Series V. Band Files and Related Materials, 1981-2015

Flyers, posters, magazines, files, and zines relating to American punk and alternative culture collected or created by Aaron Cometbus, including his own work as a writer and musician. The archive contains hundreds of fanzines and small magazines, plus original manuscripts and paste-ups for Cometbus and related publishing and distribution records. Board games, business cards, set lists, and venue histories provide a personal, behind-the-scenes view of punk both as music and as a movement, from 1980 to the present. Also includes the production files, art work, and original pasteups for the zine Cometbus. This fanzine is edited, designed, laid out, distributed and mostly written by Aaron Elliot, although the work of other writers/artists is also sometimes included. The issues include artwork, interviews and other writings about bands, short stories, novels, and historical accounts and observations on punk, bookselling, and other subcultures, interspaced with graphics and illustrations. The Cometbus production archive covers the more than 59 issues of the zine created between 1981 and 2022, preserving the design process and physical construction of each issue.