These days, Bust is printed on glossy paper, 32,000 readers strong–and such a cult favorite that Courtney Love once sent in an unsolicited rant on the pleasures of being a bad girl. Now Stoller and Karp are publishing the zine’s greatest hits in a brazen, eclectic and often hilarious volume called “The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order” (Penguin). The book contains everything from the indispensable “Don’ts for Boys” to the wicked “Ladies Night: A Parody,” in which Gwyneth, Winona, Uma, Claire Danes and Minnie Driver have a sleepover and discover girl power. “Whatever,” grumbles the narrator. “Minnie can come. I just hope there’s room for her huge angular face.”
In the beginning, Karp and Stoller just wanted Bust to prove there’s “a large subculture of thinking, fierce, feminist chicks,” says Stoller, 36. Though both still work at second jobs, the coeditors are looking to diversify. “We want to build a Bust empire,” says Karp. “We want to do a TV show, a radio show. We want to do more books. As Madonna said in 1983, we want to take over the world.”
