When a T-shirt celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Serpent’s Tail, it reminded me that Soho Press was also founded back in 1986. Both independent publishers have made a name for themselves through a combination of crime stories and literary fiction; the Soho mystery series are among the most strikingly designed in the genre, and the Serpent’s Tail “High Risk” series of “transgressive” literature was a watershed of ’90s paperback design. (They also published some great books in the “Midnight Classics” line, and I’m forever grateful to them for turning me on to the novels of Gavin Lambert.) Anyway, I figured Soho had to have had T-shirts made as well, so I called Sarah and we paid a visit to their Union Square HQ so we could do a fashion spread.
So they didn’t have a T-shirt, but they did loan us their intern, Justin, after wrapping him in promotional Soho “crime scene” tape, and they gave Sarah a book bag with the logo on it to hang around her neck, and plastic water guns, and we figured we could get a good picture out of that. Then I realized you really can’t see the Serpent’s Tail logo on my shirt, so I turned around and got a snap of the “Books With Bite” slogan on the back (inset). The moral of the story? We love free clothes and accessories, almost as much as we love independent presses! And, what the hell, we’ve probably blown our shot at journalistic credibility now, so if you’ve got T-shirts, send ’em in…