There’s a Zine Fest at the Brooklyn Lyceum this weekend. When I told my former zine co-creater about it, her response was, “Who knew people still made zines?!” I had the same thought. Turns out, they still do.
Hearing about this upcoming event presented a nice occasion to revisit my zine-making past. The information for the Fest seems to refer to real zines, the cut-and-paste kind, not some sort of newfangled virtual version. Do zine-creators distinguish between the two these days? Are you kind of lame if you make an online zine (but not a blog?), or are you pathetically retro if you bother with the paper kind? Some brief research suggests that they’re existing cozily side-by-side— online resources are archiving the material stuff in searchable ways, interested readers are finding them more easily and a community is sustained and expanded. (Back in 1994, I usually found zines to order through the self-styled ads in the back of other zines, a process both haphazard and mysterious.)
My furious bout of zine Googling also led me to the Barnard Zine Library. Barnard College is the first academic library to circulate zines, and their collection numbers in the thousands, focusing primarily on Riot Grrrl and Third Wave Feminist Zines. (And, if you’re feeling confused right now, their website has a concise FAQ to get you up-to-speed on zines.) Thanks to this Zine Library, you can even search for zines in CLIO– Columbia Library’s Online Catalog– which is where I was surprised to find one of my old zines, Electric Mayhem, listed. That’s either entirely embarrassing or extremely cool.
Turning to legitimately talented zine writers, I’m thrilled that one of my favorite zine grrrls continues to make distinctive creations as a graphic designer, and shares them on her blog, Miss Sequential. I was somehow relieved to discover that the same elements that made me wait by the mail slot for each new issue of /nothing/ and Red-Hooded Sweatshirt were still there for me in her current work.
painting by Marissa Falco
And, giving a little shout-out to the readers and writers whose zines are languishing in childhood bedroom closets around the globe, she occasionally posts her cartoons from the good old days, when we were all into “intense autobiographical chronicles.”
originally printed in RHS #4
Hillary, I love this post! I had a zine in my early years as well. Ripe Guava and we got it circulating as far as Singapore and Senegal! Back in the early internet years it was pretty awesome. I guess zine-makers graduated to blogs? Although, I still don’t think blogs have that same feel of typed, xeroxed, and glued together images of the old zine days. One of my dearest friends, Margarita, creator of Bamboo Girl zine became a speaker for Queer Asian Pacific Americans via her “intensely autobiographical” material. Thanks Hillary! I am going to look up CLIO
I absolutely love zines, and I have written some, and now mourn the slow death of this form…Because I do think the days of zines are numbered, unfortunately. But there is nothing like it, and blogs are a different animal altogether… Thanks for the Barnard info.
Nice post, Hillary. That Barnard archive is amazing. For those interested in the cultural significance of zines, I highly recommend Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Underground Culture by Stephen Duncombe, an old colleague of mine at SUNY Old Westbury.
Hi Hillary, Thank you for your post. I hope you will visit the Zine Fest this weekend! You’ll see that “old school” zine making is alive and well; you’ll also find many art and design zines, many of which are still made by hand, too. I have an article about art zines coming out in Art Documentation this fall, so please check it out. Jenna at Barnard has done so much to promote zine collections in libraries, and she will be tabling on Saturday at the Fest. She also has much to say about how different zines and blogs are:
http://www.barnard.edu/library/zines/zinediscourse.htm
Best regards,
Susan Thomas, one of the organizers, BMCC Library
Susan, thanks for your comment and thanks for the link– I missed that on my first visit to the zine library site. The question of “immediacy” when it comes to a zine versus a blog is an interesting one. And yes, I definitely plan to stop by the Zine fest!
@Zohra: “Bamboo Girl” was one of my zine role models way back when. I still have an old Bamboo Girl tanktop lying around somewhere. Glad you liked the post!
@Mikhail: thanks for the book rec!
@Aga: Maybe its days *aren’t* numbered?– in other words, I’ll see you at the zine fest.
Wow, ex-zinesters represent at BLSCI! Who knew there were so many of us? Now I’m curious about who among you I might have traded zines with back in the zine-making days…
The Barnard Zine Library collection is amazing, as is their librarian, Jenna. If any of you are still hoarding your old collections, I recommend donating them to Barnard, where they’ll be well-taken care of.
Thanks for the shout-out Hillary! I hope you’re learning more toward “extremely cool” than “entirely embarrassing” to have your zine in our collection.
I’m glad you managed to navigate your way around our new website, cuz it still needs a lot of work. Like there’s no link to this article called “Zines Are Not Blogs” and this reprint of a Red-Hooded Sweatshirt essay about the difference between letters and email.
If anyone wants to come visit the library, they should just give me a holler: zines@barnard.edu or 212.854.4615.
♥ Jenna
Oh so many people still make zines, I’ve been to some corking zinefests here in the UK, the London one a few weeks ago was packed!