John Holmstrom is best known for illustrating the covers of The Ramones albums Rocket to Russia and Road to Ruin, as well as his characters Bosko and Joe published in Scholastic's Bananas magazine. As the founding editor of Punk Magazine in 1975 at the age of 22, Holmstrom's work became the visual representation of the punk era. Punk magazine announced an exploding youth movement, a new direction in American counterculture. It was to magazines what the stage at CBGB was to music: the gritty, live-wired, throbbing center of the punk universe. Despite its low-rent origins, the mag was an overnight success in the underground music scene, selling out every print run across the US and UK. Every musician who appeared on the cover of Punk became an icon of the era. But Punk not only championed music, it became a launching pad for writers, artists, cartoonists, and graphic designers. And the wacky, sardonic, slapstick vibe of the magazine resonated with an international army of music fanatics who were ready to burn their bell bottoms and stage-dive into the punk universe. After Punk ceased publication in 1979, he worked for several publications, including The Village Voice, Video Games magazine, K-Power, and Heavy Metal. In 1986, Holmstrom contributed a comic-based chronology of punk rock for Spin magazine's special punk issue. In 1987, Holmstrom began to work for High Times magazine as Managing Editor, was soon promoted to Executive Editor, and eventually promoted to Publisher and President. Boy Scout talked to Holmstrom about CBGB, Cheeseburgers, and Charles Bukowski.
