Logo #154: Circle Jerks

Drawn by Shawn Kerri for Circle Jerks in 1980. The opposite number to Raymond Pettibon - she was joyous and propulsive while he was saturnine and cynical - in terms of influence and effect on flyer art in the southern California punk microcosm, Kerri's life became a tragedy in the extreme. Her story serves to underscore the impression which one often unfortunately comes away with from Punk: beautiful and limitless promise dashed upon the rocks of misfortune because of the frailties of the individual adult human being.

Born Shawn Maureen Fitzgerald, Shawn Kerri as of a few years ago, "...has brain damage... alcoholic... covered in a weird scale-like skin disease..." and lives in Pacific Beach, a suburb of San Diego. When she began, she was doing things like this. She drew the flyer of the mohawked skull crawling out of the Germs circle - a situation that's come to pass (in a roundabout way) with the recent Germs revival and the film "What We Do Is Secret". More on her work is here. There is of course some question as to whether she's alive or not. The folks at Social Security say she's not dead - or, at least, either very punk or very alive. Take heart - if they can find Bodil, they can find Shawn, and no one ever thought they'd find Bodil.