22:01, 17/10/2010

All right!

"that dress again" - self-portrait by Mona Compleine

Mona Compleine is a transvestite, artist, writer, musician and maker of many things, whom I'm happy to be able to call my friend. We first met a few years before the birth of Six Inch Killaz, our erstwhile transgender punk band which I've written about in exhaustive detail here and elsewhere. We met because we were both self-publishing comics (and in Mona's case, zines as well) and we got on not only because of a shared liking for DIY culture and punk music (and the punk ethos), but obviously also because of our penchant for crossdressing.

Six Inch Killaz at The Garage, April 1996 - click each thumbnail to enlarge

Mona's not really been that keen in the past to talk about our time in Six Inch Killaz, mainly because of the painful way it all ended. But I'm happy to say that she's broken cover and started up a flickr photostream that sheds some light on her side of the story as well showing other artefacts from this very creative period of her life.

There are some images on her stream that have particular resonance for me, including some Six Inch Killaz images, flyers and source material that I've either never seen, or not seen for years and years.

"mona + luis at JoJos"

There are also some scans of covers and content pages of Girly, the entertaining and campaigning transgender zine that Mona was producing around about the same time that the Killaz were demonstrating the same political principles on stage and out and about.

Finally, and most cool is a selection of scans from Mona's copious scrapbooks, which were always a source of wonder and jealousy for me. Such images they contained, and such riches, glamour and humour in the juxtapositions.

Now I can enjoy them again, and so can you. All right!