Collected materials of cult comic and zine publisher, iconoclastic punk, squatter, and post-feminist artist/activist FLY, the creator of long-running “Peops” (one of the most comprehensive portraits of alternative culture in the Americas). 

Primary Materials:
1. FLY’s original pencil drawings and layouts, inks, finished art, mock-ups of books, and comic
2. FLY’s printed comics, zines, and other underground publications, including numerous comic anthologies and publications, newspaper illustrations, tear sheets, posters, and prints. 
3. FLY’s Journals, sketchbooks, and correspondence
4. FLY’s photographic history of the Lower East Side
5. FLY’s crusty punk clothing collection, amazing hand-sewn, patchwork fashion anarchy
6. A media collection of FLY’s  punk rock life, focusing on her band God Is My Co-pilot, records, tapes, ephemera, posters

Fly’s archive is an unparalleled resource for the study of independent comic illustration and publication as well as protest culture and the history of squatting in New York City’s Lower East Side in the 1980s and 90s — a movement that was unique in the United States in terms of scale, organization, culture and durability, and an essential topic for scholars in anthropology, sociology, urban studies, and history seeking to understand urban social movements, the current explosion of DIY and sustainable culture, and the dynamics of the American city at the end of the 20th century.

Fly’s distinctive collection contains otherwise unavailable primary research material documenting her lifelong comic and art production and the history of this squatter movement from several complementary angles, and consists of thousands of original artworks (primarily pencil drawings), self-published comics and zines, correspondence, ephemera, and other material documenting the vibrant (but often male-dominated) global alternative comic world and the enimatic squatter culture (also often male-dominated) from the perspective of a radical female artist. In the world of Fly’s archive, the otherwise disparate social circles of comic books, zines, alternative press, radical anarchist political organizers, performance artists, and punk rock musicians overlap and intersect. 

The materials in Fly’s archive specifically trace Fly’s place in the national and transnational networks of comic and zine makers and the punk and squatter worlds. The Lower East Side squatting movement was shaped by connections to European squats and social centers, cultivated through the constant back and forth travel of musicians, artists, and squatters like Fly.  Her documentation of touring Europe with punk bands and art shows illuminates how these connections were made.  The personal correspondence and artistic production materials contained in this archive show how comic art and punk rock networks functioned (and function) to support and cross-pollinate political, art and cultural creation from the 1980s to the present. 

Bulk of materials: 1990’s – 2004’s (Inclusive Dates: 1980 – 2014)
Item Count: +8,000 Items, incomplete (estimated 20 banker boxes and other containers)

Essays in Archive:
The Significance of the Fly Archive, Amy Starecheski, Cultural Anthropologist, PhD.Candidate,City University of New York 
“Flychive — Seeds of Future Attention, Alan W. Moore, Art Historian, PhD Art History, City University of New York Graduate Center
The Significance of the Fly Archive, Trina Robbins, Writer, lecturer, and historian, “The Great Women Cartoonists,” “The Great Women Superheroes,” “From Girls to Grrrlz: a History of Women’s Comics from Teens to Zines”
Documenting Contested Cultures, Eliot K Daughtry, Kriss De Jong, artists, activists, producers, Killer Banshee Studio, Oakland, California