Alan Bell

Alan Bell is president of BLK Publishing Company, Inc., a company he founded in 1988 to publish magazines targeted to the Black LGBT community. At present, the firm concentrates on publication design. A special focus of the company is developing materials for non-profit organizations that serve the health, educational and social needs of underserved communities.

He founded Gaysweek, at the time, New York’s only LBGT weekly newspaper and the first owned by an African American; Kujisource, a Black AIDS newsletter; and several magazines for the Black LGBT community, most notably BLK and Blackfire. For six years, he was the film critic for the Los Angeles Sentinel, a mainstream Black weekly. His film criticism also appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

After college, Bell moved east and worked as a psychiatric social worker at Bellevue Hospital and as an executive assistant at City University of New York. Prior to starting Gaysweek, he founded Intertypographics. Back in Los Angeles, Bell was production manager at a typesetting company for ten years before founding Black Jack, a safer sex club for Black gay men, whose Black Jack Newsletter eventually led to BLK. Published from 1988 until 1994,BLKwon numerous awards and in 2018 was accepted into the permanent collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

As a designer, he has done work for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Magic Johnson Foundation, UCLA, USC, Drew University, NAACP, the U.S. Small Business Administration and Paramount Pictures.

While editor of Gaysweek, Bell was appointed to the New York City Council on Intergroup Relations by Mayor Edward Koch. In March 2015, the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution of commendation signed by Mayor Eric Garcetti and all 15 members of the City Council.

Bell holds a B.A. in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, a B.S. in business from the University of the State of New York and is a M.A. candidate in sociology at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He also studied film in the graduate cinema departments of both UCLA and NYU.

An inveterate traveler, Bell has visited all 50 states. He is a member of the Los Angeles Conservancy and the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation, as well as a number of professional societies and trade organizations. Currently, he is executive director of the Los Angeles InDesign User Group, a non-profit graphic design organization.