Welcome Back Hop Up!

The print industry is pretty damned close to hitting rock bottom. For years its been a sort of friendly dope fiend – teetering back and forth between short bursts of sobriety and long stays of inebriation. Interventions from all sorts have failed. Once loyal advertisers now think twice before answering any calls from anyone related. Readers have lost interest. Revenues have dried up.

It’s all going straight to the shitter… and fast.

Like any respectable dope fiend though, the printers keep trying. There’s no quit in those boys. None at all… And so it’s become a bit of a spectator sport for many of us – watching from the sidelines as legendary titles like Rod & Custom and Hot Rod get sacrificed in order for the fiend to get just one more hit from the pipe.

Fortunately (or unfortunately – depending on how you look at it), the fall from grace is picking up pace and the ground is rapidly approaching now. We are getting really damned close to rock bottom – the only place that will make a fiend consider an about face.

It’s exciting… Because once this industry dies for good, it will be picked up again by the people that do it for passion and passion alone. People like Tim Sutton, Marcy Molkenthen, John Gunsaulis, and Justin Bass. You know them, right? If not, you will shortly. They’ve recently taken over the reigns at Hop Up Magazine. They plan to make it a go again with zero shits given for the bottom line and nothing but passion driving them forward.

It’s gonna work because Hop Up has been driven that way for some time now. Although Mark Morton hadn’t released an issue in years, he’s always kept the ship pointed in the right direction. He’s never sold out. He just passed the torch.

This, my friends, is gonna be good.