DLa News

Creating DLa 23, Part 1: From There to Here

News from Monday, August 11, 2008 @ 4:36 PM, PST

24 issues and counting.. Kicking off this series of micro-posts on the creation of DLa 23, we see the mechanism by weech DLa 23 first began. It had been several years since the last issue of Dead Letter Art was released. The last issue, of course, was the ultra low-key Halloween issue[1], which was produced in October of 2004. After that, circumstance continued to separate the DLa members, leaving only occasional email and random telephone conversation to keep the group together. Soon, a couple of years had passed with nary a peep from that low-riding art phenomenon otherwise known as DLa. As 2006 reared its head, Dead Letter Art seemed “dead” indeed.

Fortunately, around the middle of 2006, DLa members Osseus and Perishable began planning for the “next evolution” of DLa. Work on a new website[2] had begun, new issues were planned, and Osseus even agreed to finish up the long-awaited Texture Issue[3], also known as DLa #20[4]. As momentum continued to build, communication within the group increased and collective activity intensified (relatively speaking). In early 2007, after much work and some help from 88teeth, Perishable launched the new DLa website. This event was followed immediately by a full Dead Letter Art reunion in Moses Lake, along with a specially prepared DLa Newzletter featuring all the latest from the DLa posse.

As informative and inspiring as it was to create, the DLa Newzletter did not pretend to be a new, full-fledged issue of Dead Letter Art. Working with ThaneC to create the issue was extremely beneficial, however, as it refreshed our fading familiarity with the desktop-publication process: formatting, layout, design, imagery, text, fonts, printing — it was all there for the Newzletter, only on a much smaller scale. Once the issue was complete, it was like, “oh yeah, that’s how it’s done..”

As the next year or so passed, friendships were (re)strengthened and the inspiration of Dead Letter Art continued to flow beneath the surface, frequently manifesting itself through decidedly “non-DLa” outlets. As the beginning months of 2008 crept in, the one known as FCU summoned his creative influence to pursue a challenging goal: Dead Letter Art Volume Twenty Three. Yes it had been over three years since the last issue. Yes members of the collective were located in different cities. Yes the idea was too irresistible to refuse.

Next in the Creating DLa 23 series: “Part 2: Collecting Content”

• [1] That would be DLa 22, the ghastly Halloween issue.
• [2] This would be the current site, or if the site has somehow managed to change since the time of this writing, the site design in question was the red, gold, and black site with the nifty drop-top full-screen JavaScript tricks.
• [3] The texture issue was not complete when the DLa issue archive was originally constructed. Thus, its representation fails to convey the full scope of the project.
• [4] Osseus first began work on the Texture issue in September of 2003. At that time, DLa had just released issue #19, so logically the next issue — “Texture” — was designated as issue #20. While waiting for its release, DLa pushed forward another issue that was numbered as 20.5, in anticipation of the 20th issue. Now that issue 20 has been released, the total number of zines in the DLa series is 24, even though the latest issue is numbered as 23.

Posted by:   Perishable [ Edited on: 08/31/08 ] | [ 0 ] Leave a Comment »

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