Magazines
Click a photo to read a magazine.
Clikque was an independent Black POC LGBTQ New York City-based publication debuted in June, 1996, lasting a year before re-emerging in Houston in 1998, then relocating to Atlanta and Miami. Friend and founding editor, Lewis Nicholson, asked if I could design the inaugural issue over a weekend so it could be printed in time to distribute during NYC’s pride weekend. We did the best we could in 2 days.
The name Clikque combined the traditional meaning of a social clique—being specific to Black & POC LGBTQ folks—visually symbolized by an old landline phone receiver being lifted/returned to its cradle with the audible click that signaled conversations starting/ending. We were in dialogue.
Clikque covered Black and Latino club scenes in a few cities, balls, culture, and politics, and put on a few events. Clikque was the first publication to primarily feature ballroom culture. Interest was high, but resources were limited. There was no pay, but plenty of debt. Future versions of the magazine were more commercially successful in the South with Dwight Powell’s leadership.
I teamed up again with Lewis to write, edit, photograph, and design for short-lived Atlanta ’zines Fellas and Glamma —our final collaboration in the early oughts. Glamma succeeded Atlanta’s pageant/ball ’zine, Glitter, which Lewis published with Christopher Higgins, and for which we both wrote from 2000-20003, notably the friendly feud columns Reading with Francine Fuentes (Lewis) and Ladying with Helen Heels (me).
