Huvudbladet. ’Green’ Issue.

Huvudbladet. ’Green’ Issue.
Folio. Unpaginated. [24pp]. Staplebound newsprint. With b&w photographic poster of Jimi Hendrix laid inside. Swedish text.
Stockholm: Huvudbladet, 1971.

Edges a little yellowed. Lacking a marijuana leaf that was rubber stamped by hand to many issues.

The first issue of the Swedish underground newspaper Huvudbladet entitled the ‘Green’ issue. Huvudbladet only ran for four issues but was an important reference in the art and media landscape of Swedish culture being edited by some of the most important avant-garde artists on the Swedish scene. Their manifesto was simply: ‘We want this magazine to create a forum for alternative information on all areas.’

This inaugural issue of the newspaper was published on the occasion of the first Gärdesfest in 1971, a free music festival taking place in Stockholm that was organised without a permit and that has become acknowledged as a starting point for the prog-rock movement.

The publication is full of cartoons and psychedelic graphics with features on geodesic domes, astrology, henna art and marijuana cultivation.

This first issue features a stunning centrefold drawing by Moki Cherry in bright green ink. A striking photographic poster-print is also included by Hans Esselius. The poster features a clever ‘Rorscach’-style image of Jimi Hendrix smoking a spliff together with lyrics to his song ‘Straight Ahead’.