GAYLETTER

Pinups – the queer zine focused on bear male nudes – is back for one more special issue! For those of you that are just learning about this publication, here’s the deal, each issue of Pinups “can be dismembered, and the loose pages tiled to reveal a single, monumental image of the subject. The zine’s two states conflict, resulting in visual and narrative abstraction: a dialogue between its physical structure and its printed content.”  This edition is part of their new “Artist Series” and features photography exclusively by Patrick Lee, it tells a story in pictures. The beefy models, Esteban Bartholo and Devin Corbin are photographed cruising in the Mojave Desert at dusk. The zine opens with an ominous quote attributed to an “Anonymous Truck Driver,” “You know what goes on here? It’s where men congregate…I’ve seen some crazy stuff here and I’ve had to pull guys out of here a number of times.”

 
There’s a voyeuristic feel as you flip through the pages. One page shows a picture of shoes on the pavement, the next shows a man standing with his bare butt toward the camera, and out of focus, by rocks, sand, and the setting sun, two men are having sex. Other pages show close-ups of the male form – legs, chests, and dicks – and some show night falling over the scenic desert landscape.

 
“Patrick Lee is known for his photorealistic graphite portraits of toughs, and for his mystifying landscape photography. Lee’s Pinups exploration fuses his favorite subject matter in an atmospheric story of cruising at dusk.”

Buy this issue.