Cover of the zine Artemis, issue 5
Artemis is a zine apparently produced by St. Bride’s, also known as the Silver Sisterhood, sometime after February 1984. Sadly there seems to be only this one issue available on the internet. The cover is black line art on orange card.
The title appears to be lettering based on Art Deco, an all-caps typeface released by Mecanorma for dry transfer lettering. The round “Artemis” seal on the back cover features letterforms that stay close to the original design. The other occurrences build on the theme of thin-and-thick strokes with geometric construction, and add lowercase forms.
The subtitle, For Women who love Women, is set in Futura Medium Italic. The remaining text is a taster for Silverwolf, the regular story feature in the zine: “AT LAST” is set in Times Bold, “Silverwolf” uses American Uncial Initials, and “STRIKES BACK” is in Runnymede/Motto. All these typefaces were available from Letraset at the time, which would have been a popular choice for making zines like this, but there are no notes showing that it was Letraset type, other than the slightly uneven alignment of the subtitle.
The cover illustration is signed “Michele”, i.e. Michele Dennis. According to Aaron A. Reed, this might have been a pseudonym of Priscilla Langridge.
St. Bride’s was also the group publishing a series of computer games under The Games Mistresses branding.
Spread from the interior, with letters to the editors and an interview. Headlines are in University Roman (Letraset, 1976). The monospaced cursive in the speech balloon is Script (IBM). There are at least three other (proportionally spaced) typewriter faces which are not yet identified. The body text looks like it was produced on one of the variable typewriters, maybe a Diablo or a Selectric.
Spread with a headline in Cathedral (Letraset, 1978).
Silverwolf is a serial story credited to Laeretta Krenne-Genovene, illustrated by Michele Dennis. According to Aaron A. Reed, “one or both of these people may or may not have been Priscilla Langridge.”
Back cover of Artemis 5, featuring Grotesque No. 9 Italic, which was also available from Letraset.
1 Comment on “Artemis, No. 5”
For more info about St. Bride’s a.k.a. the Silver Sisterhood, or the Rhennish Community, see also Cliff Briscoe’s article for Skag Magazine, in addition to the Wikipedia page and the mentioned blog post about Silverwolf by Aaron A. Reed.
Madrian Deanic Resources has more info about the Artemis periodical, mentioning it was published between 1983 and 1986 or 1987. Nos. 1–3 were all published in 1983, with No. 3 being a special Christmas edition. No. 1 mentions that “our front cover logo incorporates a new typeface specifically designed by Priscilla Langridge.” I assume this refers to the lettering patterned after Art Deco. No. 4 was issued in January/February 1984.