Mondo 2000

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Mondo 2000 #13

Mondo 2000 was a glossy cyberculture magazine published in California during the 1980s and 1990s. It covered cyberpunk topics such as virtual reality and smart drugs. It was seen as a more anarchic or subversive reflection of its later contemporary, Wired magazine.

Mondo 2000 originated as High Frontiers in 1984, edited by R. U. Sirius (pseudonym for Ken Goffman) and Queen Mu (Allison Bailey Kennedy). Sirius was joined by hacker Jude Milhon (a.k.a St. Jude) as editor and the magazine was renamed Reality Hackers in 1988 to better reflect its drugs and computers theme. It changed name again to Mondo 2000 in 1989. Art director and photographer Bart Nagel, a pioneer in Photoshop collage, created the publication's elegantly surrealist aesthetic. Along with the print version of Boing Boing, with which Mondo 2000 shared several writers, including Mark Frauenfelder, Richard Kadrey, and Gareth Branwyn, Mondo 2000 helped develop what was to become the cyberpunk subculture. R. U. Sirius left the magazine at the beginning of 1993, at approximately the same time as the launch of Wired. The magazine continued to be published under this name until the last issue, published in 1998.

Writers featured included William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, Bruce Sterling, and Robert Anton Wilson.

[edit] Trivia

In Homerpalooza, a 1996 episode of The Simpsons, Homer chances upon an adolescent shopkeep who reads a "Mondo 2000"-spoof entitled "Mondo Frowno".
"Il mondo" is Italian for "the world".