Homocore
Homocore was a queercore zine edited by Deke Nihilson and Tom Jennings.
The first issue was released in 1988. The name 'Homocore' came from the pages of J.D.s as Amy Spencer explains in DIY: The Rise Of Lo-Fi Culture; "J.D.s reached Tom Jennings and Deke Nihilson in San Francisco who took the apparent merging of the hardcore punk and queer identities as their title - Homocore." From 1988 to 1991, seven issues were produced. Contributors included musicians and writers such as The Apostles, Steve Abbott, Donna Dresch of Chainsaw zine, Larry Livermore and G.B. Jones.
Homocore was one of the earliest queercore zines, published just a few years after J.D.s first came out and was an integral part of the creation of a queer punk scene. Amy Spencer writes: "Although they were based in the apparently queer-friendly city of San Francisco, they felt that their involvement in the punk and hardcore scenes made them outsiders. They explained their attitude in the introduction to the first issue...'We're outlaws if we don't follow the ususal rules and don't want to be part of mass culture. We're mutants if we try new things, things that are honest and human, like making our own cultures...'" Its readership was international and it regularly published many of the letters it received from readers in North America, South America and Europe. Nihilson and Jennings also set up Homocore shows in San Francisco where bands like Fugazi, Beat Happening and MDC played, along with Deke Nihilson's own queercore band Comrades In Arms, all of which spread the word about queercore on the west coast.
