Run amok : a zine of music, art and writing : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)

Embraced within this binder are the first two issues of Run Amok. Run Amok is a zine, a low-budget, free and accessible to the public, yet still underground magazine. It is a forum for art, information, and humor. Each issue has a theme, and both the contents and design are organized according to the theme to form a cohesive whole.The first issue is the Travel Issue. Its twenty-eight pages include photos of an artist's great trek to California; poetry about travel anxiety, failed cars, and speaking Jamaican; a prank interview with the Indiana Department of Transportation; tour stories from bands The Faint and Cake; an interview with Muncie metal hardcore band Hospital; and trivia questions like, "What does the bumper sticker on our hearse say?", and other delightful features. The zine is designed to reflect the travel theme. The front cover shows overturned cars in a ditch. The back stars Bill Breeder as Run Amok's back cover model, this time riding in a motorboat. The contents/contributors spread is split asymmetrically by Matchbox cars. The page numbers are simplified parallel parking spaces. One poem was run over to leave a dirty tire imprint. The Hospital pictures were taken while moving the camera to get an "in-motion" effect.The second issue is the Connections Issue. Its thirty-six pages include interviews with Muncie duo Spitshine and poet and memoir-writer Mary Karr; short stories about passion, violence, jealousy, identity, and distrust; poetry about loneliness, disorientation, wanting, disillusionment, and betrayal; an interview with Brazil where we played for them rare songs and covers and asked the members what they thought of them; a web of over three hundred bands showing how they are connected to each other through shared members; and art of love and disconnectedness, to name a few gems. The issue is also organized according to the theme. The cover shows seahorses copulating (note: the male bears the children). The contents/contributors spread has a tangle of dotted lines connecting the picture to the contributor and the feature to the page number. The page numbers are designed to look like elements from the periodic table because everything, broken down into its basic components, is different elements bonded together. Various layouts are planned around some kind of binding aid. For example, the Brazil interview is sewn together. The poetry spread uses a safety pin motif. The D.A.R.Y.L. spread's pictures are held to the page by clothespins. The Mary Karr headline is connect-the-dots.Run Amok was designed in Photoshop 6.0 and Pagemaker 7.0. The master pages were inkjet printed on glossy, photograph-quality paper. They were then photocopied, and two hundred copies of each issue were made and distributed throughout Indiana and Chicago.