zines @ Wellington City Libraries

Ayano Takeuchi is a really talented illustrator. She has made a cool zine about a character called Audrey and her doll . The adventures inside this zine are really beautiful and simple. What I love the most about this zine is the impressive cover illustration which is stamped in gold foil, it is so flash! Ayano has won many awards for her zine. Come to the library and check out her little zine, I am sure you will like it. Learn more about Anyano and her work here.

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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Kia ora zinesters,

Just in case you haven’t heard – stall-holder applications for Wellington Zinefest 2011 are now open!  You can find the registration form at http://wellingtonzinefest.blogspot.com/.  And let us know if you’re in a band, as we’re looking for some zine-making musicians to play at the after-party.

We have just processed a new batch of zines to add to our collection. Come and have a look!  There was one in particular that caught my fancy…

The Green Bean Zine

About a week ago I had the pleasure of picking up this delightful zine and I urge you to check it out. Currently we have 3 issues in our Zine Collection. The Green Bean is made by Katie Green, who is a freelance illustrator based in Bristol, UK.

Check out Katie’s website and blog… We think she is great.   www.katiegreen.co.uk / www.katiegreenbean.blogspot.com

I randomly found this zine on a table at Victoria University and I instantly felt lucky! This little zine is full of phrases overheard at work, school and other shared spaces. Every phrase is reinterpreted with a cool illustration. My favourite one  is “Lady Gaga is like a male David Bowie” and l love the illustration that shows David Bowie transforming into Lady Gaga. I think this zine is really cool because it is nice to look at, has a young-urban touch, is very NZ specific and really funny.

Her Suit is a zine about hair. From what I understand Alex Papanastasiou has used this zine as an opportunity to share and liberate her good and bad hair-related experiences. I really like this zine because it is so personal, I also love her blog. Alex tells us about the comments she has received about her hair, some of them are quite funny while others are quite heartbreaking. I think this zine is really valuable because it challenges our preconception of beauty. It’s in our zine collection now – come and check it out and see how you feel after reading it. (Carlita)

Word up – July is International Zine Month! International Zine Month is the brainchild of Alex Wrekk and friends as a celebration of all things zine-esque.  There are a whole heap of events going on throughout the month – including 24-hour zine challenge which is running throughout July.  If you’re too crazy-busy to take a whole day out of your life for frivilous art-making, Alex and co have a whole lot of other suggestions of ways to celebrate here.  As always, the Zine Team at WCL are totally keen to receive the final products of your 24-hour mania (or any other donations), news about your upcoming work, declations of love etc. 

International Zine Month blog

International Zine Month facebook page

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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Some Vanity Fair sass-bots can spot cool from a whole season away, but librarians are usually slower on the uptake.  In the spirit of staying on-trend, this month’s zine round-up is brought to you in the form of an arbitrary list of things I currently enjoy that maybe you will like too.

1.  Actually caring about stuff

Ambivalence is passé – just take a look at  these beautiful people who recently marched through the streets of Wellington for Queer the Night, a protest against street-violence against queers and a call to end all forms of discrimination against the queer community.  If that’s not enough to get your fists raised, have a read of Out of Order: Queer and Trans Youth Resistance! by Sarah Tea-Rex (ed.)  This little Canadian gem is probably my favourite queer-themed zine in our collection.  As well as being an introduction to queer and trans liberation, it has some really well written interviews and personal stories.

2. Zines as History

We see all different kinds of zines come into the collection, but the type of zines that I enjoy most are the ones that give windows of insight into the author’s personal history – like Ampersand After Ampersand no. 3 by Amanda.  This issue of Ampersand is about author’s experience with PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.)  In most forms of media, our history is created for us and taught to us,  and our autonomy to decide what is “historical,” “important” or “newsworthy” is appropriated from us.  Every zine we make, every story we tell about ourselves is a political act; our personal and collective experiences exist outside ourselves in forms that are more difficult to erase or silence.

3.  Wintry Adventures

Swaddle yourself in scarves and fight the urge to hibernate.  Fill a thermos with plunger coffee and find a good hill for mud-sliding.  Read the most recent issue of I am Camera (in Dunedin), in which our favourite Aussie zinester Vanessa Berry stomps around Dunedin in hopes of finding the last ghosts of the Flying Nun era.  While the success of her quest is limited, in Dunedin is an ode to treasure-hunting and cold-weather travelling – definitely a hot pastime for the cool months.

Miscellaneous goings-up: crock pots, spooning, ginger crunch

Will never make this list: Flannel sheets, sorry.