News Blog @ Wellington City Libraries

How did you get into making zines?

I had contributed to a zine made by a friend of mine (it’s called The Collectivist) and I’d been meaning to make one of my own for a while but never really got around to it. And since I didn’t have a job or any commitments over summer, I decided to put some of my free time to good use.

Can you give us a short bio about you?

Uhh, there’s not much to tell. I’m a socially inept 18 year old, studying English and Political Science at Vic, and I love my cat.

We have read the zine and loved it. In your words could you please explain to us why you decided to make it and publish it?

I always get anxious that I’m taking myself too seriously when I talk about the zine like this, I’ll give it a try. I guess I wanted to explore the way in which we tell stories that seem so personal to us, but at the same time possess this universal quality. So I made the stories anonymous to give the interviewees space to open up and share more than they’d otherwise be comfortable with. And I also tried to find a middle ground between keeping the distinctive voice of each person, while removing a lot of the idiosyncrasies and specifics of the stories, to allow the reader to apply their own experiences or experiences they might be familiar with to each story. I don’t know whether I achieved that, but that was my intent.

Once it was out there, did you get any unexpected reactions?

Most of the people who have read it have been my friends, who have been universally supportive, but they’re sort of obliged to be. I’m not really sure whether to trust their opinions or not. It did make someone cry though, I felt pretty bad about that.

Blogging about romantic experiences can be so much fun; do you have a blog where you update your love life?

I don’t really have a love life to blog about. I have a Tumblr, but it’s mostly just pictures of Tilda Swinton and racist things Rick Santorum has said. Oh, and I have a blog just for Things We’re Not Going to Talk About.

Do you have plans to make any future zines?

I have most of the second issue finished. I just have to take a few more photos and then put everything together. It’s called Arguments I Meant to Finish but Didn’t.

What would you say to other zine makers?

I would say, “I have a dwindling social life and low self esteem, would you like to be my friend?”

Do you have any music/zines/blogs recommendations?

I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to make zines in Wellington and not have a deep respect for Incredibly Hot Sex With Hideous People. My favourite Zinefest finds are probably Family Photos – which is basically a series of photos made from photocopied hands with doodles drawn over them – Cupcake Monsters, and Neighbour Cats.I also adore This American Life podcast. I feel like everyone on the internet constantly raves about it and anything I say will end up detracting from how wonderful it is.

In terms of music, I mostly just listen to Billie Holiday and sob quietly to myself.

As part of the Central Library’s 20th Anniversary celebrations several noteworthy Wellingtonians were filmed talking about their favourite books – how they’ve been influenced by them, how they discovered them etc. – amongst the shelves. Here is the complete “Wellingtonians at the Library” playlist, also viewable along with all of our other videos on our Youtube channel.

And, if you haven’t seen them yet, here is our photoset on Flickr taken during the celebrations.

 Hi Sarah, how are you today? Thank you for giving us the opportunity to contact you and ask you questions about your work. I have found your zine ½ at the library and it caught my attention because of how mysterious the cover looks. I soon realised it is a really well made zine with a lot of content.

Hi Carla, thanks! I first came across zines when my housemate brought some home from Sticky Institute, a zine distro in Melbourne. I really liked them, so I started visiting Sticky a lot, and reading lots of zines, then I thought it would be fun to make my own.

Why do you think zines are important and why do people need to keep making them?

I love that zines are completely non-commercial; people just make them for the joy of it. The writing can be terrible and it doesn’t matter. So to me that’s important. Having this accessible medium where people can express whatever they want and there’s no censorship, no editor, no sponsorship or commercial stakeholders… it doesn’t need to attract advertising. A zine can never be colonised by advertising because then it would cease to be a zine. People need to keep making zines so that we can share stories and ideas that aren’t found elsewhere.

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We found Esther’s mini zine, Overheard-drawn recently at Vic, which was a very happy surprise! Obviously we think visiting our zine collection is the best way to get your zine fix, but second to that is randomly finding free zines around the place. Anyway, Carla recently spoke to Esther about the inspiration behind Overheard-drawn, so keep reading if you want to know more…

Hi Esther! Your zine is really cool, I like the fact that it feels a bit teen like and is really amusing. How did you come up with the idea of making “overheard-drawn”? Is it your first zine?

Oh thank you. I wanted it to be a bit fun and amusing. It is my first zine and the idea came from a previous studio project which i wanted to re-do. Using the zine format seemed a lot more appropriate for the subject matter of which I was drawing things I overheard and integrating them with the text of the quotes.

How and why did you choose the theme for “overheard-drawn”?

The idea started with eavesdropping and the random parts of sentences that you hear that are a lot of the time nonsense and amusing, and I wanted to illustrate those parts. With the zine I used the Victoria University’s overheard @ vic Facebook page to get the quotes and illustrated the ones that stood out to me, and half of them appeared in the next weeks Salient ‘overheard’ section as well. Using the quotes from Vic meant that I distributed the zine there too and when I get the time the 2nd edition will be put out there too! I’m planning to have a ‘do it yourself’ section in the next one so that people can have space to illustrate what they have ‘overheard’ and then leave for others to find. (more…)

Alex is the author of the zine Her Suit (see our review here). We had the chance recently to interview her about her zine and her life.

Hi Alex! Thank you so much for letting us interview you. After talking to you in person I noticed that you’ve got a very international accent, where do you come from originally?

My mum’s from Australia and my dad’s from Cyprus and I hold both passports. I don’t really feel like either place is home though. I’ve moved around a lot. I’ve lived in Sydney, Jakarta, Cairo, Singapore, Dunedin,  Melbourne and Wellington. I went to international schools and I think that gave me a bit of an American twang, too.

You mentioned you lived in Jakarta, how do you think this experience shaped you? Do you feel a special connection to Jakarta? Why?

Well, the expatriate community kept quite separate from the local community, so even though I was there for eight years I still feel like I never really got to know Jakarta. Living there made me very aware of my material privilege. There was a lot of poverty.

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An Interview with YOU…“You” is a free weekly paper zine. A copy has been published every week since November 2001.  “You” zine usually appears as an anonymous hand written letter sealed with staples in a paper bag. For me the experience of “you” is strangely intimate and uplifting.

 What was the triggering point for the conception of YOU?
There were a few different influences on how YOU developed.  YOU came into life in the weeks afters the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001.  The news was full of mysterious parcels appearing around the world which may or may not have contained anthrax.  The idea of mysterious parcels sparked something in my imagination.  I had been making zines since 1994 but at the time was making more wall based installation type visual art work using found objects.  I had been enjoying working with found photographs but felt uncomfortable with the idea of using other people’s stories without their permission.  I came to the idea of creating my own found photos by printing my own photos and throwing them on the floor for other people to find, this seemed impractical as they would probably just end up in the bin, so the idea morphed into a zine that could be given away for free and left in places safe to leave free things… The zine needed to be small as it would need to be made every week so the idea of a letter worked as it could be true to the size of a letter and not just feel like a tiny zine.  The first issue of YOU came out at the start of November 2001 and I was worried that it might be mistaken as a ‘threat’ and possible anthrax parcel and might get me in hot water, but there was no issue the first week so I followed it up with another zine the next week and by then I was hooked.  Interestingly YOU was interpreted as a threat at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga NSW in 2009 – many years after I thought that would be an issue.

YOU has been around for a nearly a decade now – what have been some of the highs and lows? – Or what have you found to be pivotal? Is there a type of evolution you can trace?
One of the first big developments was asking other people other than me to write for YOU.  It came about because my partner’s sister’s partner is French and I thought maybe putting out an issue of YOU in French would be fun.  So I wrote a letter and was just about to ask him to translate it to French for me when it struck me that it would be easier to just get him to write his own letter in French.  From then on I started asking interesting people I met if they would write a letter for the project.  I found that asking someone to write a letter is not too daunting for them, compared to asking them if they would write a poem or a short story, it is a format they are comfortable participating with.

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Alex is the author of  the zines: hetic lifestyle, thermodynamics and cupcakemonsters.  When we analyse the issue stats (which being good zine librarians we do from time to time), Alex’s zines always come out near the top. So even though we have interviewed Alex once before, it was a long long time ago so we thought we best do it again. 

Many zine makers start making zines because someone else encouraged them to do so, would you say this was true in your case? How did you get into zines? Were your first attempts similar to CupcakeMonsters?

The first proto-zines I made were little comics about skateboarding. My mum had an amzing collection of independent comics and small press publications from the 60s to the 90s and I spent hours reading them as a kid and then trying to make my own. They were all one-offs and I never really shared them with many people. My first attempt at a recognisable zine was with my girlfriend, in sixth form. It was called Print and was all about the music we were into. That was inspired by Blink, from A Low Hum, showing me some of his old zines from before the magazine went professional. I started Cupcakemonsters in seventh form and my other zines flowed on from that, with each encompassing different aspects of my interests that didn’t sit well within the music zine format.

CupcakeMonsters is an awesome name for a zine. Where does the title come from? What does it mean to you?

The name came about through a word association exercise. I’m not that personally attached to it to be honest- it’s just been around for so long that it’s impossible to change. I’m very cheerfully resigned to using it for the rest of my zine-life, though.

 I’ve noticed that your zines reflect a lot of thinking and planning. How long does it take you to put a zine together? Where and when do you usually make them? Do you have a studio in town? Do you personally find the process of making them enjoyable or a bit overwhelming?

It takes an age. Mostly in finding enough people I want to write about and then emailing back and forth, over a period of weeks to put the interviews together. The actual design and production is comparatively rapid. I’ve set the design in stone now, which simplifies things- I used to go nuts thinking of new things to do but now I always use hand cut layouts, typeset in Lucida Console on black backgrounds. It’s very nice and simple. I do manage to speed things up by doing almost all of the content myself. I enjoy all the work but I do find it quite intense. I’m a very driven person, though and I do think I thrive on stress more I’d like to admit.

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Wellington City Libraries has a monthly radio show on Wellington Access Radio. For a recent show (16th April), we interviewed Al Fraser, maker of beautiful taonga puoro (maori musical instruments) and multi-talented Wellington musician.

He’s a musician on the The Woolshed Sessions, Tahu, Reo and Rosy Tin Teacaddy and we chat about music, making music and making musical instruments…

Songs featured in the podcast came from these albums:
The Woolshed Sessions – “Our World”, Tahu – “Mataa”, plus “Te Take o Te Raku” and “Reo” by Reo

Listen to the interview here

Isobel writes the awesome and lovely zines – Things We Have in Common and I Like the Light in Here. They are both beautifully designed and packed full of interesting goodness that we think you should read right away!

How did you first get into zines? Did someone suggest you to make one?

I made my first zine at the first Zinefest event in Wellington. I spent all day at the zine making table and struggling with the photocopier and finally I had my first little zine, which I called Upset. And then I realised that zines were the perfect thing for doing writing AND drawing!

Photocopying zines can be tedious, hard work while making illustrations can be lots of fun… What parts of the zine making process do you like and dislike the most?

Yes, I think I would have to say that I’m not too good with the photocopier. I’m a bit better than when I first started but something always seems to get messed up! With some of my zines I’ve put them together the night before Zinefest so I don’t have time to do illustrations, but I like them! And I like interviewing people, and also getting glue on my fingers. I don’t like spending ages typing everything out on my typewriter though.

What do you like and dislike about zines in general? And what do you think about them as a medium?

I like that they’re so very versatile and that they can be used for so many things. I like that they’re self produced and compact. I like being able to draw and write, and it’s good that they’re cheap to produce, although I would like to start experimenting with nicer papers. It’s sometimes hard to make them interesting to other people; I think that I just have too much fun making them and don’t think about who will read them.

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Hayden produces the awesome zine comic ‘Book’ along with Matt Henley and James Rowsell. We have numbers one and three of Book in the zine library waiting eagerly for you to discover (sorry we have no idea what happened to two!). Thanks for answering our questions Hayden!

Describe an average day:

Since I’ve got a new job I wake up really early. My current job is pretty brainless; I just have to stick posters around the city. I only focus on getting them straight. Before the zine fest I was working very hard on Book, our latest zine. We really wanted to get the zine finished and it was hard work but lots of fun. Soon after the zine fest I started this new job, so I have been really tired for the last few weeks because I did not get a chance to rest in between. I tend to do some illustrations before going to work. To do so I have to wake up really early. But I think it is really important for me to draw, even if I need to wake up so early.

Describe your work:

I would say that it is mainly a satire or really crude humour. For example, the stuff in Book is a kind of cartoony and funny as well as a raw critique of our society.  But I think other people would be better than me at describing my work.

How did you first get into zines?

It was a bit accidental. James and I started to print out our first zine in an A5 format because it was cheaper. Then we sold it at the 2008 zine festival and it went really well. So I guess we just wanted to make a comic and distribute it in a cheap way and the result was a zine.

What do you like about zines?

I really like the fact that they are small and easy to carry. They are a great cheap form of showing your own work. The zines I like the best are the ones that manage to combine good illustrations and entertaining stories. Overall I tend to prefer zines with really nice art.

Is there anything you don’t like about zines as a medium?

Yes, I think many of them do not show a lot of thought about entertaining other people. It looks like they have been written as a personal diary and then turned it into a zine. The final product seems to be a compilation of personal stuff, interests and thoughts. I find this very boring and superficial.

How do you get inspiration for a zine?

I think I get inspiration from a basic reaction to things from popular culture. I find inspiration in everyday culture and I think most things in life are quite funny and ridiculous.  Let’s take for example Miss Green Consumer, a character from Book, who tries to make a difference through consumer’s choice. I personally find the idea that you can save the world by buying something eco-friendly quite ridiculous. Miss Green Consumer goes through a series of accidental adventures, it is actually really funny.

Tell us about some of your favorite zines…

Monsters by Ken Dahl is one of those zines that has a great story and really nice drawings. I highly recommend it.

- Carla