Comments on: Zine Fest…’09?

By: A Paean to Print Media at cac.ophony.org

A Paean to Print Media at cac.ophony.org — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:32:15 +0000

[...] pages: you lose the tactile experience when you read online. Perhaps it is my history as a former zinester that led me to appreciate the allure of physical paper. Analog [...]

By: Andrew Culture | CornDog Zine Distro

Andrew Culture | CornDog Zine Distro — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:55:07 +0000

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!

By: Jenna Freedman

Jenna Freedman — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:27:59 +0000

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

By: Lauren

Lauren — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:09:00 +0000

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.

By: Hillary

Hillary — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:06:09 +0000

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.

By: susan thomas

susan thomas — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:47:22 +0000

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

By: Mikhail Gershovich

Mikhail Gershovich — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:26:49 +0000

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.

By: Agnieszka

Agnieszka — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:14:05 +0000

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.

By: Zohra

Zohra — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:57:57 +0000

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