During 2020 when the USA's pandemic was in full swing, a new issue of Cometbus came out and I didn't notice because pandemics are distracting. But I'm catching up! This issue of interviews looks at why some punk-era organizations stuck around and others fell apart. Reading these stories over, it seems like these organizations hit milestone-crises. E.g. a publisher's been expanding but has started to plateau; should they spend lots of money to promote new artists, or make sure they pay royalties on time? What happens when the founders are ready to move on to other projects; did they ever think about what might happen to the organization afterwards? Here, you might think I'm going to make some point about how a punk squat and a tech startup encounter and a whatever face similar crises… but no really, the relevant people define "success" quite differently; there might not be a universal path to resilience. Nevertheless, these interviews are pretty interesting; I found out about some still-around institutions I hadn't heard of, something for everyone.
