Cherry Lipstick 3.0
Cherry Lipstick was born in the dark ages, long before personal computers, smart phones and tablets. Somewhere in a corner of the house was a Spectrum 128K Plus – not the puny 48K or admittedly the infinitely cooler Commodore 64 - and also, crucially, a word processor (kids, ask your parents).
Adam spurned the use of Control C, Control V – just ask those who submitted anything with foreign words in them in the later issues – and based on the format of football fanzines produced a picture light, text heavy monthly of exceptional quality that stands up to the test of time much better than anything off Liberty bar My Antarctica.
Cherry Lipstick also came at a time when Duran were not really Duran Duran any more. The original five had long gone, so had the top ten hits and the remaining fans, when asked what kind of music they liked, tended to look at the ground and mumble, embarrassed, ‘D’rand’ran’ in the hope no one was really interested in the answer.
There had been a time when Smash Hits had, at the very least, a Duran Duran corner in every issue. By the time of the first Cherry Lipstick (made for my birthday in July 1990), I would scour it from cover to cover each week on the lookout for any words beginning with ‘D’ and almost never find anything. ‘I Don’t Want Your Love’ merited a half page ‘They’re back!’ article. Big Thing got 2 out of 10 in the review. It felt like the end and for any band with less thick skin it probably would have been.
In today’s world the internet would have provided solace in the long months with no sign of life. Back then, that was it. The Duran official fan club closed down and the next sign of life came with Simon being interviewed by The Independent when promoting Liberty. So Cherry Lipstick was the last thing I expected to get as a birthday present and most likely the best I’ve ever got too.
That the trick was repeated at Christmas and my next birthday didn’t take off any of the shine (just like the lack of any apostrophes lends CL its endearing tag when reading it back today). Later, of course, it would 'go public' and be shared around the world.
So this, Cherry Lipstick 3.0 if you like, is my way of saying more than 20 years later, thank you and Happy birthday to you too.
JR Kiss
April 2017
To celebrate the 27th anniversary of Cherry Lipstick (on 22 July 2017), here is the new CL logo. It was created by new reader Anita Eve Perez in July 2017 following our first Fanzine Week - the first new 'issue' of Cherry Lipstick for 16 years.
The original front cover from July 1990 leads this article.
AW