mediums have sprouted in abundance. What is perhaps so surprising then is that the work still packs so much of its initial gut-punch, still manages to plow through territory where even the most jaded and fucked-up reader would hesitate to tread. You’ll find plenty to disagree with here, but what Goad’s many detractors fail to take into account is the fierce intelligence of his writing, the sincerity of his rejection of hypocrisy in any form, and his rare ability to turn his lens of hate equally on everything: himself, culture, counter-culture, you.
'Answer Me!', given the sanctimony against it (stacks of the zine were actually burned) was often hard to get a hold of. The now defunct Loompanics offered a collection; beyond that you might get lucky at a zine specialty shop or independent bookstore. Scapegoat Publishing has taken a huge step in correcting the situation with this collection, which at 368 oversized pages for 22 bucks is a pretty good deal as well. Highly recommended for the unsqueamish.
-Bri
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