Emma W.
Come on Killer was created in the summer of 2006, a collection
and exorcism of my teenage years growing up in rural Ontario. At the time heavily into Nirvana, Sonic Youth, the Beat generation, and pondering the mysteries of life and love, the eternal adolescent struggle of figuring out where you are where you're going, I incorporated all my interests into a Bible-sized zine. Pop culture figures and artists such as Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick, Kate Moss and Courtney Love were regularly featured, along with poems I had written, at the time being quite inspired by a book called Surrealist Poetry in English.
The zine, beginning as a messy illustration and much needed release of being fifteen, was made on the floors of my bedroom (which quickly became my "office") and consisted of pages torn from '90s teen magazines that my older cousin passed down to me once she outgrew them, poems and illustrations I had done, pictures my siblings and I had taken turns posing for and shooting, and interviews. The first interview and photo session I conducted was at age 15 or so, with Care Failure from Die Mannequin. Crystal Castles and Comanechi were also interviewed in the first issue. For the second issue, actor and musician Keram Malicki-Sanchez was interviewed, in the third issue Tamra Davis, followed by costume designer Christian Joy. Paz Lenchantin, The Magic Wands, No Age, and Thurston Moore are among others I had interviewed before the age of 18.
Once I moved out of my childhood home and into an apartment in
Toronto, I had less time to work on zines and took a two year break before making the final five issues of Come on Killer, interviewing Buzz Records. The issues were comprised of poetry, collage imagery, and photographs and were available at Sonic Boom, She Said Boom, Noise Annoys, Rotate This and numerous other stores in Toronto and also sold online. The final zines were additionally sold and displayed at Zine Dream and Canzine Toronto.
