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Only 3 issues of Meat City were ever published in runs of 175 copies each.
Submissions were collected from invited artists and writers over the course of several months to several years. Kurt used his job at a commercial photo lab in Detroit (Copy Craft) to first copy the artwork on high-contrast black & white film and then reduce all images to a size that could be reproduced on a commercial Xerox copier (8 1/2 x 11).
Mike was able to use his access to the U of M computer lab where the three of them would then re-type all of the submitted manuscripts on Mac II computers while trying to maintain the format of the original work. Once printed out, pasted-up and combined with the camera ready artwork, the final order and layout for each issue was made. Mike did the table of contents for each issue.
The master document was then copied and collated on high-speed Xerox copiers by a friend at the Kinko’s near the WSU campus. Each issue was hand lettered, numbered and bound with staples and red or black duct tape. Original copies of issues #2 & #3 included individually hand-colored pages by Matt Breneau and sold for $5.00 at local cafes, bookstores and galleries.
Postscript
By 1990 things were changing.
Kurt had gotten married and moved to Chicago to pursue a career in photography and graphic design. Derek had moved to New York to attend school at Columbia University and Mike got married and started a family while continuing to paint and exhibit in Detroit.
In November of 1991 the three of them finished their work on a long distance, nine month collaboration with a show at the Willis Gallery in Detroit’s Cass Corridor.
It was the culmination of Kurt’s photography and found images, Derek’s use of narrative copy and Mike’s heavily worked canvases that tied it all together in a show titled “Hung for Collaboration”.