[1] The founders were influenced by their affection for comic books and the music of The Stooges, the New York Dolls, and The Dictators.

It mixed Mad Magazine-style cartooning by Holmstrom, Bobby London and a young Peter Bagge with the more straightforward pop journalism of the kind found in Creem.

It also provided an outlet for female writers, artists and photographers who had been shut out of a male-dominated underground publishing scene.

Punk magazine was home to (many of whom were being published for the first time) writers Mary Harron, Steve Taylor, Lester Bangs, Pam Brown, artists Buz Vaultz, Anya Phillips, and Screaming Mad George, and photographers Bob Gruen, Barak Berkowitz, Roberta Bayley and David Godlis.

After Dunn left in early 1977 and McNeil quit shortly afterwards, Bruce Carleton (art director, 1977–1979), Ken Weiner (contributor, 1977–79), and Elin Wilder, one of few African Americans involved in the early CBGB/punk rock scene, were added to the staff.