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EISENSTEPPE – Spuren des Hoboismus in Deutschland (IRON STEPPE – Traces of hoboism in Germany)

Hoboism is an North American phenomenon describing the nomadic lifestyle of iternant workers who moved from town to town by illegal freighthopping, especially in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Soon it became part of the hobo culture to communicate through an own language in secret signs. Hobos left their marks along their route and often chose nicknames, so called monikers, to combine them with the date, messages, thoughts or little epigrams. Although the intentions might differ, hoboism is alive in the United States and monikers are still written on freighttrains by railworkers, outlaws and adventurers.

When the author Jan Klöthe started exploring the German hobo scene in 2012, the movement was existing round about a decade. Just like graffiti in the 1980s, Europeans adopted the American trend and hoboism seems to have become a sub-genre of the writing culture.

In EISENSTEPPE the author introduces protagonists like Stefan Haehnel, MSABE-82, KATDOG, NOTZ, CAUGH, Norman B., WAITS, STYLO, A. M. Schlesinger and OGTOK with text- and photo chapters. The reader also gets exclusive insights through interviews with Wolf Daubin on his monikers and two train drivers. On 120 pages the representatives of a new “generation hobo” share their mindset and enlighten with thoughts and intents on their passion. EISENSTEPPE is limited to 150 copies and available exclusively at Hitzerot!

Queenzbound – 1st sensational issue

“This is the railroad story about mutants, trainnerds, coffeedrinkers, teadrinkers and railworkers who creep the freightyards and layups. Their only target is to hit the freight trains. The only tool they have is a solid paint stick. They leave drawings and signs, cryptic messages and crazy handstyles. The so called monikers. You don’t recognize them on first sight but once discovered you step into a never seen world.”

The American hobo-culture with its own name writing tradition and roots in the nineteenth century can be seen as precursor of the traditional New York graffiti. When writers started painting freight trains in the 1980s these two art forms met and due to the similarities like elaborated handstyle and focus on quantity and quality, they do not only coexist since then, but also a lot of writers started doing monikers following the old tradition.

Just like graffiti itself, writing on freight trains became popular in Europe with a little delay. Although an ancient European hobo name writing culture does not exist, freight train writers developed own tags, logos and monikers obviously admiring and saluting the idols from oversea. It was only a question of time before the first publication of that relatively new subgenre would be published.

Queenzbound comes as a trashy looking 52 paged D.I.Y. zine which arranges collected photos of monikers, tags and messages into collages of comics and motif related cut outs. Featured usual suspects are among others: TO GO, RELFY, RALLY, CAU53, STYLO, WOLF DAUBIN, IRGH, LIMP.H, SHEM, STREUNERBOY, NOTS, WENO, OGTOK, GRIP, KOSMO, ADV, FLASH, KATDOG, MOBY, NIHIL, MOODY POLLUTER, DO THE MATH, FIRE, K100, HEZHT, TOCKA and BARTO.

The zine is limited to 75 copies, hand-numbered and comes with an individual analog photograph

EISENSTEPPE – Spuren des Hoboismus in Deutschland

Exclusive release at Unlock Book Fair in Cologne 31.08-01.09.2019 at the CityLeaks Festival!

Limited to 150 copies! Including: Stefan Haehnel, MSABE-82, KATDOG, NOTZ, CAUGH, Norman B., WAITS, STYLO, A. M. Schlesinger, OGTOK and Wolf Daubin.