WILD COMBINATION
Written by Em Poncia
Printed on thick, grainy paper, the Wild Combination zine is rendered exclusively in purple and green. I had picked it up from Magma, a small, red-fronted shop near campus peddling the flotsam of indie publishing houses. One of three by Black Lodge Press focusing on individual artists, the zine proclaims itself a tribute to the music of Arthur Russell, elsewhere described as a ‘disco cellist.’
CJ Reavy, Wild Combination, photograph taken from https://blacklodgepress.bigcartel.com/product/wild-combination-an-arthur-russell-inspired-illustrated-zine
CJ Reavy, the zine's artist/anarchist creator, opens with a front-on headshot of Russell in thematic purple. Under his watchful gaze, we learn that the musical visionary died of an AIDS-related illness in 1992. The coarse, weighty paper encourages a slow leafing through of the zine’s dichromatic pages. Following a scheme of double spreads, the left side contains bold typed lyrics, and the right evocative, comic-style drawings. Images are rendered in Reavy’s hallmark minimal style, fragmental and simmering with emotion.
Queerness, a theme throughout, continuously oscillates between the fore and background of this zine. Although never textually referenced, Russell’s queerness is implied in the initial discussion of his untimely death, and later reinforced in Reavy’s drawings, particularly Close My Eyes. Tense desire reverberates throughout the grid of drawings, where androgynous figures are interspersed with dreamy nightscapes. The corresponding song is a stripped-back guitar ballad that softens the square edges of Reavy’s comic-book style.
CJ Reavy, Close My Eyes, photograph taken from https://blacklodgepress.bigcartel.com/product/wild-combination-an-arthur-russell-inspired-illustrated-zine
CJ Reavy, That’s Us (Wild Combination), photograph taken from https://blacklodgepress.bigcartel.com/product/wild-combination-an-arthur-russell-inspired-illustrated-zine
Reavy’s images zero in on hands throughout. Touching, shaking, and pointing, disembodied palms guide the reader through the zine. The few pages where hands finally touch seem particularly charged. That’s Us/Wild Combination is one such design; this whole spread is laden with tactility, from faceless figures wrapped in an embrace to the printed lyrics ‘I Just Want To Be Wherever You Are’. The song from which it takes its title, Russell’s most popular, is more upbeat and electronic, with his youthful, vague timbre spreading itself over the driving drum beat and experimental cello.
Reavy invites us into what feels like a very personal response to Russell’s music - and yet, listening to the songs these works are inspired by, the drawings feel like a natural extension of the music. With A Little Lost, an indigo sea consumes most of the page; an arm is thrust out from under the surf, perhaps waving for help, or perhaps the final goodbye of a person resigned to their fate. The song contains no mention of an ocean, yet the seesawing cello evokes a seasick feeling, aligning with this maritime imagery. A spray of water leaps outside of the confines of the comic grid, destabilising the neatness of the page’s layout. Reavy employs this device throughout the zine, inviting us to consider the realm beyond his drawings.
Reavy’s final page is on Eli, a song in which Russell laments that his ‘simple dog’ is misunderstood. Eli's cartoon version takes up most of a page, looking out with an open expression, before slinking away rejected. Having trawled through vulnerable themes, this landing on the simplicity and goodness of Russell’s adored pet highlights the universality of the feelings his songs describe.
Focusing on a throughline of love and heartache (and thus overlooking some of his less romantic works, such as those released under the pseudonym ‘Dinosaur L’), we are offered a sample of Russell’s soul-bearing music. With this choice to centre the most lyrical, yearning songs from Russell’s eclectic oeuvre, the zine presents Russell’s tender, romantic, and sensual underbelly. Black Lodge Press’ focus on queer culture is obvious, showing Russell’s inner life and simultaneously normalising a queer identity that was so contentious in his lifetime. This zine is one arm of Black Lodge Press’ exploration of artists whose legacy is intertwined with the AIDS epidemic – there are currently three zines in total that focus on Arthur Russell, Derek Jarman, and David Wojnarowicz respectively, all of whom died tragically young from AIDS-related illnesses.
By simultaneously illuminating and refusing to explicitly acknowledge (and thus isolate) Russell’s queerness, we are invited to consider Russell as a whole person. His humanity, sense of yearning, desire, and romance, and affection for his beloved pets are drawn poignantly together to present Arthur Russell not as a musical genius or tragic poet, but simply as a man.
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