OC book nook fixture, Bad Day, has been consistently pulling out the big names in art, music and culture for a while now. With the latest issue, #11, filled with OC friends and family (Kuo, Schwartzman, Mills), we thought we'd throw Bad Day a line and see if they'd take the bait!

Gillian Tozer: How, why and where was Bad Day started?
Bad Day: Bad Day was started at a Kinko's, in an edition of 50. It was a project that Eva and Colin started as a vehicle to work with a network of friends to create dialogues and promote their work. It was started in Toronto, Canada, where we're all from.

GT: After 11 issues, what's changed about the publication? 
BD: We always try to surpass our own expectations with the magazine, and see what's possible. It's amazing what can happen by just reaching out to people. The horizons of Bad Day have expanded a lot just from being inquisitive and persistent about stuff. That approach has always been the same, but the content can sometimes be a surprise. Fred Armisen, for some reason, was a feature that really caught me off guard. You might assume that SNL actors might have a guard up, or be too busy or weird – but it happened!

GT: What's remained the same?
BD: We're always working to make each issue better, but we haven't really switched it up much. We're still the same print format. We're still an interview-based magazine. Our cartoonist SANY (Samuel Nyholm), who does the joke near the back of the magazine, is a more recent addition. Before that, we used to have these funny horoscopes. But there's always been a bit of goofiness. We like jokes.

GT: There's a great dynamic spread of contributors in #11. How did you come across them?
BD: Sometimes they come to us. There are a lot of people we'd like to work with, and it's really exciting when they want to work with us. Like Todd Cole – who shot Mike Mills for our cover story this issue – was one of those people. We were happy that Jason Schwartzman wanted to come back and interview Andrew Kuo, since we first interviewed Jason a couple issues ago. We love Patrick Parrish's blog, MondoBlogo, so it was a happy union that he wanted to interview Martino Gamper for the issue. But a lot of our regular contributors are from a base of really smart, interesting people that have been working with us for a long time.

GT: Finish these sentences.
The New York publishing scene is: very friendly, and open.
The Toronto publishing scene is: smaller, with a more cynical sense of humor.

GT: Describe the office. Who's usually hanging out?
BD: Cola, the office dog, is the most available to hang out. Eva will sometimes get us chocolate donuts from the Portuguese bakery on the corner. But since we all work on different schedules, it is actually quite rare to get us all in a room together, plus we all travel quite a bit. But when we are together, we also make sure to do something fun. Sometimes better ideas come to you with ice cream.

GT: Can you please draw each other?
BD: (See left)

GT: What's written in the stars for #12? Are there any big Bad Day projects coming up?
BD: We foresee huge success for Issue #12, and we are also coming out with limited edition artist books under the imprint Bad Day Books. We'll debut our first title at the New York Art Book Fair at the end of September. From then on, our thoughts will be with Miami for a winter trip, and keeping our noses to the grindstone.


Bad Day Magazine #11 is available here!


FILED UNDER: bad day , jason schwartzman , andrew kuo , mike mills , NY Art Book Fair , books