Interview Kevin Braddock (Manzine) On Copying August 31, 2010 Our final interview from Issue 0 on copying is with editor of subversive men’s mag Manzine, Kevin Braddock.

Manzine is a magazine for that want to escape the aspirational, archetypal, male stereotype of the typical men’s magazine. Published occasionally by a small group of writers who work on other men’s mags such as GQ and Esquire, Manzine is a sort of hobby project that talks about real experiences, whilst sending up the over-exaggerated lifestyle claims of glossy magazines. This makes it one of Article’s favourites.

In this issue, we’re looking at copying in creativity as something that’s useful. In dealing with the myriad influences you have, being subversive or indeed totally original might not be appropriate. How useful is imitation or copying to you as a way of communicating in the right way?

I don’t know how useful it is, but it is certainly inevitable in some ways. All creativity is a product of what it absorbs and reinterprets, it all exists in a lineage or tradition, so in that respect there is probably nothing truly original. What you do with the influences is what counts. Manzine combines a tradition of DIY publishing and the process and formats of established, mainstream magazine production. Those are our two key influences, and they way they react off each other is what makes Manzine unique.

Tracing paper, I imagine, is one of the greatest aids to creativity.

There’s quite a knowing, perhaps British sense of humour to Manzine and it seems to appeal to a readership who know magazines well. From working at bigger, well known titles how does this ‘zine format compare, as on one hand it’s original, but borrows heavily from a world of small, niche publishing?

Above all, we want Manzine to be entertaining, rather than an exercise in design. Manzine comments on the modenr masculine experience – sorry to sound sociological for a moment – and part of that is the way men experience the world, which is through the media that targets them, hence the references to men’s magazines and marketing that targets men.

Also, part of what we want to do with it is rethink how men’s magazines work, from the assumptions they make about readers in terms of content and also in the way they address an audience in terms of how the content is presented. There are plenty of great men’s magazines in the market, and plenty of really bad ones too. So we subvert some of the tropes and category cliches of existing men’s magazines, along with trying to talk to the reader in a new way. Again, it’s inevitable that we are reacting from traditional men’s magazine thinking because Manzine is made mainly by men’s mag professionals and that is what we’ve been schooled in. I guess the thing here is that any orginality results from someone learning a craft very well and then breaking the rules or subverting them in some way. The point about niche publishing is that almost anyone can do it, so we decide to stop talking about doing it and actually do it.

Given the design consciousness of Manzine, is there a difference to you in the types of influences you have? How does the researched, historical item compare to the continuous stream of images you might see on a daily basis?

We principally think design is over-fetishised now and all too often obscures content. Manzine looks that way it does because we want to create a diffentiation from the full colour, full-bleed, heavily designed category standard. In terms of influence, we have drawn on fanzines, news journals, dada, constructivism, comics, and found artworks, photography and media as well as established mass market titles.

Can you describe something that you have copied outright?

We haven’t copied anything outright, though we do parody elements of men’s magazines

Is there something you would like to copy / anything that absolutely shouldn’t be copied?

No, there are precedents we aspire to match, but not to copy. It’s ok to be influenced by anything, as long as the influence is acknowledged and the copier doesn’t simply attempt to pass off his work as original.

Have you been copied?

We’ve seen things that look suspiciously similar to Manzine’s aesthetic and editorial line, and usually they are quite poor, but as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.