So, what’s up in zine land?

First, The next Zine Librarian (un)Conference will be held 27-28 of July in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA . Registration has opened so get in there! go here. Hang out with two awesome things that get even more awesome together: Librarians and zines!

I added 6 new dates for zine fests to the event listings! Go check it out. Including the Leeds Zine Fair that I will be attending in November! We are making it a date around out Copy Scams tour. So stoked!

Now for some talk about some of my pet peeves. First, my very least favorite question is “Didn’t blogs kills zines?” as if they are mutually exclusive. I have a blog. I have a zine. They both server different functions. The second is people who think zines are dead and talk about them like a eulogy of the 90s. Articles like this article or this one feel so dismissive. If you notice in the comments there gets to a point where contemporary zine folks speak up…but no one really seems to listen. I like to tell people that write this articles that zines didn’t stop existing just because they walked away from them. Thousands of us have been happily cutting and pasting, penpal-ing, and putting on zine fest for years. I guess I just hate seeing all the years of hard work, dedication, and connections that have enriched lives the world over dismissed as something that doesn’t exist anymore.

Another of my pet peeves is the term “e-zine” . E-zines are not zines. To me, zines need to be tangible. That is why I find this “Zeen App”  so annoying. The really horrible thing that a friend of mine brought up is that even if you hate it, you might want to secure your zine name now. ugh.

In super awesome news, Someone has created a Zine Crush site! It hopes to become a zine someday and I think that is amazine. I totally agree that  the consummation of a zine crush is a split zine! Go send your stories!

One more thing…

My friend Derek and I are combining our two button companies to make a mega-button company called Portland Button Works and last week we signed a lease on a brick and mortar store front! It is super exciting. We are going to to offer custom buttons, magnets, keychains and bottle openers. We are also going to offer our catalog designs for sale as well as starting a zine distro as well as sell zines in the shop! We have started getting distro stock and bought a bunch of lumber to start building fixtures but we still have a long way to go before the shop is operational in all of its awesome glory! We would really really appreciate your help with our indiegogo campaign!

Please go here and help out with our campaign and get yourself some pre-ordered buttons, bottle openers, or magnets. You can also get the newest issue of Brainscan Zine, or even discounts on buttons for life!

Second, I’ve been knee deep in a new project. I’m starting Portland Button Works and Zine Distro with my friend Derek Neuland. Derek is a fellow zinester, an organizer of the Portland Zine Symposium, and my co-host on Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast. He also makes his own buttons and we have decided to team up, make buttons, and open a physical shop in Portland! I wrote about it on my blog here. Our website is here, our Facebook, and Twitter.

We have launched an Indiegogo fundraiser campaign.   We wanted your contribution to be an investment for you to get something you would already want so reward levels range from copies of our zines, a Portland Button Works bottle opener, pre-orders of custom items, and lifetime discounts on custom orders.  While your monetary contributions would be greatly appreciate, we would also love it if you could help promote this project and spread the word about our fundraiser.

Please donate to our fundraiser here!

24 – Loosely Bound Zine Extravaganza (Bradford, UK)

24 – Vermont Small Press and Comic Fair (Winooski, Vermont, USA)

24 – Buffalo Small Press Book Fair (Buffalo, New York, USA)

I also added two more events to the Zine Event Calendar page this week. As always, let me know what I’m missing!

The first is this Sparkplug publishing project. Sparkplug is run by some awesome Portland folks and past Portland Zine Symposium volunteers and that could really use your help to publish some awesome project and you can get your mitts on those awesome projects by donating.

Next up, Show and Tell Press could use your help in publishing the reprint of issue #6 of Craphound. You know you love Craphound for all your zine clip art need. DEATH! TEPEPHONE! SCISSORS! The scissors alone make this worth it. I can’t believe I don’t own my own copy of this. I always borrowed mine from the IPRC, but I think some Craphound back issues were stolen, grrrr. Get in on this now!

The last project is near and dear to my heart. The Roberts Street Social Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada houses the Anchor Archive Zine libray and is moving. They have lost their lease and have to relocate. They are raising funds for the move. The site says that are funded but every little bit more is totally helpful. The Roberts Street Social Center hosts the Anchor Archive Zine Residency. I was a resident in October of 2009 where I lived in the shed and came inside the house to create Brainscan #24 &25 (available here) Here are some photos of my time in Halifax. I met lots of awesome dedicated people and I really hope this project lives on forever and ever.

FYI, I have donated a bit to each one of these. Do you know what else I have donated to? My own zine…

And in pure self interest, I thought I might post about my new zine, Brainscan #29. It is a split from Chicago based Ben Spies. He challenged me to do a fiction split with his fiction zine, No More Coffee. We released it onto the world at the 2012 Chicago Zine Fest. Maybe you might like to check it out?

Chicago Zine Fest was awesome! Look at photos here. A lot of them are from the Zinester Olympics. I’m pretty sure that my team, The Paper Sharks, won with our 2 gold and two silver awards!

Table registration for the Portland Zine Symposium went live today at noon! Get your table now because they always sell out!

There are no zine fests on the calendar for this week but that doesn’t mean there are any. If you know of any zine events this week, let me know and I’ll add them to the calendar!

-Andrea shared with me the lovely drawing which  includes Stolen Sharpie Revolution that she added in this blog post about zines.  In the post she included a link to this video talking about the awesome-ness of zines.

-Another article talking about how blogs almost killed zines but there has been a resurgence. It seems like there is an article written about this every year.  I say that if you think zines died then it was probably you who walked away from them. There has been a vibrant and thriving zine culture just under your radar for decades.

-An article from the Chicago Tribune about zines and how if you don’t like someone’s blog you can’t rip it up and that blogs foster real community….and fleas.

The Chicago Zine Fest is next weekend! They have released their table chart and workshop schedule.

-The Denver Zine Library made their goal of raising $5,000! I was going to make a video for their video campaign. I was going to be filled with excuses as to why the video took so long that included getting this site up and running, working on my new zine, all my shelves falling off the wall in my office and making it a disaster, getting some larger button orders in, and preparing for the LA zine fest and Chicago Zine Fest. But, I didn’t get around to. I’m glad they made their funds!

I’m leaving for Chicago on Wednesday and it looks like my new zine will be dine! Brainscan #29 will be available at the Chicago Zine Fest. I’ll post more when I get back home.

L.A. was great! I got to meet lots of new and old zine friends. The space was awesome, on the second floor of a book shop, and the turn out was incredible! Seriously, the place was packed with people all absorbing the print goodness. There was lots of press leading up to the event and this is an interesting piece about the V.Vale and Henry Rollins talk that happened after the actual zine fest. You should read it.

The 2011 Revenge of print was so successful that they fine folks at Atomic Books are gonna do it again! Check out .

This weekend is the 1st NYC Feminist Zine Fest and I’m super bummed that I can’t be there. But, You can read articles here and here about it.

We have final confirmation on ZOE (Zine Organizers Event) This is an even that will take place the day after the Chicago Zine Fest. We are inviting zine event organizers and those that would like to start zine events to come and chat and learn from each other. It should be a great time.

The Portland Zine Symposium has extended their submission deadline for the 2012 artwork to February 27th. Read more here including the new tabling policy.

Zine Fests This weekend:

NYC Feminist Zine Fest  (New York, New York, USA)

Tooting Zine Fair (London, UK)

Book Arts Fayre (Cardiff, Wales, UK)

In zines we trust,

Alex Wrekk

Ok, here’s some zine news:

-My friends and fellow Portland Zine Symposium organizers edit a monthly anthology/comp zine called, Stumptown Underground. It is a curated and themed monthly and they have just extended their submissions for this month. The theme is memories and we all have those, right? Why not submit something for consideration?

-Speaking of submitting… The Portland Zine Symposium is looking for artwork for this year. Guidelines can be found on the webiste. The theme this year is “Sea Of Zines”! Please make us something like a shark fighting a giant squid for zines or a pirate treasure chest filled with zines!

-Chicago Zine Fest has announced the line up of zine readers. Check it out! It includes my housemate, and Zine Thug creator, Marc Parker.  I sure hope he gets his zine done in time!

-Also in Chicago: Quimby’s is hosting the Zine Olympics at the Chicago Zine Fest. Have you been training?

-And another thing in Chicago: Sunday after the Chicago Zine Fest will be ZOE, the Zine Organizers Event. It will be a day long event for people who organize and want to start organizing zine events. We will workshop and network and talk shop. More details to come.

-In sad zine news, Profane Existence will shut down its print operation.

-In odd UK fanzine news, fanzines were seized at a football match.

Zine Events this weekend:

18 – Feria de Fanzines (Santiago, Chile)

19 - LA Zine Fest (Los Angeles, California, USA)

I’ll be at the L.A. Zine Fest on Sunday, stop by and say hi! I’ll have some flyers for this site and lots of other stuff!

P.S. in internet land a meme has been going around about occupations and what people think they are vs. what they really are. My friend, Tara, created this one for zines.

In the We Make Zines post the  joke/niche band all about zines, The Copy Scams, was mentioned.

Here’s the story about that: In 2010 Steve Larder (of Rum Lad zine) was staying in my basement for a few months and decided he wanted to start a band. Then he tricked me, my housemate Marc of (Zine Thug) and my partner, Paul (who won’t make zine anymore for some reason) into starting a band with him. We decided it would be a zine themed band and in 3 weeks we wrote, rehearsed, and recorded 4 lo-fi pop punk songs all about zines including a song about apologizing for the zine being late, a song about the ubiquitous likes/dislikes list, a song about stealing photocopies, and a song about the 24 hour zine challenge. If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, we performed a show that closed out the 2010 Portland Zine Symposium. It was a lot of fun.

Well, looks like we are going to top that. In November of 2012 The Copy Scams are touring the UK with a pack of North American zine friends!  We are looking for zine fests to attend as well! Let me know if you are planing a zine fest in England during the first two weeks of November. Stay tuned for more details and in the mean time you can get a cassette tape (yes, only cassette tape!) of the songs here, or listen live and download for free on last.fm, our Reverbnation site, or right here:


 

- Atomic books, one of the sponsors the 2011 Revenge of Print, has tallied over 2,000 titles printed last year! Over 1,000 people signed up on the facebook page and over 2,000 zines have been made! Take that, people say print is dead! Read more about it here.

-Another sponsor of Revenge of Print is Quimby’s, and they mentioned this site in the quimblog this week. thanks!

-Portland, Oregon zinester, author, and illustrator Nicole Georges is working with IFC to illustrate THE MOST PORTLAND THING EVER. It’s a bit like a contest where you leave a comment about the most Portland Thing Ever that you have seen and Nicole will illustrate the winner. Check it out!

-Also in Portland: The 12th annual Portland Zine Symposium will be 11-12 August 2012.  The website  has not yet been updated because there is no new artwork yet (and tabling is not open either, FYI)! The Portland Zine Symposium is looking for your artwork to grace the website, t-shirts, posters, stickers and more. The theme this year is “Sea of Zines”  So there should be lots of cephalopods reading zines, pirates with zine booty, or a shark trying to eat a zine reader on a surf board. Deadline for artwork is 25 February and details can be found on the website.

-And another thing in Portland: The Independent Publishing Resource Center is moving across the river to the east side! Since 1996 the IPRC has been located in an office building in Downtown Portland. After shuffling around the building and expanding into other offices there over the years, it has just grown too big. The move across the river to 1001 SE Division quadruples the space for more ziney goodness! Stay tuned for more news about the move!

Canada Corner! (I couldn’t help myself, sorry)

-Speaking of moving: The Robert’s Street Social Center in Halifax ,Nova Scotia, Canada has lost their lease  on Robert’s Street. They are looking for a new space in the North End. I’m particularly sad about this because I had the opportunity to be a resident with the Anchor Archive zine residency program in 2009. I know they will end up on their feet and I wish them well!

-Amber, of Fight Boredom zine distro and Culture Slut zine, was interviewed in this Montreal article about Fighting Boredom. I really dig the thought that “only boring people are boring”.

-I was contacted by the people from XSPACE Cultural Center in Toronto that they are having a BINGO fundraiser on 17 February and that they are accepting zine submissions for their zine library!

Zine Events this weekend:

12 – Festival of the Photocopier Zine Fair (Melbourne, Australia)

12 – Bristol Radical Zine Fest (Bristol, UK)

Do you have zine related news? Drop me a comment to the right and I’ll try to get it posted!  —————>