This publication reproduces covers of 100 British punk fanzines from the Mott Collection and features two essays: “Glue Was All Over My Fingers” by Toby Mott and “We Are the Writing on the Wall” by Victor Brand.

The zine is mass-produced graffiti, a love letter to an anonymous public, a black-and-white shout into the wilderness. As a product, it goes hand in hand so perfectly with the autochthonous priorities of the punk movement that it seems in retrospect almost inevitable. The youth of the United Kingdom — under- and unemployed, adrift and disillusioned in the aftermath of ‘60s utopianism — were the writing on the wall in the mid-1970s. The kids of punk weren’t all right: Punk was the return of the repressed. Even if they were only talking to themselves, they could express themselves without censorship through music and grainy, handwritten pamphlets.