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Happy Mail Monday – Saying Hello Postcards

It’s a cold, dreary Monday here in Victoria, but I suspect I will be saying that a lot for the next few months if I don’t stop myself. My electric blanket is once again a good friend of mine.

What do you do when you have a few dollars in Paypal but Paypal won’t let you transfer those few dollars into your bank account? Why you get zines on Etsy, of course!

I picked up Mythologising Me 11 and Mythologising Me 12 / Say Hi And Wave 3 Perzine Split from Mythologising Me on Etsy. I do have a soft spot for perzines, and I’m eager to get into these.

Sober Bob snuck in with a surprise Monday postcard to say hello. I love it! I love unexpected mail, of course, and I doubly love sending things and things people send ‘just because’. Thank you so much Sober Bob!

That’s it for me today. It’s a busy week ahead here with Wanderer being ill and a rental inspection coming up. If not before, I’ll be back on Thursday with a zine review!

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Call for Submissions: In Praise Zine

Fandom zine now accepting submissions!

What is fandom?

There are many different ideas about what fandom ‘is’, but according to my own experience, fandom is a group or community of fans who engage in discourse about a subject of common interest. The fan experience is what comprises a fandom, and what drives fan work and celebration.

What are you looking for?

Articles on any subject related to fandom, including fandom meta discussions. (e.g. the ‘right’ way to tag on AO3, your opinion on how creators and fans interact, an analysis of racism in a certain fandom)

Narrative Stories! I want to know how fandom has impacted you, personally. Did you meet your SO through fandom? Your best friend? Did you meet a creator at a con that changed your life? Why do you write fanfiction?

Interviews, reviews, and critiques. Have you spoken with an author about fandom? Or a fanfiction author about fandom? Do you have something to say about the way that a piece of media has treated its fans? Maybe you’ve reviewed all the cons in your area and have an opinion on the best ones?

Art and Comics: While we are not accepting fanart, we are accepting and encouraging fandom artists to write comics about the fan experience, fanfiction, fanart, talking to your fandom friends vs. non-fandom friends, how reviews make you feel, how characters make you feel, etc.

I want to contribute! What do I do?

You can contact In Praise through ask, or through email, inpraise.zine@gmail.com. Submissions will only be accepted through email. If you have a question or a pitch, you can contact me to chat about it. We’re looking for about 20-30 submissions, but if we receive more we will consider two volumes or a very large book. I cannot offer any payment, but all participants will receive a free digital copy of the zine. If this changes either through the success of a kickstarter or the patronage of a larger organization, we will let you know!

Specifics:

All written pieces should be 200-2000 words long. If you are submitting a larger piece, with references or a deep critical analysis, I will consider pieces up to 4500 words. If this is the case, I would recommend you send a pitch or abstract before spending a significant amount of time on the piece.

The zine will be published in trade size, 6”x9”, so please make sure any art submissions include a .125” bleed around the edges. You can submit up to five pages of comics. This will be a color run, but please use minimal or spot color.

You will be able to determine how you will be credited, by username, full name, alias, etc.

Will this zine be available to purchase?

Yes! We plan on creating a kickstarter to back the publication and gauge interest in additional installments. There will be both digital and physical copies available to purchase.

When’s the deadline?

The deadline for submissions is July 31st!

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Call for Calls for Submissions: Spread the Word About Your Zine/Distro/Library!

Zine Calls for Submissions

Share your call for submissions, let people know about your distro or zine library, announce your newest zine, let people know you are crowdfunding a zine project… If you have an announcement to make that has to do with zines, do it here! Sea Green Zines wants to be your megaphone. Even better? It’s an automatic shout out on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr when you advertise here.

Big fuzzy love hearts to those who have a .jpg call for subs, but all are welcome. Get in touch by emailing theauthor[at]inkyblots.com or comment below.

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Zine Review: Johnny V and Sober Bob and the Hunt for Gender Affirming State Mandated Identification

Johnny V and Sober Bob and the Hunt for Gender Affirming State Mandated Identification
Johnny V and Sober Bob
@_johnny.v
@soberbobmonthly

Dedicated to all those fighting to have their genuine and beautiful genders affirmed by the institutions that demand documentation but refuse to provide any.

Johnny V and Sober Bob and the Hunt for Gender Affirming State Mandated Identification is a small zine addressing big problems. Trying to get official government level paperwork sorted is difficult even when it’s ‘easy’, so to be facing discrimination on top of that turns it into an entirely different monster.

Johnny V’s efforts to obtain proper identification made for a quick read but an upsetting one. It’s sad to know that getting something like this sorted is more a matter of getting the right person rather than being able to solidly reply on systems that are meant to be there and work for the people.

I was so swept up in Johnny and Bob’s story that I doubly appreciated one of the notes at the end of the zine. Sober Bob made a zine not only to document personal experiences but also to think about what it must be like for people trying to do the same thing but with fewer resources.

This zine may feel like a quick read, but it touches on a lot of issues as well as can be a great read to help people feel less alone in their struggles with government bodies.

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Zine Review: The Cock Thesaurus

The Cock Thesaurus
Mostly by Jade Walsh
http://tootzines.bigcartel.com/

How could I not pick up a zine that gave me a little giggle with its title alone?

The Cock Thesaurus is more of a ‘related concepts’ thesaurus rather than a list of synonyms as it has similar words with different meanings rather than different words with similar meanings. From ‘the cock’ to ‘cock (possessive noun)’, this zine has all your cocky word definitions taken care of. It reminds me a bit of urban dictionary but with only the single definition per word.

Aesthetically this zine is a little bit different in the binding. The pages are stapled to the back rather than the spine. While it does leave the back cover a little short, it makes the overall cover interesting. With black and white pages containing text only, standard paper and staples to bind it the $6 price tag does niggle, though.

Yes, this zine definitely speaks to my giggly self, but I’m also intrigued by explorations into words – especially words that we give more power to than others. If you’re the same, this may be a zine for you.

Plus, if it is the zine for you, there are more! It’s part of a series with The Fish Thesaurus and The Ass Thesaurus.

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No Mail Monday – Exhausting Days Ahead


Image found here

Alas, no mail this week, but after last week’s mail extravaganza, I’m still feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

Last week I asked for your help deciding on a zine title. The poll is still open, if you’d like to weigh in. However, I’m fairly decided on the title (with the weight of the Twitter poll results thrown into the mix with these results). Funnily enough, it’s the title I’d decided on ages ago but suddenly got panicky about last week.

Weird ol’ Nyx brain strikes again.

On another note, if you have a ‘my first zine’ story you’d like to share, I’d love to include it in the aforementioned zine. 🙂

Things are a bit stressful around here. Wanderer had a small op – just a day surgery – but recovery is slow and painful. Moreso than either of us expected and in a way that leaves him fully occupied with recovering. Top that off with our upcoming rental inspection – a panic-attack inducing event that comes twice a year – and I am struggling to stay calm and relaxed. There’s always so much to do, and now there is a big ol’ load of things to do on top of that.

The silver lining is that all the work needing doing keeps me moving. With winter gearing up and gas an expensive luxury, keeping warm in other ways is a very good thing.

Well, as per always, there are many things to be done. I will leave things here for now and wish you all the best possible week ahead.

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Calling Zine Makers, Libraries, Distros, And the Like

I’m at the very beginning stages of working on a new zine project. As part of this, I would like to include A5/A6 spaces (maybe even A7, if that works for you) that feature things like:

*Zines that have a rolling call for submissions (even if your zine changes theme/topic from issue to issue, an overarching ‘flier’ for the whole series would be awesome)
*Zine distros – whether you want to say ‘check out my distro’, are looking for zines to sell in your distro, or both!
*Zine libraries – again, whether it’s a ‘check us out’, ‘looking for zine donations’, or both, I’d love to see it
*Zine people who want to be included in an ‘open to trades’ section. I’m thinking name, preferred contact (or your mailing addy, if that’s the way you roll), and a few likes/dislikes.

The key thing here is that things be ‘undated’ (hence sharing a zine series rather than one specific call for submissions) so things aren’t out of date before I get the chance to create the thing.

Ideally, I’d like things to be images with text on them because of the limited space involved (with the exception of the trades section, which will be text only). But I want to be flexible, too. This project is really in its early days, so I’m still figuring a lot out.

If you want to get involved straight away (please do!) then you can shoot me an email (theauthor at inkyblots.com)

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Call for Submissions: Blunt Talk Zine

In honor of the annual 420 holiday, I’m launching my next project. Blunt Talk. Blunt Talk is a zine dedicated to providing information about recreational and medical marijuana. Please consider participating and sharing! Happy Holidays!

Requirements & Info: All writing must be 1000 words or less, all imagery must be 300dpi, all submissions must be sent in by midnight on May 31st.

All creators are welcome to be published anonymously if they feel more comfortable. All material is subject to editing and or refusal. All accepted creators will be emailed a PDF of the final zine.

Proceeds from this zine will be directly donated to IMPACT for medical marijuana research. You can donate to IMPACT or read more here: http://www.impactcannabis.org/