Requests and Submission Ideas

This page is just a random list of things we’re particularly looking for at the moment. If you have some other submission idea that doesn’t fit one of these items, that’s okay. We’re always looking for new content! Go ahead and send us whatever you’ve got.

If you’re wondering where to send it, or what format it should be in, check out our submission guidelines. That’s got everything you need to know.

Spot Illustrations/Clip Art

These sorts of things are always useful for livening up a layout. They can be small and simple — in fact, they’re better if they are. These can be GIF images with only 2 to 16 colors (although a full 216-color GIF palette is fine, too). Think “clip art” here. They don’t need to be bigger than about 200 pixels wide. (In fact, if they’re much bigger, we’ll probably shrink ’em down a bit.)

• Anything that you’re inspired to draw to go with one of the un-illustrated pieces already on the site. In particular, American Murder Mysteries, Sellout!, Middle-Child Syndrome and Gothica, and pretty much any of the poems could really use some visual spice (though “A Nation Divisible...” probably hasn’t got quite enough room).
• A jar or two of Manic Panic
• Some spiked or studded bracelets
• Combat boots
• Pointy-toed goth boots
• One of those little coffin-shaped lunchboxes
• An ankh necklace, possibly draped over some other item such as a rose or skull
• A clenched fist, wearing fingerless glove, with a spiked bracelet

Full Illustrations/Photos

These can be as big as you make them, and could be used either as major illustrations for articles, poems and rants, or as their own content. We’re certainly open to hosting an ongoing webcomic, if you can produce it on a regular schedule. Possibilities include:

• Club images (pictures of the décor, people dancing, drinking, etc. — a good image of someone stage-diving would be much appreciated!)
• Images of goths and/or punks interacting with mundanes. Yes, these can be staged pictures — that may even be necessary to get them to look just right.
• Any kind of punkish political cartoons, especially current-events topical ones.
• Maybe some goth funnies? (Punk funnies are fine, too, but it’s often easier to make fun of goths.)
• Nearly anything else you can think of...

Also, if you see anything on the site that gives you an idea for an illustration that specifically goes with that piece, we’d love to have it! Poems, in particular, have lots of empty layout space that could easily fit some larger images.

For those who might want to send photos of people, please note the requirement in our submission guidelines that you have to have the people’s permission to put their images on the Internet.

Written Content

Written content is this site’s major stock-in-trade, and we can’t get enough of it. Here’s a few ideas for things we’d like to run; if you have other things that don’t this list, they’re definitely welcome, too!

• Historical stuff; essays or recollections on the history and past of the goth and/or punk scenes. we’d love to see some mention of that video for I-forget-which Sex Pistols song, where it’s all live footage and there are lots of crowd shots showing what we’d now call "goths" and "punks" dancing side-by-side; this would work in excellently with an exploration of how the two groups come from the same roots, how they split, and suchlike.
• Fiction, especially if it’s kind of short (say, 2500 words or less). This is not an absolute word-count limit, just a vague preference; people are more likely to read short pieces. Naturally, both goth and punk fiction are fine, and general-subcultural stuff would be great as well.
• Poetry, especially if it rhymes, has meter, or both. There’s more than enough gothic free-verse poetry out there; we’d prefer to only print more of it if it's good stuff. And we’d love to see some punk sonnets!
• Any punk stuff about recent events — with so much governmental mischief and abuse of power going on, in so many different countries, surely there must be some punks around who have things to say about it. These can rants, essays, or anything else that seems to work for you.
• A response to the question a friend was asked once in an AOL chat room: "What the fuck does punk have to do with politics?!?" This could be historical, philosophical (in the sense of being based on punk philosophy), or just plain polemic.
• Reviews, especially of recent stuff. Underworld, 28 Days Later, the latest release by VNV Nation or Project Pitchfork, the clubs in your area, you name it. (Check out the review guidelines for pointers on what kinds of reviews we want, and how to write them.) Reviews should run at least 600 words, and can go up to a thousand or so.
• Just general useful stuff for goths and punks: where to find cheap leather; how to do better goth makeup; how to get a good deal on a motorcycle; where to find old, out-of-print, hard-to-find music... there’s a lot of good how-to knowledge spread around our community, and it’d be great to see it shared with others.

If any of this has gotten your creative juices flowing, take a look at our submission guidelines, and send the resulting masterpiece to webmaster@GothPunk.com.

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