I can’t believe I’ve been hauling a shelf of WET magazines around with me for thirty years. Thirty!
WET was called “The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing” (later, “Gourmet Bathing and Beyond”) and every issue featured something to do with… wetness. Later issues strayed from the watery focus, but for a time, WET was the quintessential L.A. Cool Portal, back when Melrose was an Avenue, not a Place, and when hipness wasn’t nearly the marketed commodity it is today.
Leonard Koren founded WET in 1976, and the magazine featured the cream of avant-garde artists, photographers and writers of the era. It also introduced creative talents like Matthew Ralston and Matt Groening to a wider audience.
WET was based in Venice, CA, and I can’t ever visit that city without thinking about WET in some way.
Man, the old WETs take me back.
One comment
I had Wet #30, with the memorable cover of two pigs fucking, and the memorable question “Sex with the dead: art or atrocity?” Good Housekeeping it was not.
I was 19 and in Winnipeg, so I came very late to the Wet phenomenon, but even that one single issue opened doors for me into a wider world. It had a remarkable individual aesthetic that was very much of its period but even now makes many of today’s art/culture/design magazines seem contrived and even dated.
Thank you for reminding me of how much fun it was getting Wet!