Category: Uncategorized

How is it April already?

I know, I know. You’ve probably heard people saying that, but I still had my head in February. I feel like I didn’t get a firm grip on March, and here we are in April.

Oy.

Because of the way the dates fell, I ended up reviewing fifteen mini-zines. I do have to giggle a little at March 1st being a Wednesday and thus the start to reviews and March 31st being a Friday and thus the end. Some years are cheeky like that.

I feel like I haven’t even made a real dent in my pile of to-be-read mini-zines, but that just means I won’t be hurting for zines to review anytime soon. I’m happy to get back to zines of all shapes and sizes, but I really do love being able to dedicate some time to the itty bitties.

This year – only the second year – we had some participants, too!

As I mentioned previously, Hannah Brown participated by making four mini-zines. Hannah’s wrap-up post is a lovely one with all kinds of excitement about making zines.

Echo created a FREE activist feminist mini-zine! That’s right. All you have to do is click on that link and head over to Echo Publishing to grab your free copy of a mini-zine. You have to print it yourself, but there instructions for how to get your paper folding on.

Thank you so much for joining in and generously sharing your zine!

That’s going to wrap it up for this year. I’m just so pleased as punch to have had people joining in this year. I hope we can continue to grow things in years to come so even more people are joining in the fun and making mini-zines.

It’s the first day of August, but I’m giving myself a pass for that somewhat last-minute trip away. Now it’s time for one big ol’ catch up session.

I called for a rain delay on this one last week. Here is the photo proof I finished!

I haven’t made a one-page zine for such a long time. I need to make them more often.

I think we all know that me trying to organise something right now would probably end in disaster. Haha. Anything more anyway. However, if there are any events – big or small – around you, please let me know. 🙂

I’m going to go past the obvious (the reason this site exists) and say that I have done this in the past. I wish I had pictures to share. I set up a little ‘intro to zines’ session with a few of my friends to show them my entire zine collection as well as how to make a one-page zine.

It’s been making me think more about different kinds of posts to make in the future…

This is one thing that I’ve been regretting over the past few months. I put up a lot of calls for submissions, but I haven’t made the time to submit to them. (Good intentions and all of that.) Collaboration is a big part of zine culture, and I definitely want to embrace it.

The very first zine I bought years ago was a zine all about making delicious things with Nutella! You can bet I got right into that. 🙂 I don’t think I’ve read any other zines that are dedicated to recipes. Hm. I think I need to remedy that.

This post is coming so late(r than usual) because I have been having a horrid time trying to upload photos. I know that’s no fun, so I’ll post this up again. My zinester trading card. 🙂

Been there, will always be doing that. 😉

I haven’t known any zinesters who have passed personally, but I raise my glass to all those who have gone before. Especially those who have created in the face of threat and fear.

There we have it for International Zine Month 2016. I promise to be much more organised next year. 🙂

And away we go!

I think I’m out of sync with the universe. I’m either ahead or running behind…

About a week ago, I was approached via Etsy about donating one of my zines to a new zine library. They happened to have great timing, as I had both a zine to send and a stamp to spare to get it to them. So while I didn’t take a picture (*cough*slacker*cough*) of it, I’ve already sent one off!

However, if you are a zine librarian looking to expand your collection, let me know! I’d love to give you a shout out here.

PS. I realised today that when I previously mentioned zine libraries, I made the assumption that you know what I’m talking about. It is pretty self-explanatory, but just in case, zine libraries are large (usually) collections of zines that aren’t collected elsewhere. Unlike a distro, zine libraries don’t sell zines.

Rain delay. 😛 Postponed for the moment because I still haven’t learned my lesson and actually looked ahead. Oopsie.

Unless you’re new here (hello!), you know how much I love to blather on about pretty much anything and everything zine related. So you can take that little step further and imagine how much I hate to say that, well, this task has me stumped.

New zine skill.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t mean to imply that I am some utterly awesome zine master who knows all of the things about all of the things (because I very much do not). Still, I’m really not sure what to do here.

So I put it into your hands, dear readers. Is there anything you would like to see? Anything I can explain or take a picture of or something?

Yikes. I really let time get away from me this time, didn’t I? Time for five days in one post!

Hehe. This wouldn’t exactly be a new thing for me, would it?

You can check out my Zine Review Index, now with over 100 reviews linked. I haven’t updated it in a few weeks, but that will be happening soon.

If you reviewed a zine for IZM, review zines on a more regular basis, or fall somewhere between, leave me a link in the comments!

Somewhere other than Sticky?!

Actually, there are heaps of distros around the world that I would love to order from. Google zine distro, and away you will go. There are also heaps of shops on places like Big Cartel, Store Envy, and other places like that. However, when I’m not after something specific and want to browse, Etsy is my go-to.

With nearly 2,000 individual listings, I think it’s a good place to have a look around if you can’t walk into a brick and mortar.

PS. I will get a lot more distros listed in the sidebar as soon as I have time.

Looks like I was a bit early to the punch with my zine giveaway post. Oopsie.

Aw, I don’t have one of these. At least, not one that I know of.

If you’re like me, you could Google image search ‘zine library’ and have a perv on the images there, or you can Google your town/state to find out if you have a local space.

If you do, let me know! I’d love to get a zine library list going.

Happy International Zine Month!

Another day, another task to check off on the IZM to-do list!

Send your zine out to be reviewed.

I’m going to risk annoying some people by tweaking this one again. Not only am I low on the postage funds, but I’m also battling with a bad bout of SAD. I already know that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, and I also know that I’m all that and a bag of chips to others. What I don’t want to do is pile on additional anxiety (couch search for stamp money, is this the another letter AusPost is going to wipe its backside with and then claim it never saw the letter, will the receiving end even like what I’m offering) that could be avoided.

I’d rather try to keep on keeping on here with the way things are, wouldn’t you?

What I will do is list the places where I know you can get your zines reviewed:

Robert at MoreVerbs.com
Syndicated Zine Reviews
Xerography Debt – Yep, that same zine I drooled all over in this review
Zine Nation

And, of course, you can always send your zines to me for review!

This day. Oh, man, this day. Not to mention the awful lighting. Crossing fingers for sun tomorrow so I can take some happy mail pics, because I have some awesome happy mail in.

So, as it turned out, I needed some zen, calm down time, so I used today’s task to do that…

I went the zentangle route because that’s one of the few things I can doodle that doesn’t end up stressing me out even more.

Want to see this envie in person? Then enter my giveaway, and I’ll send your zine goodness in THIS envelope. 🙂

Yesterday I postponed the task for day nine so I could think about who to write to. A new day today meant a new task…

Well. Those two together gave me an idea…

Far be it for me to squiggle the rules around, but I thought I could combine these two and tweak it into a giveaway!

That’s right; you could win some Sea Green Zines!

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post letting me know which zine(s) you’d rather have: Dear Anonymous or Don’t Call Me Cupcake. (Neither is an option! If that’s the case, I’ll send you zines from my collection.)

Easy peasy.

Open worldwide.

I’ll announce the winner next Sunday (Melbourne time).

Happy zine month!

I feel so unprepared for July. Like I’m running around trying to put on my socks and pants while trying to do ALL THE THINGS all at once. Is anyone else feeling like that?

I went back and forth a bit but decided that I wasn’t going to post IZM stuff on review days because I like the reviews to have the whole day to be the one post of that day. But thinking about that now and actually typing it out… I think I might be thinking about this all too much.

We’ll see how next week goes.

Anyway, because I am still trying to metaphorically pull on those metaphorical socks, I am going to switch things up here just a smiggle. But I will list what is actually listed for each day.

Day 7: Make some envelopes or postcards for postal week.

I mentioned in this post why I don’t do a lot of mail/envelope art, and that still holds true, unfortunately. So I saw this task and wondered if I really wanted to sit and make envelopes that I

Of course, it was only later that my mind registered the ‘or postcards’ part of the day’s task. Oopsie. Still, I want to go with my original plan and give a hat tip to the current king of mail art: Fishspit. Here’s some of his work:

Day 8: Make a flier for your zine to send with trades.

I have one of those!

However, it’s only just occurred to me as I am typing this post that I might want to make a ‘Don’t Call Me Cupcake’ flier. I’ve only ever created fliers for zines that have calls for submissions. I’d never considered to announce or otherwise advertise (in flier form, anyway) DCMC. Hm. I want to get a new cupcake, if I decide to do it, but I’ll post here with any new fliers.

Day 9: Write a letter to a zine maker you don’t know.

One I don’t know? Huh. Well that’s an interesting pickle. Who do I write to…

I could get silly and pedantic, asking the definition of ‘know’, but I’m going to go with ‘someone you haven’t communicated with before’. I’ve only ever written to two zinesters before (keeping along that definition of ‘know’, that is): Sage of Fat-tastic and Ken of Ken Chronicles. I definitely need to write more responses in general.

It’s about 8.20pm right now, and I’m not going to write a letter tonight (I have a date with a novel I’ve been avoiding writing), so I’m going to defer this so I can have a think about who I want to write to.

Until tomorrow…

Another day, another way to get your zine on in International Zine Month!

Add your zine to or update your ZineWiki.org

If you’re not familiar with Zine Wiki, it’s pretty straightforward – a wiki for zines! It’s a massive directory of zines, zine makers, some events and articles.

I’d already put up pages for my zines a while back, but I updated them insofar as getting up to the latest issues of things.

You can find Dear Anonymous here and Don’t Call Me Cupcake here.

I still need to go back with exact dates, and the descriptions are a bit lackluster, but I’m counting today’s task as sorted. Phew!

Last post today – I promise.

I decided to give today’s International Zine Month task its own post because pictures! Also because I have a confession to make…

My zine life is very unorganised. Today’s task?

Organise Your Zine Collection

I saw today’s task and wondered what I’d gotten myself into. My ‘for keeps’ zines have always gone into a drawer. I haven’t ever stopped to count how many are in there, to organise them in any way or even to put them in orderly piles.

Alas, I saw the task, braved the drawer, and took them all out.

Okay, so my collection might not look impressive, but it is a pile of them. There are plenty hidden underneath the top layer. I put them on my desk and then just kept piling.

At the moment, I am trying to organise everything. My life, my businesses, my desk, my office… I’m a bit burned out for ideas, though.

A basket isn’t the worst idea in the world, but I feel like it’s not exactly the best solution. Or maybe I’m not impressed with myself.

Then again, maybe it’s all wrapped up in the fact that this is only part of the zine organisation situation.

There’s also my zines that I’ve photographed that are ready to be reviewed. (Along with the blue material I use for photo backgrounds, the envelope art/letters I want to save, and a plastic envelope for the extras like postcards and pins that people send along with their zines.)

Then there are the two display stands I used at Festival of the Photocopier and have now started using for the zines that still need to be photographed before being put in the ‘To Be Reviewed’ stacks.

Have I mentioned *my* stock? This box has sewn zines that are ready to ship, folded zines ready to be sewn, covers ready to be folded, envelopes, and the tin where I keep my sewing needles and thread.

And I forgot to photograph my folders where I store my labels, cupcake stickers, so on and so forth.

I’m not at reality show kind of desperate at the moment, but I would welcome any advice, links, links to pictures. I can keep on top of it all, but I don’t like feeling like everything is all over the office in different places.

So… Thoughts?