Full Spectrum is an ongoing work dedicated to the true art of graffiti. The handmade, cut and paste, magazine from Vancouver BC is made with love and will surely bring joy to any graffiti writers or lovers lucky enough to find a copy. After reading Full Spectrum Issue No 4. I was convinced that the people responsible for the fresh, thoughtful graffiti magazine must also be fresh and thoughtful and I was compelled to find them out. Any chum can snap flix of the trains and tunnels and make a collage from them, but you need to know and respect the history of graff if you wanna do it right. Reed* and John* of Full Spectrum are self described "graffiti snobs". Their elevated taste is evident throughout their mag, good photos of good graffiti, coupled with true socially conscious thought; it's no wonder that their shit is quality. Evil Monito hooked up with them and talked about their love and hate for graffiti, and the past, present and future of Full Spectrum. They had much to say about state of graffiti.

(*for all you namedroppers, real names have been changed to protect them from haters in general - graffiti is still illegal - you know what I'm saying?)

EM: What do your parents think about graffiti? I'm guessing that their attitude towards it is similar to those who see graff as little more than scribbles on a wall.

REED: My mom doesn't like graff, but my dad's pretty supportive. We just keep it pretty low pro with pretty much everyone; we just do it. She's just a typical parent - "don't get caught, don't paint on other people's property". She probably thinks it's just a good hobby, and that in some amount of time, it'll just fade out, She's not nuts about it, just - "good for him that he's taking an interest in print industry or publishing". But she likes a lot of what we do. I just haven't had time to get my mom to be involved in graff.

JOHN: I was just thinking about why I don't talk about graffiti with my parents. It's not what they are interested in. My mom likes about 30 percent of the graffiti I do, and she doesn't respect tagging. She respects art. My dad is into graffiti because he's an avid train collector... and model railroads. Me and Reed sometimes do pieces on his little trains, ...so that's about it though. They just consider it as a non-profitable waste of time, not that they are crazy capitalistic... ...and having gone to jail (because of graff), now makes them worry.

EM: Do you get a rush out of doing graffiti? Why do you do it?

REED: I don't know, it's one of those questions you can't ask yourself too much. Often it's pretty reclusive... lots of times you go out by yourself... you do have support from your crew. We don't go out to break the law or anything, lots of times you just go out there to do something fresh - you just go out and do it.

EM: How do you get the pictures/images for your mag?

REED: Usually John and I have taken most of them. We travel a lot, and when we see a lot of the graff we like... But for the next issue, we are getting lot of good photos sent to us from everywhere.

EM: Do you guys have your own pieces in the mag?

REED: Yeah, we keep our stuff to a minimum. We usually put each of our work in the mag, but it's not about us, but more like a documentation. You tend to be hard on your own shit.

EM: So How did you start doing graffiti and eventually Full Spectrum?

JOHN: I started graffiti thru looking at the Source magazine graff pages, introduction of Rap City in MuchMusic, and going into Vancouver city. That was the only exposure I had to graffiti. That was 96; doing painting on surfaces like skate bowls, and Reed used to come up to my town every summer, and he kinda got into it the following summer.

REED: I used to draw little nerdy stuff. I was into skateboarding, so I would just go and skate the bowl. I saw John painting the bowl while I was skating the bowl, so I would check his stuff out, and he suggested I should try my own. I got into it, and it was one of those things that I would do a piece, and thought to myself, it's ok but I'll do better next time. I just picked it up and did more and more. It was 96 or 97 when I started doing that. I was living in the states at the time. So, as soon as I left Vancouver after that summer, I picked up a graff magazine, I think it was called Flashbacks, [it] had old stuff from a bunch of writers. I started to copy some of the letters, just get a feel for it.

JOHN: And, I guess a year after that, we started accumulating a lot more photos 'cause Reed had been traveling quite a bit by then, and he would always bring these photos from, like the West Coast of the States and NY. So Reed suggested that we should start a magazine. It was Reed's idea, but I didn't have a clue something like that could be possible. I think that was 98.

REED: I was still in the States quite a bit, and I didn't have a link to John. I didn't have Internet and I didn't know how to use a computer so I would just send photos to him. I wanted to meet graffiti writers where I was staying. I had the idea of starting a graffiti zine, so I could meet graffiti writers where I'm from, and John could meet writers from Vancouver. So in the summer of 98, we brainstormed and worked to make a magazine. John came up with the name: Full Spectrum.

EM: Why Full Spectrum?

JOHN: It's a lot to do with the obvious color reference... it's to do with the art form of graffiti. We just thought it seemed appropriate. But the first magazine was black and white, 12 pages. Reed did it with his mom at Kinko's. His mom helped him with printing out names of the writers and crews, and pasting them on and stuff.

EM: Maybe it was a good thing that you didn't know how to use a computer, staying with handmade, cut and paste format.

REED: Yeah, that's part of why it stayed cut and paste. John and I work on the mag quite a bit, and I don't know Photoshop. I'm learning a bit here and there. I had such a shitty computer at home, so I wasn't using it, but now we are incorporating a bit more computer into the mag 'cause it has to be done. You can only go so far with handmade - you can't draw text, it's just too much work. But the majority of the mag is still handmade.

EM: How will you handle that once you get big and have to produce more to meet people's demands?

JOHN: Even if a lot of people love it and want it, that doesn't mean we gonna put it out more often. Lots of our favorite things come out less frequently. You tend to appreciate them more. Our next issue might be 5000 copies, but that's not gonna affect the way we do our layout.

REED: I think the quantity of the mag will increase because 3000(Issue No 4) is relatively small [although] I know a lot of people don't see it that way. The feedback we got from the mag has been really good. A lot of people were really down with it, profits will probably stay the same, but the quality will go up, hopefully. We are caught on the fence about doing a graffiti magazine, we do not in anyway want to make money off graff. Within the mag, we obviously have to break even because it costs money to do it. But we are not going to make a lot of money doing the magazine, especially the way we are doing it. So we are caught on the fence between: do we keep it small, not using advertising and just keep it all graff? or do we buckle down and get some ads, keep it as business?

JOHN: Do we get a Nike ad with graffiti in the background and contradict the article that we published in Issue No.4?

REED: Our answer is no. I'd rather stay small than ever do that because we are trying to be a real graffiti magazine. I'd rather do something I enjoy doing for a small number of people, and lose money. But for the next issue, we have to have some ads just because we wanna up the quality of the mag. Every issue of the magazine jumps leaps and bounds as we get better at it, better ideas and art. We are trying to get advertising that we support like Amnesty International. Truth and American Apparel. We want postive ads.

JOHN: And ads that do not exploit the art form.

REED: We wanna target some specific companies that use graffiti to market their products and force them to support it. If you have a Nike ad with spray paint in the background or a Gravis shoe ad with guys doing graff to sell your shoes, why would you not have an ad in a graffiti magazine? It's like they don't give a fuck about the art form, but [they] use it as a marketing tool.

EM: Have you ever got any negative feedback?

JOHN: One guy wrote us a letter that was pretty funny. He wrote we shouldn't mix black and white photos with color photos, and should have a black and white section like all the other graffiti magazine. He also said that we shouldn't publish photos sideway because "...turning your head is wack." That's why we put: "turning your head is wack" on the back cover of Issue 4.

EM: Did you reply?

JOHN: No, we didn't really care.

EM: The fact that graffiti is illegal must affect your efforts to bring it to the masses, as in selling Full Spectrum in a bookstore - What's your take on it?

JOHN: I think we are just documenting one of the most revolutionary art movements in history, and I think people are fortunate to be able to buy a magazine on graffiti because it is temporary. That's the only reason that graffiti will always be the way it is, there will always be some who will never accept it. I mean there are all these misconceptions, sure there is the gang affiliation with graffiti, and there are stereotypes associated with it. Recently in Vancouver, a billboard was done by some kids, and it was basically an ad for BCAA(British Columbia Automobile Association), and it was a billboard covered with graffiti with a hazard sign in the center, and it said "don't get stuck here". They put the billboard in all the dirty areas to imply graffiti is only around in grungy area. Our magazine is showing people that graffiti is not about that, whether they choose to be ignorant about it or not.

EM: How do you feel about Vancouver as your playground?

REED: Vancouver is so beautiful and people are pretty cool. I think the art community in Vancouver is getting better. But I don't think graffiti scene is getting better. In 98, Vancouver was off the hook.

EM: Why do you think it isn't like that now?

REED: I guess there are not as many older writers here as compared to other city, like New York. There is not much tradition or influence.

JOHN: A lot of the older writers are slowing down or have stopped, and younger kids don't have much to look up to. Like any other city, lots of the kids just don't respect the older writers like we used to. Respect is a huge part of graffiti, and lot of kids don't even know the unwritten rules.

EM: Could you name some good writers in Vancouver?

REED: Cosoe, Virus, Cameo, Acrow

JOHN: Kaput, he is the No. 1 old school guy in Vancouver at the moment. Some kids don't even respect him as they should. Kids who've been writing for 2 years going over his stuff that's been up for 7 years.

REED: He has dedicated himself to graff. His style is just on another level.

JOHN: For Vancouver, he is an innovator. He has a very traditional approach to graff compared to lot of other writers here.

EM: I can't wait for the next issue (Issue No.5).

REED: Yeah, it's getting better. We have no inhibitions any more. We just do what we want. Coming out in late July, or August.

JOHN: We realized that we can use our magazine as a vehicle for our opinions and that we cannot be so insecure about putting what we want. I guess we started to push next shit in design in our third issue. It was the beginning of the real organic cut and paste, we used lot of cardboard, and lot of papers. We cut, ripped and spray-painted. The fourth issue was based on cut photos and found wood that were found in certain areas where you would paint graffiti. In the next issue, we are trying some interactive layouts, childhood toys and games that might relate to graffiti.

----------------------------------------------------------------

You can find Full Spectrum at www.xyleneonline.com, Tower records, Chapters, and Boarders Books.

If you are interested in carrying Full Spectrum, inquire at fsdistrubution@yahoo.com

Copyright © 2003 Evil Monito