If you rode freestyle BMX in the late 80s and then the early 90s, Freestylin‘ magazine and later Go were your bibles (I’ve written about them previously here). When Go folded in the early 90s, a void was left in the freestyle community. Young BMXers/entreprenuer’s Hal Brindley and Steve Buddendeck were doing a line of t-shirts called 2B Homecooked Garments at the time, and the brand was picking up in popularity. Hal saw an opportunity and the need to fill the void, and with the help of Happy Zine maker Jimmy Deaton, produced one issue of The Cookbook. The Cookbook was a black and white, offset printed publication with a DIY aesthetic.

Hal put up $5000 of his own money (Print costs have decreased since those days. Now publications skip many of the expensive pre-press phases and go direct to plate.) to produce 10,000 copies of The Cookbook, which he mailed out for free. In return he requested that anyone who liked the ‘zine send a dollar. Anyone who liked it and wanted to recieve the next one, send another dollar. I sent two dollars, and Hal deserved it.

About a year later the first issue of Brad McDonald’s Ride BMX Magazine came out. Issue Two of The Cookbook never surfaced. Ultimately it was the Cookbook that made me realize producing a magazine on your own was attainable, and led to me working in the publishing/media industry, and even producing a few of my own magazines (here and here). After the jump are some details of the first and only issue of The Cookbook that I shot with my iPhone.