Cool Hunting

Co-founder and editor Jason Crombie wants his new pocket-size zine, Wooooo, to be "funny and stupid," which is pretty much exactly why I liked it when I found a copy in a Nolita restaurant the other day. Distributed in and around the Lower East Side, the (almost) quarterly publication runs interviews of people who, even if they exist on the mainstream radar, aren't usually telling stories with quite the same candor as they do in Wooooo's pages. Issue #2 cover model and artist Dan Colen's tale of a drunken brawl that landed him in jail and ex-Big Brother editor Dave Carnie's description of days involving the Food Network, Chardonnay, and his girlfriend, are the reality-based equivalents of photographers like Ryan McGinley (who snapped the cover shot of Colen). Pared-down, retro-80s graphic design by co-founder Andre Alfroid (somehow his mix of multiple fonts and styles works), adds to the unpretentious appeal. Falling somewhere around the crossroads of Vice and Interview, Woooo's already getting big name attention - the most recent edition featured an interview with Moby and #3, due out this Winter, will include Thurston Moore.