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Commondenominator, Lois (ed.). Dragazine, a short-lived but culturally significant West Hollywood queer periodical published between 1995 and 1996, documenting drag performance, cross-dressing culture, and underground LGBTQ nightlife during a transitional moment in post-AIDS American queer history. Produced within the Southern California drag scene and self-described as "The Magazine for Halloweeners and Inbetweeners," the publication functioned as both entertainment magazine and community chronicle, recording performers, clubs, satire, and internal queer cultural discourse at a time when drag remained largely excluded from mainstream media representation. The magazine reflects 1990s queer performance culture, illustrating how drag artists and writers used humor, celebrity parody, nightlife reporting, and underground publishing to construct community identity and preserve local performance history. Its contributors and subjects include major figures in West Coast drag, club, and experimental theater culture, providing valuable evidence of regional queer networks prior to the commercial mainstreaming of drag in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Dragazine. West Hollywood, California: Lois Commondenominator et al., 1995-1996. Three issues comprising the complete known run of extant issues: Nos. 7-9. Stapled pictorial wrappers, extensively illustrated throughout in black-and-white photographs, advertisements, event imagery, and camp graphic design. [1] Dragazine, No. 7: "Stop That or You'll Go Blond." Features an extended tribute to drag impersonator Charles Pierce alongside coverage of The Chanel Twins, Dame Edna, and Barbra by Halstead. Includes nightlife photography, performance images, satirical commentary on Mrs. Doubtfire, and club reportage documenting Los Angeles-area drag venues and performers. [2] Dragazine, No. 8: "As Seen on TV." Cover feature on Lana Luster accompanied by Joe E. Jeffreys' essay on Ethyl Eichelberger, situating Eichelberger's work within traditions of experimental queer theater and performance art. Additional content includes profiles of Jim Bailey, Pagan Holiday, and The Cycle Sluts, together with event photography and commentary on drag representation in television and media culture. [3] Dragazine, No. 9: "More Than Meets the Eye Shadow." Cover story devoted to Jackie Beat's "Tour de Fierce," accompanied by extensive photographic and editorial coverage of the 7th Annual Battle for the Tiara. Additional features focus on Holly Woodlawn, Sherry Vine, Eartha Madre, and comic treatment of drag satire within Doonesbury. Across all issues, the magazine combines interviews, memorialization, nightlife documentation, performance photography, and satirical editorial material rooted in camp aesthetics and queer self-representation. Published during the period between the height of AIDS activism and the widespread commercialization of drag culture following programs such as RuPaul's Drag Race, Dragazine captures a distinctly local and community-based moment in LGBTQ publishing history. The magazine documents how drag performers, club promoters, and queer writers preserved social networks and artistic communities through independently produced print media centered on nightlife, performance, and gender nonconformity. Its coverage of performers such as Charles Pierce, Ethyl Eichelberger, Holly Woodlawn, and Jackie Beat places the publication within broader continuities of postwar American drag, camp performance, and queer underground theater. Light edge wear and minor handling creases throughout; interiors clean and well preserved with strong photographic reproduction. Overall near fine. An important surviving run of a scarce regional queer periodical documenting 1990s drag culture and underground LGBTQ performance communities in Southern California.
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