If you're reading our pages for the first time, you've taken a brief look into the future of one of the country's still-standing truly independent punk rock magazines. Wonka Vision might look slick and glossy, but it's run by an almost completely volunteer staff of punk rock kids between the ages of 18-30. Wonka Vision was started by a 17-year-old kid out of his bedroom in 1998, shortly after the death of Frank Sinatra, in the same month that the Backstreet Boys were No. 1 on the charts. And on the same week that In/Casino/Out was released by At the Drive In on Fearless Records (one of WV's first five advertisers).

For the first few issues, Wonka Vision was a cut-and-paste, stapled-together fanzine. As the digital was slowly dawning upon us, Wonka's publisher, Justin Luczejko, dropped out of college to focus on the magazine while waiting tables to support the publication. Whether he was ambitious, stupid or too damn stubborn for his own good, Luczejko refused to take out a loan to continue publishing. Instead, he quit the job that paid his rent and Wonka Vision his "career" (for a lack of a punker word).

2009 marks 12 FUCKING YEARS that Wonka Vision has been in bi-monthly circulation. Despite it's colorful, slick, glossy appearance, Luczejko and the Wonka team work out of their home office in South Philadelphia. We grind out 80 hours a week working on Wonka Vision, with no social life other than the weeknight bike rides to the Philadelphia Phillies new ballpark to watch the World Champs play summer ball. We're giving you this brief retrospect of the magazine to let you know where we've come from and why we still exist.

We’re giving you this introduction to say we’re just like you. The ethics and ideals that punk rock taught us to govern how we live and how we treat others. We love music, we’ve lived in squat houses, we create art, we are 23 and 30 years old and ride bicycles, we go to house shows, we’ve been arrested at protests, we piss our neighbors off playing drums in the office, we collect toys, we can’t live without XBOX, music runs our life, we still go in the pit even though we don’t have health insurance; and more importantly than anything…we still live off Ramen for weeks at a time so that we can continue writing and publishing a magazine full of bands that tour more than 150 days of the year, full of underdog bands that don’t get enough credit for what they do…and full of bands that really, truly, honestly matter.

We refuse to give you PR-puff pieces for your hard earned dollars. You deserve real journalism in an age and time in which blogs are taking over the newsstands.

Times are rough. Record labels aren’t able to spend ad dollars like they used to. We’ve had to scale back from bi-monthly to quarterly for the first time ever. If you are a subscriber, don’t worry; you’ll receive the full credited amount of magazines you paid for when you paid for them.

If you aren’t a subscriber, I urge you: BUY MAGAZINES. Spend $15; buy a four-issue subscription that comes with a ton of cool, free shit. Even if you subscribe to another print magazine – subscribe. Please just don’t let handmade, punk rock zines become extinct.

Sincerely,
The Wonka Vision Staff