Hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day! I'm currently fighting off a sinus infection that is also making my ear feel weird... This Zine Revue I am highlighting three of my favorite ~subversive~ zines to draw attention to the ridiculous charges being brought against Des Revol for transporting anarchist zines. Read more about the case, and donate or otherwise support if you can here!
Title: The Past, Present and Future of Radical Pamphleteering
Category: History
This zine gives a really interesting overview of historically influential pamphlets from the 14th century onwards, then jumps forward to show how self-published print works influenced feminist movements in the 1970s and contemporary activist causes. It is an interesting examination that both considers the supersession of a lot of these functions by the internet/social media, but also makes a special case for why there are still some features of zines and pamphlets the internet doesn't have, and downfalls of the internet that print lacks.
Title: Trashzine
Category: Gaming
Vaida reminded me of this one this week! I remember some people objecting to the name as some sort of self-inflicted diss, which to be honest as an individual of punk experience kind of amused me. I think openly asserting the fact that you're not trying to be "good" in a games-industry standard way is actually an important element of self-esteem in a small games maker (or any other marginal, hobbyist sort of art, like zines), and this zine is a crazy time capsule of a bunch of perspectives on how and why to do that.
Title: Utopian Affirmations and The Why Cheap Art? Manifesto
Category: Art
These are lovely little riso printed pocket sized booklets that I picked up at York Zine Fair last year (which is an amazingly well done event!). The Why Cheap Art? Manifesto is an illustrated reprint of one of my favorite pieces of short art writing ever, and Utopian Affirmations provides a series of phrases and prompts to get you thinking about and towards the better world of the future. I love these, like a little afternoon snack to keep you going, artistically and philosophically.
And just like that, it's the end of January! Here are some more zines I've been reading:
Title: Work
Category: Politics
A well-structured pamphlet that advances a critique of work and a series of escalating direct action strategies workers can use to resist exploitation in the workplace. I picked this up knowing I would agree with its general idea, but found the practical side of what to do about these issues really clear-eyed; it also doesn't fall into the quagmires other left or anti-work critiques do when faced with self employment, sex work, unpaid reproductive labor, unemployed people etc. These ideas are always what most get my gears spinning thinking of how tantalizingly close a better world can be, and I feel the powerful solidarity of all people slacking off at work to do the things they actually care about. I was happy to see the essay Wageless Life get a shoutout, which I also enjoyed when I read it. (Not to be confused with the book of the same title, which I had more complicated thoughts about...)
Title: 5 Prose Fictions For A.I.R. - To be read, but not out loud...
Category: Fiction
I really liked Lucy Lippard's novel when it was republished a few years ago, and before that her curatorial and academic work on Conceptual Art was super influential on me. This is a recreation of a pamphlet from 1976 featuring copied drafts of some short prose pieces, but the conceptual eye for appropriation and recombination, of text from horoscopes, descriptions of scientific phenomena, nature imagery and first person narration with subtly unfolding scenes or character details that also made I see/You mean really interesting is all here. I enjoyed NY Times IV and First Fables of Hysteria the most.
Happy new year! Here's a roundup of zines I got at Edinburgh Zine Fair:
Title: They killed us all and there is no more traffic
Category: Politics
I enjoyed Folly Problem's other zine, so I was excited to see them at the zine fair and tell them so, plus pick up a new zine so pertinent to my interests. What is represented by the dystopia depicted in car commercials, where they glide eternally through an apparently depopulated Earth? This zine ponders this question in lovely riso. Honestly this one is hard to classify but I put it as "politics" because if I had to make a single-issue political party it'd be to outlaw car commercials and army commercials at the cinema, because I hate them. I hope this zine makes your stupid car cry.
Title: Evolution of Dexterity
Category: Technology
A zine with a really interesting narrow vertical format that depicts icons for a variety of digital cursor tasks, press, drop, pinch, click, scroll, etc. Inspired by the Whole Earth Catalog, it explores how our relationship to technologies and tools are shaped by our hands and common gestures.
Title: Take on Me (the song zine)
Author: Nora Yons
Category: Music
A cute series of bold and colorful UFO related illustrations (which was what caught my attention), set to the lyrics of the song Take on Me. It folds out into a poster!
Title: Stickers on Lamp Posts and Nariart's Halloween Playlist
Category: Activism & Music
A mini and a micro-mini zine. The first is a heartfelt poem about the dispiriting process of noticing and removing terfy/conservative party stickers in an area when no one else seems to care... I've also been there, but on the bright side a lot of people seem to give up easily after a few removals, and now I see more big-breasted anime girl stickers than anything (lol). The other is a Halloween themed playlist that ranges from Kesha to Zetsubou Billy to Screamin' Jay Hawkins. I think if we have to listen to the same 20-some Christmas songs in every public place for like 3 months of the year, it should be preceded by a Halloween themed 3 months for sure.
Title: The Boreal Crown and the Downfall of Civilization
Category: Politics (though this doesn't feel right; maybe I should make a Utopian category)
A thought-provoking and very useful set of essays that serve as an introduction to the utopian thought of Charles Fourier, and an incitement to imaginatively participate in his vision. A really useful zine, since Fourier's utopian writings, which had an impact on many contemporaneous marxist and anarchist thinkers, have long been out of print or hard to find in english.
Title: Astral Projection for the Modern Business
Category: Work
A mysterious and appealing riso zine in a unique skinny rectangle type format. I knew I had to pick this one up because I've been very into parody or satire for estranging the accepted absurdities of work lately. Work from home becoming much more of a norm in response to the COVID-19 pandemic kind of forces the question of the extent to which a lot of contemporary work requires presence versus simply using it as a means of control, or, on the other hand, demands splitting your knowledge and skills from feeble human limitations of the body. This zine combines evocative language somewhere between a guide to witchcraft and a timeshare brochure with savvy appropriations of public domain art to push the fantasies of worker compliance and productivity represented by the increasingly abstract, financialized economy to weird and hilarious extremes.