Sunday 7 July 2013

International Zine Month 2013: Days 3-7

International Zine Month is a yearly celebration of the wonderful world of zines. There is a list of daily challenges that people can join in with. You can find out more by reading my post here.

This has been a fabulous week. I have developed a compulsion to check the #IZM2013 feed on Twitter to find out what everyone else is up to. As a wannabe zine maker, I've enjoyed seeing how zine makers develop their ideas. Here's what I've been up this week:

Day Three: Zine Distro Appreciation Day! Order from a zine distro 

I ordered new zines from Marching Stars distro which you can see below:


MarziNam #1
Cherry Bomb #1
How I Quit School #1
Ella Funt (which has a beautiful fabric cover!) #1


I am a sucker for any UK-based distros that specialise in feminist per-zines so let me know if there are any others out there. Vampire Sushi have an excellent catalogue to choose from, including my personal favourites Buy Her Candy, Here. In My Head and Tragic Boffin. You can also buy a sticker of what looks like Riannah making a very rude sign with her middle fingers.

Day Four: Reread your favourite zines 


A bit of a cheat but I dug out my well thumbed copies of Stolen Sharpie Revolution and Whatcha Mean, What is a Zine? to help inspire me to create my own zine project.

Day Five: Learn a new zine skill 

Inspired by a guide in What's a Zine? I had a go at creating a one page zine. This is a zine that is made entirely from one piece of A4 people. No stapling or collating required! I thought this would be a good first zine to attempt but I'm finding it really hard to fit what I want to say in a small space. As you can tell from my template, I need to practise measuring out pages. And yes, I was using a ruler!



I also completed an extra credit assignment by reading Agua Nora, a zine written by a British paramedic who spent a month working on the American/Mexican border. It's a very dark read with dashes of light relief, such as including music playlists the crew sang along to whilst looking for border crosses needing assistance.

Day Six: Add your zine or update your lists on ZineWiki.org

*ahem* You have to actually make a zine before you can complete this challenge so I skipped this one.

My package from Marching Stars arrived in the post so I had a happy afternoon in the sun, reading my new zines.

Day Seven: Make some envelopes or postcards to get ready for the week 

This afternoon was spent hosting a family visit. Whilst Him Indoors is catching up on the tennis, I'm parked outside writing up this blog post. Weather dependent, I might retreat indoors to make some lovely postcards. Or finish reading some of the zines that were delivered yesterday.

There's also a 24 hour zine challenge. This challenge is exactly what it says - you have to create a zine, from start to finish, in 24 hours. It sounds quite easy but something that many zine creators find difficult. There are a wealth of 24 hour challenge zines available from distros and many of them open with a statement talking about how hard it is! Unfortunately most of my weekends in July are booked up so losing a night of sleep is not an option. However, I might twist the rules and spend up to 24 hours working on a zine during July. At least it might give me a post to get one down and send it out into the big wide world.





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