The worlds of punk music and family dynamics would seem to be polar opposites, but sometimes things just click into place. Dustin Seelinger has been working in two realities for a while now, that of the Chicago punk music scene and its accompanying zine aesthetic, and the daily realities of marriage and fatherhood. Through his artwork and writing, Dustin has created a new way of co-mingling these seemingly disparate elements of his past and present, and his plans for the future include bringing his ideas to a wider audience.

“My body of work has always been about family,” says Seelinger. “Recently I have turned this working practice into a blog, called Post-Punk Parenthood. Working on this blog, I built a community of peers not dissimilar to the community that I grew up in as part of the suburban Chicago music scene.” The next phase of Seelinger’s work will be to create a printed zine, which will connect with an even larger community, while still maintaining its punk roots.

To launch his print version, Seelinger has implemented a Hatchfund project to raise the funds needed to get the first issue off the ground and into the hands of fellow post-punk parents. Funding from the Hatchfund will go towards the printing of the zine and book, marketing costs, and a launch party. “In the event of overfunding, I will be producing prints of the artwork from the zine, and also will be able to distribute the zine to a larger market,” says the optimistic Seelinger.

“I don’t subscribe to the cookie-cutter approach to parenting or art making, and the fun perks I am offering on the Hatchfund page speak to those aspects of my life and personality,” says the artist. “As a father who who also happens to make art and paper, I prefer something fresh with a little more edge, and I hope contributors will too!”

For more on the artist, click here.