Here is the press release for the latest wonderful project to rattle its way out of my dad’s brain:

Dodgem Logic issue 1DODGEM LOGIC: Colliding ideas to see what happens.

Forty years after the uproarious heyday of the alternative press, writer Alan Moore is launching the 21st century’s first underground magazine from his home town of Northampton, a community that is right at the geographical, political and economic heart of the country; one which has half its high street boarded up and is at present dying on its arse, just like everywhere else.

Drawing upon an overlooked and energetic pool of local talent as well as numerous friends and co-conspirators from comic books, the arts or entertainment, Dodgem Logic sets out to provide a splash of subterranean exotica in a bleached-out cultural and social landscape. Published every other month by counter-culture veterans KNOCKABOUT, Dodgem Logic is a forty page full-colour spectacle that, in addition, has an eight-page local section in each issue, thus inviting other areas to publish regional editions by providing their own inserts.

As cheap and beautiful as a heartbreaking teenage prostitute, Dodgem Logic has a cover price of £2.50, with its content similarly tailored to the fiscal toilet-bowl that we are currently engaged in sliding down. Regular columnists provide delicious, inexpensive recipes, wide-ranging medical advice, simple instructions for creating stylish clothing and accessories from next to nothing, guides to growing your own dinner by becoming a guerrilla gardener, and, in the first of Dave (The Self-Sufficient-ish Bible) Hamilton’s environmental columns, a bold experiment in living with no money. The same approach to helping readers deal with socio-economic meltdown and a blitz of repossessions is there in upcoming features on the present-day resurgence of the squatters’ movement, or in our communiqués from the Steampunk/ Post-Civilisation gang on how to start rebuilding culture and society before those things have broken down completely and our children are reduced to battering each other to a bloody pulp with their now-useless X-Boxes in a dispute over the last tub of pot noodles.

Not only seeking to give practical advice on getting through a rough stretch, Dodgem Logic is also committed to alleviating the attendant sense of anguish and despair by brightening the world with the astonishing cartoon-work of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s sublime Kevin O’Neill or that of underground legend Savage Pencil; the musings of Father Ted, The IT Crowd and Black Book’s own Graham Linehan or of the nation’s sweetheart, the implacably positive Josie Long; even a delirious commemoration of the lunar landing’s anniversary by the masterful Steve Aylett. In addition to a variously-hosted women’s column launched by Lost Girls co-creator and erstwhile underground cartoon artist Melinda Gebbie, Mr. Moore will himself be contributing a lead feature on the history of underground subversive publishing from its origins in the thirteenth century, along with various illustrations and words of advice. All these and many other sterling features, including a free CD of magnificent home-grown Northampton music over fifty years, will be contained in the historic premiere issue, sporting an hallucinatory  front cover by digital artist Tamara Rogers and debuting this November. Wake up and smell the fairground ozone! No ramming!

59 Replies to “Announcing: Alan Moore’s “Dodgem Logic””

  1. This sounds really exciting. Something fun and different to read.
    Are either of you contributing at some point?

    I do hope that Mystic Al (see what I did there?) will be doing some Horror-Scopes:
    “don’t bother washing the curtains Sunday, the zombie apocalypse will start after chucking out time at the local”
    “Aquarius: avoid water this month as Cthulhu is angry, and tentacles may well at unexpected moments. Especially avoid sitting on the toilet. ”
    Obviously better than that of course.

  2. Sounds like good fun & stuff! Will there be any paranormal coverage with all the other topic covered, or is that a bridge too far?

    And looking forward to reading about the franchise option – maybe I can talk somebody into picking it up here!

  3. This is great news Dodgem Logic will give a voice to people that are looking out of the box and away from the three major parties that really do not pass the RIZLA test

    Hope my column will start a few debates as to what is going wrong and what needs to be done, Alan has said of the first column:

    BEYOND THE NORM
    As tenacious and as unpredictable as a junkyard dog, veteran activist and troublemaker Norman Adams spills the alphabet spaghetti on the unsuccessful persecution of courageous local lawyer and outstanding human rights campaigner Yvonne Hossack in the first of his regular shit-kicking columns.

  4. To all who have enquired about purchase/subscriptions and submissions: a Dodgem Logic website is coming soon with all the answers.

    @Darkglobe _ I believe Steve Moore may be doing a bit of fortean writing for future issues.

    @JackKing – cheers for the kind words about Holmes – final issue of this series coming very, very soon (early October, I think)

  5. This looks nice. I hope the magazine is available through Diamond UK sometimes down the road -I live in France & they are practically the only way I can get UK stuff. (yeah, I know the “there’s-always-the-web” alternative, but I try to buy all my books & comics via brick & mortar shops)
    Anyway, it’s great news! Thanks for the good work on Vlad and Sherlock too. Cheers-

  6. @J. Folgard – thanks for the kind words about Holmes and Dracula. Final issue of Holmes coming this week!

    @Anna R – thanks for the proofreading.

    Details on how to order coming very soon.

  7. Is there a chance in hell that you jare doing mail order, or are you distributing this gem in Canada at all (West Coaster on Vancouver Island)

  8. It is always refreshing to have news from Alan Moore that have nothing to do with superheroes or movie adaptations. The timing for this magazine to arrive in our world is just perfect. I can hardly wait.

  9. I hope you can solicit it through Diamond (UK and US both). Wait, I hate Diamond’s monopoly and shoddy “service” as much as anyone else — but for a lot of remote folks, subscribing through a Diamond-based store is the simplest and cheapest way to get stuff…

  10. Thank you very much! What else can one say when someone comes up with the much needed. And that to Alan Moore.

    Will be waiting for details on how to order to India.

  11. Great idea — I finally have an excuse to buy a magazine again (which I haven’t done in years). Just goes to show it’s not so much the internet that’s killing the newsstand as a lack of quality content. Best of luck – we’ll be keeping tabs 😉

  12. Top Shelf, eh? That’s good to hear, and I hope their collaborators at Knockabout can distribute DL by our side of the ocean?

  13. I’m curoius about the 8-page insert local/regional section. Will Top Shelf be handling ours( and by that I mean the Southeastern United States) or is there a possibility of contributing to that from other people through Top Shelf or Knockabout? If the authoring of that section does move around on its bi-monthly schedule or is uncertain, what type of software is required for managing it? Thank you for your patience with this rambling question, but I am excited at the idea of being able to contribute or help art in my part of the country.

  14. @JJH – I imagine the Northampton section will stay as it is for the first few issues or until other groups get involved. All the answers will (hopefully) be on the website when it is launched. More news when we have it.

  15. For anyone in North America who wants this magazine, Diamond Comic Distributors is now taking orders under the code AUG098185 DODGEM LOGIC MAGAZINE #1. Go to your local stores and order it ASAP! I’d like to think that the talent behind this magazine would give it some leeway with Diamond’s notorious order minimums but more orders quicker never hurts.

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