DIY feminist zines since 2001
I’ve had a long creative weekend, which I used to do a bunch of things including finishing the master copy of “This Bunny Kills Fascists“, a mini-zine featuring Chainsaw Bunny. You can see some of the work-in-progress in the photos above. It will be out verrrry soon!
Do you value feminist alternative print media? Do you think zines should live forever? Read on… 🙂
Support is the key in the zine community! ♥
Zines are a labour of love. They are meant to be non-profit. Zines should be accessible (that’s why I keep my prices low). But zinesters still have expenses that come with creating and distributing their publications. Glue sticks, pens, paper, printing costs, stamps, envelopes, travel expenses… are not free in this capitalist world – unfortunately.
I try to support other zinesters as much as I can. I mainly do this by buying (or trading for) their work and by shouting out about how great I think their zines are: f.e. in reviews. I also give zine workshops, encourage beginning zinesters, interview zine makers (in my zine Same Heartbeats), and donate my zines to zine libraries. I’ve had the pleasure and honour of readers (often other zinesters) sharing images of my zines (and snail mail) on their social media, giving me very nice feedback, distributing or selling my zines for me, and mentioning my zines in their articles or books, which all absolutely make my day. These are just some ideas.
Without a mutually-supportive zine community zines would only exist as deserted islands, which would be pretty sad. That’s why I’d like to show you some ways in which you can help to sustain zine projects and help to grow the zine scene.
Continue reading “Support your local (or less local) zinester”
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.
NEWS
Looking for local zine scene reports!EVENTS
Interesting zine-related events in or nearby Belgium soon:
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.
Hi, I’m a zinester and I’m also doing some research into zines.
At the moment I’m writing an article on zines about body norms and resistance. To get a variety of voices in my article, I’m looking for zinesters to participate in a survey. If you make zines which address issues such as abortion, age(ing)/ageism, body image and beauty standards, disability/ableism, gender/sexism, illness, LGBTQIA/phobia, menstruation, mental health, pregnancy/parenting, race/racism, sexuality, (sexual) violence, and other body-related identities/oppressions/issues or intersections of these, please get in touch!
The article will be published online on the website of Sophia, a support network for gender studies in Belgium. Last year, Sophia organised a conference called Unruly Bodies which invited researchers, activists, and artists to present their work on body norms and resistance in lectures, performances, exhibitions, and workshops. Soon, articles by those participants about their presentations will be published on their website. At the conference I set up a temporary zine library and zine workshop and this inspired me to find out more about zines talking about body-related issues.
I’m especially interested in ways zines can assist in resistance against body norms and oppression. If you would like to share your views, you can let me know and send me your answers to the following questions:
Survey:
I would be very grateful if you decide to participate in the questionnaire, and if you prefer, you don’t have to answer all of the questions. By answering the questions, I will assume you’re giving me permission to quote you for my article (unless you ask me not to). Please tell me if you prefer to be quoted anonymously. In case I would like to ask some additional questions or clarification of your answers, I will contact you again.
You can send your answers to: flapper_grrrl(at)yahoo.co.uk. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. [I’ve been having some problems with yahoo, if it doesn’t work to send mails to my yahoo address, you can post a comment on this blog and I’ll get back to you]
Thanks a lot for your participation!
More info about my own zines on my zine blog
Dear zinester,
I’m Nina, a zine maker based in Ghent in Belgium, and I’m doing DIY research into zines.
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urrently I’m writing an article about (per)zines as autobiographies that will hopefully get published in the Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies (Dutch and English-language journal for genderstudies). It will be written in English Dutch, but I consider making a translation to English afterwards. If it doesn’t get published in this journal, I’ll try to get it published elsewhere, maybe in one of my own zines.
For this article, I’m researching (per)zines themselves and I’d also like to ask other zine makers some questions. If you make zines, are you interested in helping me out by responding to my questionnaire?
I’m especially interested in why zinesters publish personal experiences, diary excerpts, autobiographical elements and life stories in their zines. Is the medium of zines suitable for autobiographies and why? In my research, I’m focusing on (feminist) (per)zines by women, girls and transpeople, but anyone can answer.
Here is the list of questions I’d like to ask zine makers:
I would be very grateful if you decide to participate in the questionnaire, and if you prefer, you don’t have to answer all of the questions. By answering the questions, I will assume you’re giving me permission to quote you for my article (unless you ask me not to). Please tell me if you prefer to be quoted anonymously. In case I would like to ask some additional questions or ask for clarification of your answers, I will contact you again.
You can send your answers to: flapper_grrrl@yahoo.co.uk. You can write them in Dutch or English. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. I prefer to have the answers by April 4th March 1st 2016, but no problem if you can’t make this deadline. I’m always interested in hearing/reading your responses and ideas!
Thanks a lot for your participation!
More info about my zines on my zine blog
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!
Wij zijn op zoek naar een derde huisgenote !
We hebben een kamer beschikbaar in een mooi huis in de stationsbuurt te Gent, in een rustige straat. Het is een groot en mooi in orde gebracht huis met open haard, veranda en grote tuin met tuinhuis in een rustige straat. De kamer die vrijkomt is ruim (4 x 4 m) met groot raam op eerste verdiep. Ook in de living kan je gerust nog een boekenkast en/of bureautje zetten. Huur is 415 euro, alles inbegrepen (elektriciteit, gas, water, internet).
Wij zijn 2 vrouwen van midden 30. We zijn rustige personen die creatief, milieubewust en geëngageerd zijn en zijn onder andere bezig met schrijven, tekenen, muziek, gezelschapsspelletjes, feminisme…
We vinden het leuk om af en toe samen te eten en/of koken of een film te kijken, maar spenderen ook veel tijd aan onze eigen projecten. De kuis- en tuintaken worden verdeeld onder de bewoners.
We zoeken een vriendelijke, rustige huisgenote.
(geen huisdieren toegelaten, er zijn wel veel katten in de straat 😉 )
Laat ons iets weten als je geïnteresseerd bent! Mail naar flapper_grrrl@yahoo.co.uk
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We’re looking for a third female room mate in our beautiful spacious house with a garden near the train station in Ghent. You can rent a room of 4 x 4 m with a big window, on the first floor, for 415 euro/month including electricity, water, gas, internet. We share the big living room (with some space for your furtniture if you want), kitchen, bathroom, veranda and garden.
We are 2 women of mid 30s. We are both quiet, creative and ecologically-minded and are interested in writing, drawing, music, board games, feminism… We enjoy eating/cooking together sometimes or watching a film. But we also spend a lot of time on our own projects. Cleaning and gardening tasks are equally divided between all room mates.
We’re looking for a quiet and friendly room mate. (No pets allowed, but there are lots of cats in the street ;-))
Mail to flapper_grrrl@yahoo.co.uk if you are interested!
Some news of the femicrust band Vagina Dentata:
Vagina Dentata= Lie on drums, Wendy and Nina on guitars and Crustina on vocals
Vagina Dentata played their first show in café Paradox in Leuven on July 29th 2013! You can see some live songs of the show on youtube.
Echo Zines 