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10.
BLACK MASK #2-7 + 9 (NY: December 1966-January 1968).
Ed. Ben Morea and Ron Hahne. Single broadsheets, each folded once to make 4pp., with front covers designed by Ben Morea. Illustrated.
A near consecutive run of seven issues, from a total of ten published.
Sold for a nickel, mostly on the Lower East Side, Black Mask was put together by Ben Morea and Ron Hahne, who shared an interest in anarchism and the political elements of Dada and Surrealism, the contemporary Black insurrections in America and the growth of international youth movements. They also expressed affinity with other radical groups, including the Situationist International in Paris, Heatwave in London, Rebel Worker in Chicago, and Resurgence Youth Movement in New York, each of whom were given space for a brief positional statement in the second issue.
The subsequent issue comments on the shutting down of the Museum of Modern Art in October 1966 and announces a “Masked” men march on Wall Street in February 1967, the first of several direct actions by the Black Mask group before they morphed into Up Against the Wall Motherfucker! in 1968 (their new name was taken from a line in a poem by LeRoi Jones).
Other contributors to the run include Dan Georgakas and Carol Verlaan, with space also devoted to reprints of writings by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, André Breton, Bertrand Russell, Stokely Carmichael and Wilhelm Reich.
All issues except one have an old central horizontal crease from folding, o/w Very Good plus, at least.
