FELIX DENNIS, co-founder of influential counter culture publication OZ has died…

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The Guardian is reporting that Felix Dennis, “the flamboyant magazine publisher, poet and entrepreneur who was one of the co-founders of 1960s counter-culture title Oz”, has died.

We can’t let the news pass without a mention, the underground counter-culture magazines of the 70’s such as OZ and IT were certainly important influences on the underground zine culture of the 80’s that Organ emerged out of, that health mix of questioning challenging counter culture that helped fuel the hundred (thousands) of hand-made zines and information sheets, the fin cells and such as much as the publications of the early punk ere did… Not everything about Oz was right (far from it) , but the notions of doing it yourself, throwing out things in printed form, questioning the establishment and their media… Oz was important, and Felix Dennis should be celebrated….

Here’s the Guardian piece

“Felix Dennis, the flamboyant magazine publisher, poet and entrepreneur who was one of the co-founders of 1960s counter-culture title Oz, has died aged 67. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2012.

Dennis’s family announced on Monday that he had died peacefully the previous day at home “surrounded by his loved ones”.

“We are deeply saddened to announce that Felix Dennis passed away yesterday surrounded by his loved ones. After a long and painful battle with cancer, Felix died peacefully at his home in Dorsington, aged 67,” his family said in a statement.

“Felix was a publishing legend, famed for his maverick and entrepreneurial style and, more lately, a successful and much-loved poet. He will be greatly missed.

“Thank you to the support and kindness of those who share our feelings for Felix, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief.”

His involvement with Oz, the counter culture magazine launched in 1967 and of which he became co-editor, led to him being one of the “Oz three” defendants eventually found not guilty following the 1971 Old Bailey obscenity trial about the title’s content.

He went on to found Dennis Publishing in 1973, with one of the company’s first successful titles being Kung-Fu Monthly. From the late 1970s Dennis latched on to the boom in consumer technology in the UK and US with magazines including PC World, Computer Shopper and MacUser.

In the past two decades Dennis Publishing’s most successful titles have included men’s magazine Maxim and weekly current affairs digest The Week.

Dennis’s personal wealth largely derives from co-founding US computer mail order company MicroWarehouse, which floated on Nasdaq in 1992 and was later sold to a private equity group”.