“Everyone is a pornographer now. ” – Interview with the creator of HOT DAVE magazine.
When and why did you start HOT DAVE?
I started HOT DAVE after working on a lot of collaborative projects; it was something where I could do what I wanted without a lot of discussion. It’s really a series of sketchbooks, ideas and things I’m working through. The first HOT DAVE was a newspaper birthday card I made for my boyfriend, it turned into the first HOT DAVE called NSFW about 2 years later. I started at the end of 2016 and I’ve done 11 so far plus a lot of badges! I would like to be more prolific, I have so many ideas but work is the main thing that get’s in the way! So far I’ve made zines in a variety of formats, I’ve made 2 tabloid newspapers, A5 and A4 sizes and some A3 posters. I’ve just recently experimented with really large format posters. Now that I’ve done a few HOT DAVE zines, I’m interested in collaborative working again, I’d love to include more writing and work with some writers, other artists and people that would like to be in the zines. Diverse body types, sexuality and sexual expressions fascinate me. There are so many stories I’d like to tell.
I sell through my website WWW.H-O-T-D-A-V-E.COM
Where are you based?
I am based in London. I’ve been in London since I was 18, so more than 20 years now. I love this city. My parents are both from London and we grew up in the south east of the country, so it was only 40 minutes away on the train. It was an amazing place to live in my late teens and twenties in my days of non-stop partying. I fantasise about moving back to the country so I can have more animals.
Who/what is ‘HOT DAVE’ for you?
HOT DAVE is my way of reflecting the changing of masculine archetypes through explicit imagery and how those images are disseminated and consumed. Each zine explores a sexual theme or niche. HOT DAVE is about how I view my own body, how I compare myself to images and films that I see around me, how my body image has been informed by early experiences with pornography. I’m making the assumption that this is a shared experience to some extent.
Which artists do you admire?
I love the art direction and layout of pornography from the 60s to late 80s, so I always have admiration for lots of that work. I think my references are quite clichéd: I’ve always loved Self Service magazine and the photography of Collier Schorr, Wolfgang Tillmans and Ryan McGinley. I love Tom de Pekin. I don’t think you could have studied fashion illustration at Central St Martin’s in my era without loving Egon Shiele or Howard Tangye. I’m really enjoying Mushpit at the moment.
What is the best thing about owning a magazine?
I’ve worked on magazines and publishing platforms for most of my working life, I’m fascinated by storytelling and the different modes of communication that are available to us. HOT DAVE is where I get to work on my own, I don’t have to compromise or collaborate if I don’t want to. It’s a place for me to work things out in terms of image making, design and narratives. When I started, I was really doing it for myself; I hadn’t considered whether people would respond to it. But I made a few zines, put them on Instagram and got a positive response. It’s interesting, because the work is about sex, people have really strong reactions to it; I love hearing from people who enjoy what I produce, it gives me a buzz. I’ve loved meeting people at the few zine fairs that I’ve done, the people that collect and the other exhibitors. I love that women collect my zines too.
What does your process look like from the start of the new magazine to the end?
I have a ton of images on my computer that I arrange into themes and folders. There tons of folders that will become zines in the future. I buy a lot of vintage porno mags and themes come from there too, not just the Internet. Then I start collaging, printing and reprinting, laying out physically and digitally. I listen to a lot of music and can get lost in it for days – I get completely consumed.
It always takes longer than I think because work gets in the way. I work full time so it’s difficult to juggle everything sometimes. Then I start test printing the whole zine and think about the changes I want to make. Some zines are really easy – others are difficult births! Then I put them on my website and Instagram.
If we compare the recent issue with the first one, what things have changed?
I feel a lot more confident in my work now… I don’t feel like I’m the best collage artist in the world but I can see improvement. The production of the zines is getting better each time, I’m being more ambitious and interactive I think.
What is the HOT DAVE manifesto?
The overall purpose of HOT DAVE is to explore the boundaries of public, private, secret and repressed. With HOT DAVE my aim is to observe the shifting perspectives of the queer body and how it is published and consumed, whilst trying to locate it at the intersection of an art narrative, communication design and pornography.
HOT DAVE is a series of publications and merch that explore hotness through diverse representations of masculinity.
HOT DAVE appropriates explicit vintage & contemporary pornography.
HOT DAVE is a thematic investigation of print & format.
HOT DAVE is open to collaborations & submissions.
HOT DAVE is a love letter.
What differences do you see in vintage vs. 2018’s porn?
Image quality has changed massively of course, I love vintage porn for it’s colour grading, the lo-fi quality of VHS and the design and layout of old magazines. It’s easy to see how fashion and hair have changed but also fashions in what is perceived as desirable bodies. I can never decide if there are more porn niches now or we just have easier ways to access them. I feel there is more diversity in what is considered attractive now, in terms of size, build, ethnicity, body hair… When I’m working with vintage porn I’m always really conscious of the lack of diversity when I comes to ethnicity, I think race is still highly fetishized in porn, that hasn’t changed, those narratives of power play and the perceived hierarchy of race and how that is sometimes subverted.
Everyone is a pornographer now. Anyone can self publish on social media and sites like OnlyFans and create their own niche brand. We have a lot more access to explicit imagery and that’s changing how we consume pornography and view sex and romance, I don’t know where all that is going to go. I’m interested in the arguments around the proliferation of pornography skewing our perceptions of relationships, intimacy and our self images as well as how queer bodies are still censored and politicized.
I really enjoy contemporary pornography, especially amateur and self produced stuff but I’m drawn back to the beauty of those vintage photographic images. I always want to know more about the actors and models; it’s usually pretty difficult to find out anything about them, which makes them more intriguing to me.
What is the best thing about working in collage?
Right now collage gets me out of the heartache situation of drawing. My drawing skills are nowhere near what they were 10 years ago, I’m really out of practice, so drawing is always a disappointment for me at the moment. Collage is like an endurance sport; it’s a marathon of intense concentration and motor skills. I don’t find it relaxing but I love it as a medium. It’s fun searching for the images and then deconstructing and rearranging them into new meanings by making new associations. I mix physical collage with digital processes, often without any real idea of where I want to get to.
What are your future plans for HOT DAVE?
I’m about to trial a new size and printing full bleed, if it works out I’ll probably keep with this size, I like to think about how they will look on the shelf together. There are still thousands more niches and ideas I want to explore with the zines. My personal goal is to produce publications more regularly and to work on my drawing and photography. I’m planning to produce a regular magazine that mixes full-length features and interviews with porn and distribute it internationally. I’d like to get into apparel and products in the future. The ultimate goal would be to do HOT DAVE full-time!
Find more: @queer_zine_