Aaron Cometbus

Cometbus #59: Post-Mortem (2020), a serie of interviews about the punk scene.

Cometbus #58, Zimmerwald (2017), is a novella about a teenager who "finds solace in a diner full of grumpy seniors during the heyday of San Francisco punk."

Cometbus #57, 35th Anniversary Issue: Cartoonists (2016) interviews with comics creators Kim Deitch, Gary Panter, Al Jaffee, Drew Friedman, Ben Katchor, Paul Levitz, et al

Cometbus also released a book of poetry entitled "Last Supper" in 2014 through ARP Books.

Cometbus #55, Pen Pals, was released in February 2013.

Cometbus #54, In China with Green Day?, released in February 2011, is about Cometbus' and Green Day's tour of Asia in 2010.

Cometbus #52, The Spirit of St-Louis, Or, How to Break Your Own Heart, A Tragedy in 24 Parts, was released in 2009. Cometbus says in his blurb: "It all starts with the story I've told so many times it's turned stale and tired from overuse. There I was, dropped off in a city far from home. I didn't know a soul or have a hope, and so on..." Both issue #52 of Cometbus and the novel I Wish There Was Something That I Could Quit are rumored to be about his stay and relationships in Pensacola, Florida.

Cometbus #53 features contributions from Maddalena Poletta and a cover by Eisner Award winner Nate Powell. Released in 2009, it features a lengthy piece on art, comics, and the early days of punk in NYC in the mid-1970s that is largely derived from an in-depth interview Cometbus conducted with John Holstrom, the co-founder of the legendary Punk Magazine.

Cometbus #51, The Loneliness of the Electric Menorah, was released in September 2008. It chronicles the history of Moe's Books and other longtime businesses on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California.

A novel titled I Wish There Was Something That I Could Quit, was published on March 15, 2006. This novel was loosely based on his experiences in Pensacola during the start of the Iraq War and is arguably his most political work. He released a few smaller collections of short stories, Mixed Reviews and Chicago Stories (self published, 2004), a small collection about Chicago originally published in "Cometbus" issues 35, 37, 38, 41, and 45.

From 2004-06, Cometbus took a hiatus from writing Cometbus to pursue publishing his writing through other channels. Cometbus came out of retirement in 2006 with the release of Cometbus #50, the 25th anniversary issue of the magazine. Originally planned as a letters only issue, it features band interviews (for the first time since issue #24), short stories, and book store reviews.

Double Duce (Last Gasp Publishing 2003; ISBN 0-86719-586-X) a novel based on life in a punk house called Double Duce that collects material from issues 32, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43, and 45.

Despite Everything: A Cometbus Omnibus (Last Gasp Publishing 2002, ISBN 0-86719-561-4) a 608-page compendium of selections from 43 early Cometbus issues which are long out of print and often difficult to find.

Two collections have been translated into French, including En dépit de tout (1997). A French version of Cometbus issue 54, titled "En Chine avec Green Day", has also been published by Editions Chat Chuffit in 2013. Double Duce has been translated into German and was published by Lautsprecherverlag as "Doppelzwei" in 2004.

Born in Berkeley, California, Cometbus started writing fanzines in 1981 with Jesse Michaels (later of Operation Ivy and Common Rider) and started his own after Michaels moved to Pennsylvania in October 1981. He became an active participant in the Gilman Street Project and was a founding member of Crimpshrine, a highly influential East Bay punk rock band which also featured Jeff Ott. In a September 2016 interview Cometbus described how his personal life is not necessarily reflected in his zines stating, "Growing up, I was just really, really restless. I felt cooped up. Every band interview I did was about being on the road. When I finally got to cut loose, I went on three tours in two years, then had the band drop me off in the first city where I could find a room. So I’d made it out, but then came the news: my mom had cancer. I spent the next fifteen years going back and forth—caretaking first her and then my dad when they were doing badly, and when they were in remission, I’d get as far away as I could. When both were dead, I moved to New York, where I’ve lived ever since. That’s my life, in a nutshell. Which answers your earlier question about how much the fanzine reflected my personal life. Not so much."

Cometbus is most famous for publishing the zine Cometbus, which he began in Berkeley, California in 1981. Cometbus has self-published the usually-handwritten zine ever since, despite a few breaks. The name Cometbus was coined by Gregg Turkington during the early days of the magazine when the name changed from issue to issue. Cometbus consisted of band interviews, personal diaries, artwork, and observations on the punk subculture in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. The zine captured a slice of life in Oakland and Berkeley from the late 1980s through the 1990s.

Aaron Elliott (born May 20, 1968), better known as Aaron Cometbus, is an American musician, songwriter, and magazine editor, best known as the creator of the punk zine Cometbus.