International Zine Month 2021 – my zine collection

I love today’s International Zine Day prompt because I’m such a zine geek!

“Organize your zine collection. Post a shelfie online.”

So thank you, Stolen Sharpie Revolution for inventing that prompt and the word “shelfie”! 🙂

I have a pretty large personal zine collection, from having acquired zines for more than 20 years (buying them, trading them, getting some for free…). Most of the zines I’ve read are stored and organised in magazine boxes on book shelves, and smaller sized zines in smaller boxes. The big boxes are arranged according to subject (meta zines, queer zines, self-care, witchy… and so on) and the smaller ones according to country (it’s just easier for me to find things that way). Some parts of my zine shelves look a bit messy I think. Time to tidy and reorganise those parts and also read more unread zines so I can put them in the pretty boxes (and so I can enjoy exploring those unread zines of course). 🙂

Here are some photos of my zine collection:

Virtual Portland Zine Symposium 2021 – my virtual zine table

It’s Portland Zine Symposium this weekend and because of the ongoing pandemic it’s taking place online. But that has the advantage that more people can attend and participate! Like me!

So tomorrow I’m going to take a few of Portland Zine Symposium’s virtual workshops and during the entire weekend I will be “tableing”. Are you curious to see my virtual zine table? You can find all my zines in my zine catalogue and I have a few zine bundles in my webshop too.

Contact me by email if you’re interested or if you have questions. 🙂

By the way, at the moment I have these special surprise bags available (More info):

Here are a few more photos of my virtual zine table: (Scroll down to know how YOU can table too!)

International Zine Month 2021 – youtube zinesters

Bored? Tired? Try watching some zine-related YouTube channels today! Stolen Sharpie Revolution says:

“Check out YouTube channels about zines- here are some to visit!

• Brown and Proud Press
• Zinespiration
• Zine Cuisine
• Zine Collector
• Bunny Ears Reviews“

Some YouTube channels that I enjoy watching:

• Feral Comics (zine reviews and other zine-themed vlogs)
• Sea Green Zines (happy mail, vlog/podcast about zines)
• Twenty Two Zines (videos for all the International Zine Month prompts)
• Zinespiration (interviews with zinesters)

There’s also a video series of zine readings that the LCC Zine Library curated for International Zine Month: Voices from the Underground. They’re adding a new video every week of July but the names of all the zinesters are already known. I still have to watch them but I’m very excited about it because two of them are among my favourite zinesters and another one is a new zinester to discover (and oh, yours truly is part of it as well).

Can you recommend other YouTube channels about zines?

By the way, in an older blogpost I compiled a list of zine-focused podcasts that contains some vlogs as well. Check it out for more zinetertainment and enjoy today’s International Zine Month prompt! ❤

International Zine Month 2021 – zine library day

Today is Zine Library Day, part of International Zine Month! Stolen Sharpie Revolution says:

“Zine Library Day! Search for a zine library in your area and make plans to go someday or contact them about how to include your zine in their collection.”

For this occasion I’d like to talk about the zine library of the Girls Go BOOM Clubhouse in Ghent (Belgium), the only zine library I’ve visited in the past 1,5 year!

Zine Month Surprise Bags!

To celebrate International Zine Month (IZM) and my 20th zine anniversary I’m assembling surprise bags filled with zines, postcards, and buttons! I’m even including some zines you may never have heard of as well as brandnew zine-themed buttons!

 

Zine Month Surprise Bag

This surprise bag is filled with goodies and contains:

• 2 zines
• 1 mini-zine
• 1 button
• 2 postcards

Price including postage within Belgium: € 9

Price including postage within Europe: € 12,50

Price including postage worldwide: € 13

How to order?

Do you want to buy a Zine Month Surprise Bag or give one to a friend?

Mail me to place an order. Also get in touch if you have questions.

Thank you! ❤

Only available until end of July 2021! So hurry to order one!

International Zine Month 2021 – zine distros

During International Zine Month, we are encouraged to learn about and order zines from zine distros*. Stolen Sharpie Revolution invented three prompts to participate in throughout the month including one today:

• on July 7th: “educate yourself about zine distros”
• on July 19th: “zine distro appreciation day”
• on July 23rd: “check out a zine distro you’ve never ordered from before”

*A distro is a DIY distribution project. They distribute zines (and/or music, patches, postcards, buttons, etc) made by other people so these DIY creations can reach a different or larger audience. Isn’t that great? Some distros sell their stuff at events (zine fests, punk shows, etc), a lot of them have an online shop, and some even a brick-and-mortar store!

I love these prompts – new zines! new zines! – and in the past years I have used them as an excuse to buy zines from American zine distros. The postage to Europe is so expensive and usually doubles the price, so I could’t do this often, but I allowed myself some luxury during International Zine Month. Now that the EU has introduced expensive and annoying VAT to pay on incoming mail from non-EU webshops I’m trying to focus my zine orders and trades inside the EU for a while (until I figure out how to avoid these fees…) but luckily there are zine distros everywhere, including in the EU.

There exist a lot of amazing zine distros and there might be some nearby where you live too. Here is a list of zine distros that I’ve heard of and that I encourage you to check out:
(If there are any distros that I didn’t include in the list, please mention them in the comments!)

International Zine Month 2021 – zine trades

“Zine Trade Day! Ask someone to trade or swap zines with you.”

International Zine Month prompt by Stolen Sharpie Revolution

Trading or swapping is essential for zine culture and I love it! It’s like a kind of gift economy, like a small glimpse into a non-capitalist non-commercial non-profit society. Unfortunately we don’t live in that world yet and we still have to pay for food and rent and bills and printing costs and postage, so I understand that trades (or overseas / cross-continental trades) aren’t always possible for everyone. As with everything, it’s good to ask first.

I’m currently mostly into trades within the European Union because of the new annoying EU customs tax (that makes that European recipients of mail from outside of the EU risk having to pay a fee) but get in touch either way and we can see if we can work it out. I’m sure there are ways to avoid this fee! It’s very new though so I’m still looking for all possible ways around it.

Anyway, as I wrote before, I love snail mail! Trades also offer the combination of sending your zine(s) out to new readers + discovering new zines by other zinesters at the same time, which is the best! ❤

International Zine Month 2021 – make a flyer

Do you make zines? How do you make publicity for them? Only online, or offline too? It’s probably a good (and fun) idea to make and print some paper flyers as today’s International Zine Month prompt (see Stolen Sharpie Revolution) suggests:

“Make a flyer for your zine to trade with others, post online, or send out with zine orders and trades”.

I like to include flyers with zine orders and trades (if postage allows something extra) and I also enjoy doing flyer swaps along with zine swaps to support and advertise other zinesters. Besides, there are often spots in cafés, record shops, book shops, cultural centres, community centres, libraries, etc where you can leave your flyers for potential readers to find. I also just like receiving and collecting flyers of DIY projects. They often look so cool and creative and are almost as good as the thing they are advertising.

Here are all my ECHO flyers, from (very) old to brandnew (I just designed the newest one but still need to get it printed):

International Zine Month 2021 – why I like zines

Today’s International Zine Month prompt from Stolen Sharpie Revolution is: “Make a list of reasons you love zines and share your list with others!”

So why do YOU like zines? Please share your thoughts in the comments! I’m always curious to hear about other people’s motivations to make or read zines.

Here are my main reasons why I ❤ zines:

International Zine Month 2021 – halfway overview!

Hello there! How are you? Are you enjoying International Zine Month too? Here is a little overview of the things I did so far this month and things I still plan to do: