Tag: zines

An Audience With…Esther From Overheard-Drawn

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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…

overheard coverHi 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. Continue reading “An Audience With…Esther From Overheard-Drawn” →

An Audience With… Alex Papanastasiou

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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.

Continue reading “An Audience With… Alex Papanastasiou” →

YOU in the spotlight

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IMG_0419An 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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An Audience With Alex Mitcalfe Wilson

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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. Ocelot Happy 1

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? cupcakemonster

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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An Audience With…Isobel Rose Cairns

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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!

ionlyclosedHow 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.

Continue reading “An Audience With…Isobel Rose Cairns” →

An Audience With…Jon Drypnz

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massage 3Jon is one of the artists behind the collaborative zine ‘Massage’ – an atmospheric urban art/graffiti zine. Find out more about Jon and his work on his website. Thanks for answering our questions Jon! 

Describe an average day:

A bus ride to Wadestown. Then cooking and delivering food. After this, you would find me in my studio drawing and painting. And if it is an extra lucky day I would probably be painting some walls with friends.

Describe your work:

You could maybe describe my work as ‘Post Graffiti Pop Surrealism, and I depict the notion of disevolved humans.  I feel like most humans are ignorant to the world around them, and lack simple self care. I believe this can be seen in most people, in yourself, I know I see it in myself.  It seems to be a universal human characteristic. This concept can also be perceived as a reflection of how I understand modern society. However, when you see my work, you may not instantly see this as an obvious regergitation of this understanding, because I want to poke a little bit of fun at our own demise.

massage

How did you first get into zines? 

It was a bit accidental. Our zine ‘Massage’ was based on creating a collective portfolio with some friends. It feels more like a collection of our work rather than a zine, which seems to be appealing to a wide audience at the moment.

What do you like about zines?

I guess like most people I like the fact that they are an easy and cheap way of sharing your personal ideas / intrests.

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

I think a vast majority of them can be very similar.

massage 6How do you get inspiration for a zine?

We just produce work without focusing too much on the outcome, the outcome is not our main goal. The process of creating content, that then might happen to be used, is what matters the most.

Tell us about some of our favorite zine…

I do not really have a particular one. I do like Ed Templeton’s work. It is the photography and social commentary ones in particular that usually grab my attention, or zines about strange cats, especially the ones done by Wellington locals, Heather and Zach.

Do you have any last words?

I would have a single little man floating cross-legged, knowing all that he surrounds. His expression would be of sombre recognition of his surroundings, but with a hint of realization that it would all turn to custard at any moment.  He would be a simple fellow with a head larger than it should be because he began to think he knew everything once, and even though he knew better now, it was like his mother used to say  ‘Do that any longer dear and it will stay like that’. 

He will then sit hovering over the places where he wished he could always be, next to streams and beaches on the signs that reminded him of where those places were. 

He would be human but simplified, he would be human but his humanity has left him, he would be human if only he could remember what it was he was meant to do, he would be human if only it was that simple.