John Holmstrom

Who is John Holmstrom?

John Holmstrom is an American underground cartoonist and writer. He 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.

As the founding editor of Punk Magazine at the age of 21 in late 1975, Holmstrom's work became the visual representation of the punk era. 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 in 1991 was promoted to Publisher and President. In 1996 he stepped aside to launch the High Times website.

He left High Times in 2000, and went on to work on other projects. He relaunched Punk for a few issues, published a Bosko comic book, and got involved in several Japanese clothing deals. In September 2007, he was interviewed during the closing of CBGB.