PostHype was founded in 1981. The first issue was created, using pressed Letraset on paper, as a birthday gift to the artist Steven Durland, and modeled on his satirical mini-magazine Tacit. Early issues of PostHype were printed with an original rubber stamp, hand carved from photographs made using the photobooth machine at the Times Square arcade known as Playland, which recorded the visits of friends and other mail artists to New York City. Later issues expanded to document Jacob’s mail art activities.
Riding Beggar ceased publication in the 1990s. A complete run of PostHype was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1987. Incomplete sets are held by the Getty Research Institute (acquired with the Jean Brown, Bern Porter, Carlo Pittore, and other people’s papers) and active mail art archives such as the Artpool Art Research Center.
The Riding Beggar archive is housed with the John P. Jacob Papers at the Beinecke Rare Books Library, Yale University.
