Journey to Zineopolis!

The other 'new' thing I've done lately is make a zine.

For those of you who don't know, a zine is a homemade mini magazine, usually based around a subculture like art or music, cartoons, gender or political issues etc, usually cheaply photocopied in black & white and in small numbers (back in my teen years the number was however many you could get away with before someone caught you on the copier machine).

Back then I used to read zines like Simon Gane's Arnie the Anarchist

I actually had both the above toons. I loved characters like Young Arnie, Subvert Man and Anti-State Tortoise. I bet my Dad chucked them out years ago.....

(however I have just found out about Punk Strips and The Slab Selection so I may just be able to revisit my youth)

 

The other one I liked was a Wildhearts focused punk zine, possibly called Gingernuts. It was a proper scruffy cut & glued crappy Xeroxed zine  where you could see the edges of the bits of paper, and the back usually had some awful rendering of Danny McCormack or whoever done in biro on the back page of someone's maths book, that cost about 80p plus the cost of a stamp (24p first class in 1993!!!! That's another thing I can add to my list of 'kids these days...' grumblings!).

Anyhoo, those lovey peeps at Strange Cargo held 'The Zine Library' Event at George's House gallery last weekend, and it was open to any artists who wanted to get involved.

 

The Library had a pretty good selection of zines for sale and for reading, plus a little tea and coffee station set up in the gallery next to the sofas they put in for the event so that people can sit and read. How very civilised!

 

 

The zine wall, you could take these and read them. Everything from art zines to cartoons, music & old skool feminist zines were here.

 

One of the contributors, Fat Hen & Flo, had drawn characters from her geektastic 'Star Wars Fan Art Mini Colouring Zine' on the walls. They also had live bands playing throughout the day.

Another unique feature, which I somehow didn't photograph, was the 'Zine Team', a couple of great kids from a local school, who print their own and a school zine, and were on hand to show people stuff like making a mini-zine from 1 piece of paper and other clever things.

 

 

They were also asking for people to contribute to a zine which would be emailed out to participants in PDF format after the event. Of course I contributed, and will add a link to the bottom of this post when I receive the zine.

 

 

My Zine Haul!!!!

Astrid Goldsmiths 'Rainy-Day Toys' zines were pretty cool. They had a story and toy pattern plus making instructions included, a great idea! 

 

The adorable mini zines by The Zine Team. The school one includes an interview with teacher Mr Wagstaff. Sample Quote - Question: Who would you take to a football match, Miss Tait or Miss Wright?

Answer: Miss Wright but I would disown her once there!

Ellis Bolton's Amsterdam at Night was one of my favourites and cleverly formatted, it concertina'd out into a beautiful illustration of city night scenes.

 

My Contribution - The 'Folkestone Mermaid Dress Up Doll'

 

 

My zine was inspired by local nutters, the Folkestone Urban Sirens, who dress up Cornelia Parker's 'Folkestone Mermaid' statue in various outfits. Click on the above link for a previous blog post about them if you want to know more.





 

I loved paper dolls when I was little (still do), so my contribution was a tongue in cheek take on the dress up doll.

 



 The zine got a pretty good reception, and I have a few copies left if anyone is interested!

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PS: This weekend is Strange Cargo's Carnival type event Charivari.

 

I've seen some of the costumes and the list of drum bands playing and it looks to be another incredible day!

 

Mario!!!!!!