Sniffin' glue : and other rock 'n' roll habits

SNIFFIN' GLUE may have been the closest thing to perfection ever achieved by a magazine.

Untroubled by the demands of owners, publishers, designers and production editors, it was a one-man enterprise that perfectly mirrored the spirit and manners of its subject matter - punk rock - by being intentionally amateurish, passionate and crude. Mark Perry's first issue (1 of 12) set the tone for an exercise in kitchen-table publishing that did not even have a kitchen table.

Boldly scrawled in his bedroom SNIFFIN' GLUE started out as a fan's rallying cry, went on just as long as it needed to (one year) and then stopped, as good punk enterprises should. Its twelve issues were surely meant to be disposable, the polar opposite of those glossy lifestyle magazines that some people like to collect and file away.

Who was going to treasure Perry's startlingly crude graphic fanzine?

Yet today, when any amateur can run up a professional-looking publication on a computer, SNIFFIN' GLUE looks somehow even more heroic. And here it is again in its entirety, a potent slice of 1976 / 77 Brutalist punk culture, complete with fascinating new insights from its creator Mark Perry.

So look inside, wake up and smell the glue once more...