Contributions: drawings I’ve made for other zines and projects

I make a lot of zines on my own but sometimes I contribute to other zines as well. I’m also an illustrator so I regularly make illustrations for a variety of projects. I actually have a blog for my drawings but I don’t keep it up to date very well… So instead I’d like to make a list of recent illustrations here (even if just so I don’t forget).

Here are some zines and other projects I’ve recently made drawings for:

Making a whale zine with Les Voizines

I did a thing! For the first time since lockdown, I participated in an “organised event”. It was outdoors and felt really safe (limited amount of people, space to spread out, alco-gel available, each our own markers/brushes…) and I was happy to be able to do this. Getting creative outside in the sun, with other creative people around, including a friend I hadn’t seen since February last year – it was exactly what I needed. Thank you to the Les Voizines team, De Koer, and the people behind the whale boat for organising it!

The idea was that everyone made giant black and white drawings/pages for the “walvis zine” which will be put together printed later on. We also drew memories of Ghent and its rivers on the map below.

Here are some photos for you to enjoy:

One year since confinement – making quaranzines

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown several calls for contributions for quaranzines have been launched. While the pandemic keeps spreading and a lot of us are still (or again) in some kind of lockdown situation, making zines as well as reading about other people’s experiences can bring some relief. I’ve made or contributed to several quaranzines myself, which you can find below. I’ve also gathered some resources for online zines, creative ideas, and mental health support.

 

Recent contributions to publications: books and zines

Apart from creating my own zines, I sometimes contribute drawings or writings to other zines (and sometimes books or other media). For compzines (compilation zines: zines which contain work by several people) contributions are vital and I feel happy and honoured to see my work printed in them.

So, more or less recently I contributed illustrations and essays to the following publications:

 

Brussels DIY tourist zine – ideas welcome!

You may know I like maps and making lists of interesting places on those maps. I often include maps inside my zines too. So I had an idea to make a DIY tourist zine for Brussels. I was inspired by a similar zine about Berlin I read a few years ago, by a Berlin mini-zine and a London vegan restaurants zine I read more recently and also by all the cool places I keep stumbling upon in Brussels. So I think Brussels really needs its own DIY tourist zine!

There already is a cool map for young travellers by Use-It, but for my zine I want a more DIY and activist-feminist focus. Think anarchist bookshops, community cafés, squats that have events, locations where you can find zines, volxkeukens/cheap vegan food places, feminist libraries, queer spaces, fat-postive picnic parks, alternative concert venues or theatres, places that offer free or affordable art/craft/printing workshops, and other DIY/activist projects that I can put on a map.

Do you know places I should absolutely mention? I already have quite a list, with great help from friends, but it’s possible something is still missing. (Some places I already have, include Le Space, RoSa, café Boom, Le Bunker, Poisson Sans Bicyclette, Barlok, 123, Judgy Vegan…). Let me know if you have any ideas!

Mail to: flapper_grrrl@yahoo.co.uk or mention your ideas in the comments.

Looking for: local zine scene reports?

Mailbox at the Salford Zine Library in Manchester

I’m really curious about local zine scenes anywhere in the world, what they are like, which kind of zines are written, who is writing them, how are those zines distributed, what is the response, are there zine fests / workshops / shops / libraries / distros or other projects, are they linked to subcultures / political movements / art scenes / certain spaces, a little bit of local zine herstory/history…

Please send me your local* zine scene reports and I will publish them on this blog! I’m especially interested in a focus on feminist / poc / queer / trans / grrrl / per – zines but anything is welcome!

Mail me at flapper_grrrl@yahoo.co.uk

*You can decide on how you define “local”. It can be a city/town, country, or other geographical region.

Next Same Heartbeats, a split zine?

Hey there!

Recently I’ve read a few split zines and I feel very tempted to make one myself. A split zine is a zine made together by two zine makers. Usually they each make half of the zine, with each a cover page at one end of the zine (turn the zine around and upside down and you can start reading the other half) and in the middle, their last pages meet. It looks like a fun and creative collaboration to me!

Some nice split zines I’ve read include: Rum-muffel by Isy Morgenmuffel and Steve Larder of Rumlad, Your Pretty Face is Going Straight to Hell #14 / Here. In My Head #7 by Miss Tukru and Catherine Elms and Pieces #8.5 a 24-hour split zine by a zine maker and her mother. Reading split zines is extra great too, because it’s 2 zines you’re reading! Double zine fun!

I’ve thought about making a split zine a few times before. Some embryonic plans were made in the past: Not Ladylike was supposed to be a split zine with Manuela of Bunnies On Strike & Manupalooza, but in the end I made it on my own, although it featured an essay by Manuela. Later my friend Kim and I planned a zine about dreams, but we never got further than a few pages, so it’s still under construction.

I’m not sure how to approach things now. Who’d like to make a split zine with me? And how would we make it together? Is it easier to do with someone living closeby so we can meet to write, draw, cut and paste the zine by hand? Or could we scan the zine and turn it into a pdf we can both print, no matter where we live? And how many pages should it be? Shall I make my side of the zine as an issue of Same Heartbeats or is it better to invent a new one-off zine? So many questions… but it’s nice to start thinking about it. I’m curious to hear about the experiences of split-zine-makers! Tell me your story if you ever made split zine!

Call for submissions: Making art, making media, making change

I received this message in my mailbox:

Making Art, Making Media, Making Change!

Call for Submissions for zines, comics and other queer-feminist material to build up a resource collection

Are you writing a zine, drawing a comic, or producing posters, flyers and other visual material with a queer-feminist approach? Would you like your materials to be accessible to young people, to get them thinking and to encourage them to become active themselves?

Survey about zines

I’m conducting a small research on zines, and motivations for making them. Would you like to participate? Please answer the questions and send them back to me, if possible by the end of May: flapper_grrrl(at)yahoo.co.uk. Eternal gratitude will be yours! 🙂

You can pass on the questionnaire to other zine makers too. That would be awesome! When it’s finished, I will mail you the research paper with the results of the survey.
Thanks!

• What is your name (or pseudonym or artist name)?
• What is your gender?
• Where do you live? (region or country)
• What is the name of your zine(s)?
• In which year did you make your first zine?
• How old were you then?
• Describe the zine(s) you make (sort, content, style, form…)?
• Do you make your zine(s) on your own or together with other people?
• How do you define zines?
• Why did you start making zines?
• If you still make zines, what are your motivations now?
• If you don’t make zines anymore, why did you stop?
• What does zine-making mean to you?
• Are you engaged in another kind of publishing, writing, art or activism too?
• Do you make use of web tools to make, distribute or promote your zine(s)?
• Anything you’d like to add?

Wanted: feministische drumster