Hello and happy Friday, zine friends!
Wow, wow, wow. It had been a tumultuous fortnight. I won’t go into it too much, but I’ve been dealing with ongoing complications from the flu (yes, the flu I got back in March) as well as a lot of life changes as I do what I need to do for the sake of my mind, heart, and self.
I’ve really set a new bar for getting behind with things, but that’s okay! Remember the joy rather than focusing on the stress. I’m going to dive right in with the IZM prompts I’ve missed…
Day 4:
AmeriZine Day! Explore marginalised voices in the Americas. By, share, and read zines about racial justic and zines written by BIPOC (Black Indigenous and People of Colour) from the Americas.
When you mention zines written by BIPOC zinemakers, my mind immediately goes to Brown Recluse distro. As is written on the site:
BROWN RECLUSE is a collectively-run zine distro for QTBIPOC by QTBIPOC.
There are so many zines on offer, and they use a sliding scale system that helps you to support the distro itself and help them to continue featuring BIPOC zinemakers. I love it when places make it easy for you to engage in supporting them. I feel like that might sound a little odd, but when I have extra, I love spreading the love.
Nina Echozina also has an excellent list of resources for BIPOC zines.
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Day 5:
Review a zine: post online or write a review to print in your next zine.
I’m going to delay this day for a number of reasons. As much as I’d love to push reviews out, I don’t want to rush reading (and enjoying) zines. I’m working out how to do more reviews for the rest of the year to pick up on my back log of reviews owed. Slowly but surely…
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Day 6:
Zine Pride Day! Explore LGBTQIA+ zines! Buy, share, and read zines by people of marginalised sexual orientations and gender identities. Check out the Queer Zines Archive Project!
When I saw this prompt, I immediately thought of Shei from God Save the Queer who recently released the latest edition of their series ‘I’m Still Here’. Their Etsy shop is also filled with awesome jewellery as well as zines.
You can check out my reviews of Shei’s zines here.
Day 7:
What’s a zine distro? Educate yourself of what zine distros are, how they operate, and how they pick zines to carry. Support a distro near you!
Distros! Distros are shops (online or off – or both) that primarily sell zines. Sometimes they also sell stickers, patches, and the like, but zines are the main thing being sold.
The specifics can get a little more tricky – what makes an Etsy shop a shop rather than a distro, what percentage of zines to other items makes it a distro, so on and so forth. However, I like the simple answer I put above. Haha.
How a distro picks zines can vary a lot. For my distro, I see a zine I like, and I try to get copies of that zine for my distro if I can. (I’m a buy copies up front kind of distro owner rather than a ‘pay when they sell’ distro owner.) Whereas I go by what I like, others go by theme, genre, support specific zinemakers, and some distros take all zines.
There’s a heap of different ways to approach finding distros and running them. I can only hope that you love a research project as much as I do! Haha.
Day 8:
Cook with a recipe you found in a zine!
This isn’t going to be a very exciting one, I’m afraid, as I don’t have a recipe for you. I have baked in the past thanks to The Nutella Cookbook. I also know that Kendy of The Stay At Home Girlfriend includes vegan recipes in that (awesome) perzine series.
However, as I’m not a vegan or even vegetarian, I don’t have anything much more exciting than a fruit salad that I can make, and I don’t really have the energy for anything more complex.
So for today I will say check out Kendy’s awesome zineness!
Day 9:
Buy direct! Do you sell zines online? Update your shop and post a link to it online. Buy directly from someone who posts a link to their shop.
And here we are, zine friends! To the final catch up day. Buy direct!
Yes, yes, yes. Sea Green Zines operates both on Etsy as well as independently as a distro here on Sea Green Zines. Both definitely need a bit of a dust and polish, as shipping prices have gone up, and I haven’t updated yet…
Please, please, please feel free to put your shops and distros in the comments! Along with dusting and polishing my shops, I want to do the same for my Resources page – which includes distros and shops around the world.
Unfortunately, due to a dead car battery while I was out at the shops, I can’t join in on this one just yet. However, there will be fresh, lovely zines I will be snapping up as soon as I can…
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And that is me for today, zine friends!
As always, you are all so amazing for all your patience and understanding with everything. I really wish this was a nine to five so I could give it all the proper love and attention it deserves. As it is, I’m spreading the zine love as much as I can…
DOWNLOAD THE PDF TO PRINT YOUR OWN POSTER HERE!
Like with all years, I like to keep a running list of links to people/places participating in International Zine Month. So if that sounds like you, then please let me know! Comment here on the blog or send me an email at seagreenzines at gmail
Participants:
Little addition to the distros part: there also exist a lot of music distros, especially in the punk scene. Some of those carry zines too. I actually assume that music distros existed first but I could be wrong.
Thank you! You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if music distros were the first distros, if you know what I mean. They are so solidly linked.