All images courtesy Retard-Magazine.com

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If you read this blog, you’ve no doubt been privy to many talents of Anna Gogusey: Embroiderer extraordinaire, Colossal giant mural aid with a steady hand, prints, portraits, posters. Anna is someone we love to work with, and luckily, she will soon be joining us more often in the CRUMMY HOUSE. One thing I finally got to delve into with Anna is Her own zine, RETARD, An online zine she started with three other girls in a kitchen in Paris in June 2011. Of RETARD’s evolution she says “We got together cause we were each good at something different and we thought we should do something with it.We called it Retard, because it means late in French, and girls are always late, or freaked out that their periods are late and whatnot. Also, we shared a common love for Jay Reatard and I think RETARD is so offensive in English. It’s awesome. At first we only wrote an article a week, and I illustrated everything. Now we have different contributors all the time both for text and illustration.” RETARD Magazine is part of The Parisian Vice Content Network, (which Anna Points out “gives us an excuse to organize parties and karaokes”) and has developed an active community of readers on Facebook. RETARD is not a blog, because that’s an ugly word. It’s not a magazine because we don’t have a copy machine. This is the translation given to Anna and friends by their editor when the magazine started, and seems like a perfectly good way  summarize the magical potion that is to L’Eau De RETARD. Oh Right. It’s in French. Google Chrome viewers- you’re covered.

RETARD
“It’s kind of a re-transcription of the conversations you had with you friends in middle school.
It’s the little notes that you’d pass around in math class, to tell everyone that Joanna doesn’t have any boobs.
It’s your 8th grade locker with all those pictures cut out of both Seventeen and NME.
It’s your pile of tapes recorded on the radio at 11pm when your parents are watching TV downstairs.
It’s your binder with all of Leonardo DiCaprio’s interviews.

But this time, you’re not fourteen anymore, and you stopped having shitty taste. In the honor of the okay-cool person you’re finally became after all that hard work, every week, we’ll give you a few articles to keep opening your perspectives and make you enjoy life a little more.Like your friend Natalie did when she burned you Limp Bizkit CDs.You can call us Natalie”.

Okay, Natalie, Consider us Retarded on joining your fan club.
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