The origins of the Luther Blissett Project date back to the mid-1990s when a lot of the news I got
came by snail mail not email. Around the time it was launched I received letters from Bologna
outlining the project. I was happy to play a part in London because I could see how LB took the
notion of multiple names that I and those around me had been playing around with for at least a
dozen years in fabulous new directions. Not that multiple names started with me and my friends,
I’d long known variations on this theme could be traced through the mail art network of the
1970s and back at least as far as Berlin dada. There may have been a long tradition of shared
multiple identities but in the mid-1990s I could instantly see Luther Blissett refined and elevated
what was still an unfolding story by injecting into it particularly ingenious mythopoesis.

One of the first things I did in London was pretend to be the best friend of the non-existent Harry
Kipper, who our comrades in Bologna had tricked the Italian media into believing had
disappeared in the Balkans while cycling across Europe to spell out the word art. At the same
time the phantom Kipper had allegedly been telling all those he met that they should call
themselves Luther Blissett. What I did next was what I often did, write some head banging
theoretical texts and rather than putting them out under one of the earlier multiple identities I’d
been working with such as Karen Eliot or Bob Jones, I attributed them to Luther Blissett.

This bibliography reflects the magico-marxist theorising that I and a good many others were
engaged in. That said there were many other uses of the Luther Blissett name. I’ve been told
some formed LB punk rock bands and I know down the line many created Luther Blissett social
media profiles. Indeed there are still active Luther Blissett avatars online. LB is a project that has
had an extensive afterlife in its own name, although there are also more recent and deeply
underground multiple identities such as Chus Martinez.

The work at hand provides a fabulous way to dive into the LB Project I’m sure it will be of more
use to troublemakers than those looking for a career in Luther Blissett studies! That said, there’s
clearly more than one good PhD dissertation yet to be written about the relationship between LB
and J. R. ‘Bob’ Dobbs of the Church of the SubGenius. Just don’t expect me to write up the
‘thriller in academia’ as Luther and Bob slug it out over 12 gruelling rounds. You could think of
what you’re looking now as Luther’s training for this fight but it’s a lot more than that too!