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?

Catching up! I am embracing my lateness and posting up three zine things at once. Mostly because my life is unexciting in a way that makes combining these things make sense.

Side note: Happy 4th of July to US people.

On to the things!

I was on the road on day two, but I did bring zines with me. Some favourites-to-be (at the time of reading them). (Switching back and forth in time tense is haaard.) Had I been home to read some favourites, you know they would have been on the 100th Zine Review Celebration Awards: All You Need is Zine Love list.

Diiiiistro.

To know Sticky Institute is to love Sticky Institute. <3 I appreciate the big fuzzy love hearts out of that place. Especially since this woman (I apologise if you I identify otherwise) with highlighter blue hair was totally cool and supportive when I started going into panic mode during one visit.

You can definitely order from Sticky by clicking this link or go onto Etsy to find heaps of zines there. This day is a tiny smiggle of a cop out because AusPost shipping stinks, and I’ve been saving my dollars for an in-person visit soon.

That’s really not hard to do. While I am able to get more zines locally now, I’d say a good 75% – 85% of my entire zine collection is not from Australia.

Because I read so many international zines, and because it’s been a very rough time emotionally (nothing wrong – I’m a SAD bipolar bear is all), I’m not going to stress myself by making myself read a zine on top of the other things I’d like to accomplish today. I always want zines to be what I want to read and engage with rather than ever being something I *have* to do.

In the end, it probably doesn’t matter either way to anyone but me, but there it is anyway. 🙂

More to come!

Happy International Zine Month!

Always nearly completely last, as per usual, but I am on the road so I think I get some good karma points for going the distance. Literal distance in some senses. So here we go! I’m not sure if anyone else is celebrating, but I am sure going to.

Technically I am using the 2015 list, but I ran out of time before I realised that I could just make one of my own.

Besides, Alex Wrekk has done a damn fine job with the 2015, so who am I to go trying to change that kind of awesomeness?

Here I go with day one, which calls for the…

Top 10* List of Why I Love Zines!

1. They are handmade! Be it partially or completly, zines have a handmade element that can be hard to find these days. They are as simple or as complex as you want.
2. They are what you say they are. A5, A4, stuck in a matchbox, spraypainted on poster-size paper… Paper, tissue paper, cardstock… Sewn, stapled, glued… There is a true beauty in the variety of form and definition when it comes to zines.
3. They are about anything your heart desires. I have in my possession, a Nicolas cage colouring zine. (Review coming, I promise.) I also have a zine dedicated to Nutella, a zine about morning routines, a zine of thoughts and feelings converted into bar graphs and pie charts. The limit truly is only your imagination.
4. This is kind of an extension on things, but they are also words plus art, plus photography, plus cut and paste, plus… They are an art form but in so many different ways – often at the same time.
5. Perzines. I have to mention these because they are a particular favourite of mine. I’ve said plenty of times over the years that I wish everyone would write memoirs because there are so many lives I would love to know more about. Perzines are a form of that.
6. Anyone can make them. There is no class to take, degree to hold, age requirement, so on and so forth. They are there any time, any place, for any person to write on any topic. I can’t think of many other things in the world that are welcoming on that kind of level.
7. Mail! They are a physical (no insult to “ezines”, but they aren’t quite physical zines) creation that is sent in the mail, and receiving mail is a truly wonderful thing. Something that may have travelled more than you have travelled, created by hands you may never see in person. Maaaaail is the means by which zines fly around the world, and for that I love them.
8. Zines remind me that I am not alone – in many different ways. I’m not alone in my desire to create, to write, to be heard, in dealing with bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety or even in my appreciation of really nice paper.
9. Zines are the means by which I have met/’met’ a lot of awesome people. There are now dozens of people I am 99% sure I would have absolutely no contact nor any interactions with without zines. How could I not love that?
10. Making zines help me to feel like I’m actually doing something in a world where it’s all too easy to feel like I can’t do anything positive.

 

*Definitely top 10, but in no particular order of preference or loveliness in my opion after that.