Month: October 2016

Posted on

Asimov

Well, it’s 5.45pm at the time I’m starting to write this, and it occurs to me that I haven’t posted my happy mail post today. Or even polished the photos I took this morning for the happy mail post… Yep!

post-op-asimov

First off, happy Halloween to those who are celebrating. It’s not a real big thing in Australia – nary a costume to be seen this weekend.

So this ^ is a picture of my cat, Asimov. A disappearing act last week, refusing food when he came back, and a call to the vet on Sunday led this little guy to needing a little surgery on Sunday. (Or procedure. I’m not entirely sure where the line is drawn.) The vet suspected he had a small bone lodged in his throat, and he needed some sleep juice so the vet could scope it out and get rid of the bone.

As it turned out, he decided to be like Wanderer. There was no bone, but there was an abscess in there. Though completely unexpected, the vet handled it very well (shout out to vets that work on Sundays) and is confident he’ll be just fine barring any complications.

I put a little shout out on social media about the situation and how any/all orders would greatly help at this time, as the vet bill was… a bit of a kick in the wallet. Getting mail ready to go is part of the reason I’m running so late with everything today. It’s a most excellent sort of work to have, and I wholeheartedly thank everyone who has ordered zines, cards, and/or copies of my novel. It really helps take the sting out of the sizable unexpected vet bill.

I know this doesn’t have much of anything to do with zines, or with the usual happy mail Monday post, but I do like being able to share at least snippets of my life with you. Especially when it impacts my ability to post. I promise I’m getting more organised with everything ‘Sea Green Zines’, so this sort of thing will happen less in the future.

Phew. Coffee break and then back to it. I hope you all are having an excellent Monday!

Posted on

Call for Submissions: Waste Management

Hi, my name is Fee, I’m 20, white, ablebodied, working class, bisexual, queer, mentally ill, fat and I dropped out of high school in feburary of 2015.

I know a lot of people but I know exactly one who shares this experience. And I have the suspicion that I know why… I’m part of this beautiful social justice community that’s also incredibly centered on university level education. And I don’t even have a levels. (Or the German equivalent.) The people that mean the most to me can’t sympathise with the very real existential fear that comes from not having a high school diploma.

A lot of people drop out of uni. That’s bad. I feel for you guys, I do, but you have so many more options in how to continue. It might not feel like that but it’s true… but being a high school dropout? in this economy? It scares the shit out of you – especially because there is a reason you didn’t stay in school and that reasons stays with you. Bullying (because you are trans or queer or fat or disabled or a person of colour or poor or any other thing people can use to wear you down with every day microagressions), mental illness (like depression, an eating disorder, bpd, etc), money (because you and your family literally can’t afford for you to not work), teachers or social workers not caring about you and not giving you the support, equipment, form of schooling, medication or love you needed because of all the things the other students used to destroy you. Or any other number of other reasons.

And now you are a fucking high school drop out. (Or the pre-university level education equivalent where you are from. This is not supposed to be us centric.)

And I want to hear about it so badly! Whether you dropped out yesterday or 20 years ago, whether you regret it or not, wether you’re back in school or never looked back, whether you want to draw about it or write or make a collage or just paint an entire page black because that’s how it feels, I want to hear from you. And by you I mean literally everyone. (If you want to for example write in a language other than english we can also totally do that.) AND I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE INTERSECTION OF OPPRESSION AND DROPPING OUT! Because I’m 97% sure I would still be in school if I wasn’t, you know, me.

I’m not sure how this is going to work. I’ve never made a zine before but I need to fucking heal from this trauma that was school, so… hit me up, you beautiful failures and disappointments.

Who Can Submit?

Anyone who has ever dropped out of high school. It doesn’t matter if you went back and are now working on your doctorate or if you never looked back. You can submit regardless of your academic status now as long as you left schooling before reaching university level education at some point.

If you have questions wether you are enough of an academic failure to be able to submit, you can talk to me on tumblr, twitter or via email.

Note: Dropping out of university does not count.

What Can You Submit?

Short answer: everything.

Long answer: poetry, diary entries, comics, song lyrics, collages, paintings, drawings, doodles, in-depth analysis of things, top ten lists, hate mail to your teachers, manifestos and because there will be a digital version you can also submit songs, videos and any other digital art.

Go all out. Or go deep inside yourself.

It is really important to me that you get support and love throughout this process. If you need help working on your submission or just want to vent about the emotional build up that creating things can cause, don’t be shy to reach out to me on tumblr, twitter or via mail.

Posted on

Zine Review: I F#cking Love This Album

i-fcking-love-this-album-zine

I F#cking Love This Album
Various – Put Together by Chops
http://www.theworddistribution.com/

I F#cking Love This Album is Fishspit’s first foray into teaching me all about a lot of music that I’ve barely or never heard of.

As far as a first step goes, this one is a good one.

I F#cking Love This Album is a multi-contributor zine that takes you not through individual songs that the contributors love but the albums that they love. As Chops puts in the intro:

You didn’t have to pick your “favorite” album, or the first album you fell in love with, or the album you most like right now, just an album you love.

When it comes to zines like this that explore favourites or loves, I’m glad to see that there are multiple contributors. That way you can get all sorts of recommendations that are inspired by different backgrounds and influences. Where I expected a zine of text where everyone shared their favourite and that was it, I was impressed to find different takes on the prompt.

One person responded in comic format, and another person focused on the often-overlooked movie soundtrack album. All this made for a more engaging read and even more different varieties of things to look up.

You’ll still get what you expect with this zine, though: a scavenger-hunt-esque zine that may introduce you to music you’ve never heard of before or that reminds you to go back and listen to those old loves.

Posted on

Zine Review: Everything Dies 7

everything-dies-7

Everything Dies 7
Box Brown
BoxBrown.com
Everything Dies

I think Microcosm Publishing describes this awesome and hilarious zine series best:

One of the best and most promising new comic artists out there today, Box Brown writes and draws the Everything Dies zine series as a hard (and oft times hilarious) look into the religious myths of our world.

Everything Dies 7 takes you into the great flood myth, but not the biblical one. This is the Sumerian version with the crankypants Sumerian god Enlil getting upset at all those vexing humans.

This zine comic is great. I’ll come out and say that right now. TL;DR: Everything Dies 7 is excellent.

Box Brown’s style is very enjoyable and reminds me a little of the Felix the Cat cartoon style that I used to watch as a kid. (Which is meant to be a compliment; I love Felix!) He has a great way of using the images to really enforce the humour found in the writing. I laughed out loud more than once (“It vexed him so hard!”) thanks to Brown’s sense of humour. Especially in the little things like a god saying ‘hullo’ instead of ‘hello’.

Love it.

What really made it a keeper (though, let’s be real, it was a keeper pretty much from the first time I saw it) was the addition of letters and responses in the back! All still keeping in the style of the overall comic and just giving it that little something extra.

In and of itself, the comic is so enjoyable and definitely one of those zines that I don’t even let people borrow because I don’t want to lose it. Still, I feel like there’s even deeper examinations to be made once I get my hands on 1-6.

PS. By clicking on the Everything Dies link above, you can grab every Everything Dies comic (for a fair price) and start reading right now.

Posted on

Done, Doing, Dreaming – Sunshine Edition

dodgys-view

I know I put this picture up yesterday, but it’s sooo pretty here, and I am LOVING this sunshine. Aussies know what I’m talking about.

Expanding on what I mentioned yesterday, my friend Dodgy is off on holiday at the moment. I’ve been wanting to get some recording done for ages, but it’s way too noisy where I live. Dodgy happens to live in picturesque country Victoria where it’s so much quieter. So here I am, recording zines as well as my first novel.

I’ve already learned I’m horrible at doing voices.

Done

*You can now listen to me read Don’t Call Me Cupcake 1: Introductions on Bandcamp for free! Click here to check it out as well as other zine creators reading their work. <3
*I've just finished up recording Don't Call Me Cupcake 3, so audio versions of 2 and 3 should come out later this year.

Doing

*I’m currently working on Don’t Call Me Cupcake 6, which is about spring in Australia, zine projects, Wanderer being in hospital, and other fun stuff.
*I am also working on getting ahead with zine reviews just in case I go ahead with NaNoWriMo. I’m not entirely convinced that I would be doing the sane thing by joining in, but I’m not one for always doing the sane thing… If you’d like to be my writing buddy, you can find me here.
*If you hadn’t already heard, We Make Zines – the place for all things zine – is closing down at the end of this month due to a dramatic rise in cost. I’m not able to do much, but if you know about coding and site migration, be sure to stop by this thread and let Quasifesto know that you’re willing to help out.

Dreaming

*I’m actually dreaming of moving away from Etsy as a shop front, as it’s looking like Etsy is one of the more expensive places to run a shop front…
*I’m also dreaming of Festival of the Photocopier (Melbourne’s zine fest in February)! It slipped my mind when I thought I’d be moving out of Victoria before February 2017, but
*Which means I need to prioritise the button/badge maker. Squee!

I hope you are all having a wonderful start to your week!

Posted on

Sunny Day Happy Mail!

Today’s happy mail brought to you by…

dodgys-view

This gorgeous view!

My friend Dodgy is out of the country for a while having a holiday, and I’m crashing at his place for a few days. More on that later, though. On to happy mail!

letter-from-chris

I may have horrible response times (I haven’t forgotten you!), but I love getting letters as much as I love zines coming to my post box. This absolutely lovely letter from Chris Sitko really brightened my Monday.

meta-zine-bundle

Zine bundle! Zine community tip: If you love a zine and want to share it with your friends, but you don’t want to lose your copy, don’t be afraid to get in contact with the zine maker! I sent an email to Davida about getting extra copies of Meta Zine sent my way because it’s the kind of zine I want to give to my friends. And here they are!

microcosm-publishing-happy-mail

This is technically happy mail from last week, and you might recognise it if you follow me on Instagram. I couldn’t help myself sharing it there, though, because it was so out of the blue!

Joe from Microcosm Publishing sent along his zine for the joy of it (and review, too, hehe). And he sent a sticker with it! Wooooo! I’m getting quite the collection of awesome stickers going. 😀

It’s been a wonderful week in mail, and I am feeling so lucky to know such awesome people. If you love zines and your mailbox is feeling a little lonely, shoot me your mailing address. I may not always have stamps, but when I do, I love sending out heaps of mail!