The Monthly Rag

Staff, circa 1995 (left to right: Sean Harris, Matt Pfeil, Kristian Gabriel, Eli Bingham)

The Monthly Rag began life as a hand stapled fanzine during the autumn months of 1992.

Born out of Fort Bragg High School in the heart of Mendocino county by three young individuals (two of which were kicked out of the legitimate school newspaper), the four page oddity was quickly seized and banned by the administration for “inappropriate content”. Undaunted, they continued to publish under relentless strife from academic authority, gathering a small band of contributing columnists in the process and luckily winning over the esteem of the student body. Upon chance, while hanging up flyers for an upcoming edition, the team met and was taken under the wing of local independent MEMO newspaper publisher Marco A. McClean, who taught them the basics of the craft and set them up with real equipment to produce their periodical on newsprint.

Launched just before spring of 1993 to a much wider readership, The Rag established itself as a cult zine and headlined a slew of underground productions that appeared from various teenage authors over the ensuing summer. Although consistently inconsistent with its releases over the years, it has endured and lived to appear again and again.

READ ABOUT THE RAG’S LONG HISTORY HERE!