Punk is a music magazine

Music magazine

A music magazine is a magazine dedicated to music and music culture. Such magazines typically include music news, interviews, photo shoots, essays, record reviews, concert reviews and occasionally have a covermount with recorded music.-Notable music magazines:...

/fanzine

Fanzine

A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...

 created by cartoonist John Holmstrom

John Holmstrom

John Holmstrom is an American underground cartoonist and writer. He is best known for illustrating the covers of the Ramones albums Rocket to Russia and Road to Ruin, as well as his characters Bosko and Joe .As the founding editor of Punk Magazine at the age of 21 in late 1975, Holmstrom's work...

, publisher Ged Dunn and "resident punk" Legs McNeil

Legs McNeil

Roderick Edward "Legs" McNeil is a writer and rock music historian. He is the co-founder and a writer for Punk Magazine; he is also a former senior editor at Spin Magazine, and the founder and editor of Nerve magazine .- Punk Magazine:At the age of 18, McNeil gathered with two high school...

 in 1975. Its use of the term "punk rock," coined by writers for Creem

Creem

Creem , "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine," was a monthly rock 'n' roll publication first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid...

 magazine a few years earlier, led to its worldwide acceptance as the definition for the new bands that were producing a new sound based on the music of The Stooges

The Stooges

The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...

, the New York Dolls

New York Dolls

The New York Dolls is an American rock band, formed in New York in 1971. The band's protopunk sound prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era; their visual style influenced the look of many new wave and 1980s-era glam metal groups, and they began the local New York scene that later...

, the MC5

MC5

The MC5 is an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan and originally active from 1964 to 1972. The original band line-up consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson...

, and the Ramones

Ramones

The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...

. It was also the first publication to popularize the CBGB

CBGB

CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...

 scene.

Punk published 15 issues between 1976 and 1979, as well as a special issue in 1981 (The D.O.A. Filmbook), and several more issues in the new millennium. Its covers featured Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...

, Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...

, Lou Reed

Lou Reed

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...

, Patti Smith

Patti Smith

Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....

 and Blondie

Blondie (band)

Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...

.

Punk was a vehicle for examining the underground music

Underground music

Underground music comprises a range of different musical genres that operate outside of mainstream culture. Such music can typically share common values, such as the valuing of sincerity and intimacy; an emphasis on freedom of creative expression; an appreciation of artistic creativity...

 scene in New York, and primarily for punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 as found in clubs like CBGB

CBGB

CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...

, Zeppz, and Max's Kansas City

Max's Kansas City

Max's Kansas City was a nightclub and restaurant at 213 Park Avenue South, in New York City, which was a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s.-Origin of name:...

. It mixed Mad Magazine-style cartooning by Holmstrom, Bobby London

Bobby London

Bobby London is an American underground comix and mainstream comics artist.-Biography:London created his underground newspaper comic strip Merton, in his native New York in 1969 and the raunchy Dirty Duck strip in 1971...

 and a young Peter Bagge

Peter Bagge

Peter Bagge is an American cartoonist. He is the creator of Buddy Bradley, Hate, Neat Stuff, Martini Baton, and Sweatshop, Apocalypse Nerd and Other Lives. His stories often use black humor and exaggerated cartooning to dramatize the reduced expectations of middle-class American youth...

 with the more straightforward pop journalism of the kind found in Creem

Creem

Creem , "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine," was a monthly rock 'n' roll publication first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid...

. It also provided an outlet for female writers, artists and photographers who had been shut out of a male dominated underground publishing scene.

Punk magazine was home to (many of whom were being published for the first time) writers Mary Harron

Mary Harron

Mary Harron is a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter best known for her films I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.-Overview:...

, Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor

Roland Stephen Taylor , is an American Christian singer, songwriter, record producer and film director.-Early life:Taylor, the eldest of three children, was born in Brawley, California. Taylor's father, Roland Taylor, was a Baptist minister. When Taylor was six years old, the family relocated to...

, Lester Bangs

Lester Bangs

Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs was an American music journalist, author and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock 'n' roll criticism....

, Pam Brown

Pam Brown

Pam Brown is an Australian poet.- Career :Brown was born in Seymour, Victoria, and her childhood was spent in on military bases in Toowoomba and Brisbane. Since her early twenties, she has mostly lived in Sydney...

, artists Buz Vaultz, Anya Phillips, and Screaming Mad George, and photographers Bob Gruen

Bob Gruen

Bob Gruen is an American photographer known for his rock 'n' roll photographs.Gruen was born in New York City. He began photographing rock stars with Bob Dylan and served as John Lennon's personal photographer during his time in New York City. Gruen is best known for his photograph of Lennon...

, Roberta Bayley and David Godlis. After Dunn left in early 1977 and McNeil quit shortly afterwards, Bruce Carleton (art director, 1977–1979), Ken Weiner (contributor, 1977–1979), and Elin Wilder, one of few African Americans involved in the early CBGB/punk rock scene, were added to the staff.

Punk was unsuccessfully restarted in 2001, shortly before 9/11. In 2006 the magazine was again revived, and new issues are still being published.