What’s up zine land?
Greetings! I have returned to dreary Portland after a few days in the dessert teaching the glory of zines in the Art Studios at Coachella and yes, I did see hologram Tupac and it was creepy. But more importantly I hung out with the fine Zine Works folks and taught people to make zines! I made two tiny zines about my experiences, more on that another time.
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!
