This review is going to be a little different than my normal fare. Today, I’m taking a look at a copy of We Do What We Want Issue One from Holy Mountain Printing. We Do What We Want is not necessarily a comic book and according to its own solicitation text, if I call it a “just a magazine” that would be an insult. This magazine is available for $18.00 at select local comic shops and record stores across the U.S. (scroll to the bottom of this article for a list) and online at HolyMountainPrinting.com.
After reading through this magazine and ogling the art, this is now a proud addition to my magazine format collection right next to the prestigious Heavy Metal #276 Lord of Light issue spot on the shelf.
Now, the burning question. Did I pick this magazine up at my local record store while buying my wife an autographed copy of Taylor Swift’s Folkore? Yes. Moving on.
We Do What We Want is a quarterly magazine about music, art, toys, skateboarding, and anything that the Holy Mountain crew finds interesting it seems. Having said that, it has some serious cross-over interest for us comic book nerds. The buy-in is steep at $18.00, but this is a jam-packed magazine with over 100 pages of illsutrations, photos, and articles bound on high-quality heavyweight satin paper. It also comes with a gaggle of stickers if that’s what you’re into!
THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE ALL-NEW MAGAZINE FROM HOLY MOUNTAIN PRINTING IS NOW AVAILABLE.
WE DO WHAT WE WANT / WDW3 HAS OFFICIALLY STARTED. PRINTED ON HIGH-QUALITY HEAVYWEIGHT SATIN PAPER WITH A NICE MATTE LAMINATED COVER. ALL PRINTED IN THE USA. THIS MAGAZINE FEELS MORE LIKE A HIGH-END ART BOOK. ONLY IT’S FILLED WITH CURATED ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS FROM STEREO SKATEBOARDS, ALEXIS ZIRITT, MORTIIS, AND MANY OTHERS.
EACH COPY OF THE MAGAZINE COMES WITH A SPECIAL WDW3 STICKER. SHIRT BUNDLES ARE AVAILABLE AS WELL!
For starters, Issue One features a front cover illustrated by Alexis Ziritt of Space Riders fame. Not only that, but there’s a solid interview about Ziritt’s background, recent projects, and his no comment on Holy Mountain’s proposed vulgar mascot.
Interspersed you’ll find some amazing full color prints of his music illustrations plus my personal favorite, the Empire Strikes Back Bounty Hunter Rogues Gallery! For a Ziritt collector or a Star Wars collector, this is a quirky little addition to your curated longboxes. I’ve always loved Ziritt’s work ever since I first saw it in Space Riders. It’s like Jack Kirby meets Francesco Francavilla.
On of the other featured artists is Hugo Silva, a regular contributor to Holy Mountain merch illustration. His art is on the monochrome side of things and is more reminiscent of macabre wood-carvings. Yet again, I gravitate to this stately Vader piece sitting across from some modern classic Universal Monsters illustrations!
If you think that’s all this magazine has to offer the pop culture nerd in you, you’d be wrong. Issue One also features an interview with Mike Chen, of Macross, DC, and Marvel renown.
Then there’s the ROM Space Knight article about all things ROM from comics to action figures. The article interviews various artists about ROM, including Chris Ryall, President of IDW Publishing.
Besides the comic cross-over appeal, this magazine also has various band interviews from the metal, hard rock, and punk multiverse, and interviews with skating legends. This is Holy Mountain’s bread and butter, the company being primarily a music merch company selling apparel, vinyl records, posters, etc., as beautified and designed by some of the same artists featured inside the pages of this magazine. The solicit for this book states that it is more like a high end art book and I’d say that’s about right, albeit for our shared decidedly more low-brow pop culture vices.
Speaking of low-brow, the style of the articles here is not condescending or pretentious. This is written more like a conversation with your buds at the local comic shop or record store. A lot of the explanations for the cultural value of the subjects in these pages comes down to “because they’re f*c$ing cool!” And sometimes, that’s all the explanation we need, right?
We Do What We Want Issue One is out now and is currently being sold at a limited number of comic shops and record stores across the United States and online at HolyMountainPrinting.com. List of local shops carrying We Do What We Want:
LLINOIS:
MARYLAND:
MICHIGAN:
NORTH CAROLINA:
OHIO:
OREGON:
PENNSYLVANIA:
UTAH:
VIRGINIA:
