Little Joe

31-year-old Sam Ashby has been making ‘Little Joe’, ‘a magazine about queers* and cinema, mostly’ since 2010. When I spoke with him this week in his office near London Bridge, Sam described the process as ‘a strange compulsion’, but one that has changed his life.

‘I just want to go to the cinema’, Sam tells me. He goes to the cinema every week, in fact. The last film he saw was ‘La Rabbia’ by Pasolini at the British Film Institute. Sam also watches films at home in bed, a habit which is giving him a crooked neck. In Sam’s humble opinion, Netflix has the best junk films, like the dodgy Argento pictures and all those shitty teen flicks.

At one hundred and forty-four pages, the fourth issue is the biggest yet, and like every issue of ‘Little Joe’, it’s dense and well-researched. There’s an interview with German national treasure Rosa von Praunheim, a short anecdotal bit from Ira Sachs on seeing ‘Mary Poppins’ in a Paris gay bar, and Myra Breckinridge’s adaptation of a hash fudge recipe from ‘literature’s most stoner girlfriend’ Alice B. Toklas. This time around, Sam also managed to slip in a horny comics supplement with some humpy gladiators by Mike Kuchar.

I love the handsome typesetting throughout, and the Video Library feature in which known queer film lovers share their viewing tips. Plus, in the back, there’s a handy index, pointing fans to where they can find films as an alternative to downloading.

It turns out, gays and lesbians produce a lot of film and video, which you’d think would be to the benefit of a queer film publication like ‘Little Joe’. But maybe there’s too much gay film these days, especially when much of it seems destined to go straight to DVD. Sam’s take: ‘Maybe gay people feel they are a little bit starved of content sometimes, so anything gay is enough… With ‘Little Joe’ we try to help people discover those films that are a little more interesting’.

*By the way, the word ‘queer’ appears seventy-two times in the latest issue of ‘Little Joe’, but the word ‘butt’ only appears twice.

Look for ‘Little Joe’ at the Fringe Film Festival next month in London, 11 – 14 April when Sam will be presenting two days of lectures and screenings. He also plans to build his bespoke clubhouse for dedicated film viewing at his favorite gay film festival, Queer Lisboa, later this year. For more info about ‘Little Joe’, visit his smart looking website.