DRUMMER MAGAZINE
Jack Fritscher is an ex-seminarian who introduced cigars as a pop-culture fetish into the leather press.
Jack was born in Jacksonville, Illinois and was educated by Jesuits, the Marines of the Catholic Church, for 11 years. As a seminarian, he wanted to be like a social-justice French worker-priest and not like a coddled American priest living fat in a rich rectory.
Even though Jack parted ways with the Jesuits, he maintains a Marine mentality and has always fought in the front lines of LGBTQ rights.
From 1975 through 1999, Jack was the catalyst for Drummer magazine, the most successful and influential gay, leather magazine of all time. Drummer focused on gay leather culture and broke several earth-shattering, gay artists. Jack assigned his old boyfriend, the iconic, homo photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, his first magazine cover. Drummer was crucial to exploring and documenting the “Daddy” and “Bear” gay groups, and Jack was the first person to publish the word “Bear” on a magazine cover.
In 1984, Jack started Palm Drive Video for where he directed more than 150 pornos.
It seems Jack’s academic articles often predicted the future. When I asked him about this, he responded, “I am a pop culture scholar. You know, that's sort of the job, predicting shit”—a gentleman and a scholar!
Even though it’s quarantine, let’s squeeze into our leather pants and light up to Episode Five of the QueerCore Podcast!
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READ OUR FEATURES ON JACK HERE