Nancy is a new queer zine by Alex Creep dedicated 'to all the girly gay boys out there.' A wonderful mix of serious essays, humourous stories and playful illustrations, we hope Issue Two is on its way!
Tell us something about yourself and why you thought it was important to produce Nancy?
My name's Alex and I live and work in London and my hobbies include DJing, watching TV and drawing! In my teen years I lived in Eastbourne; I was very into music and was constantly attending gigs in Brighton – which was when I first experienced zines. After a gig, I was approached by a girl and a guy who were selling their music zines outside and I bought them both. I became good friends with the girl, Beth and her sister Ruth and ended up collaborating on the third issue of their fanzine (called Sugar Babylon #3 – which can be found in the Women's Library if you’re interested!).
It was a great experience – getting to meet and interview our favourite bands and then creating this thing that we could then share with like-minded people – it was especially important at the time because the music press generally weren’t as interested in the girl fronted/riot grrrl related bands that we wanted to read about. It was also a gateway into meeting new people, especially through selling it at Ladyfest London 2001; my closest friends that I have today I would say were a direct result of the contacts I made through making that zine!
I'd say the shift in zines from that time to now is away from music and more towards personal topics. The internet has completely changed the way we can find people with the same music taste and share it, but talking about your sexuality or gender is something that you don't do in that same way! It’s kind of precious and personal and it’s nice to be able to contain your thoughts in a packaged up printed format – like a small diary or letter to a friend. I wanted to produce Nancy because I wasn't seeing myself in any of the zines produced by other queer guys, in the gay press or generally in the world! My tastes are a bit more, what would typically classed as, girly and I was near exhaustion being bombarded with heteronormative/hyper-masculine/over-sexualised images and ideologies everywhere I looked. I wanted to create something that was almost the antithesis of that in fact – not for contrariness sake but because I needed it and I think there must be others like me - it’s actually been quite cathartic putting it out there if I’m honest!
It was also important to me for the zine to be jargon free, personal, funny (in parts) and easy to relate to! I find the mountain of academia surrounding gender identity and queer theory really daunting and I think that's true for lots of people. I really love hearing about people’s individual situations and stories in their own words. I know what it's like to believe that everything you feel and everything you think is not alright and then subsequently, how reassuring it can be to finally read it or see it somewhere; especially when it's personal rather than theoretical. I'm hoping in the long term that Nancy will encourage at least some femme men to embrace their girliness and not to be scared of it!
What is the significance of popular culture in your zine - both visually as well as in the choice of subjects you cover?
Alternative music/culture is probably my first and truest love but the honest truth is that I love pop culture! But I guess, it's also to do with making the zine easy to read and identify with. For example, everybody thinks there’s a plethora of gay characters on TV and in films these days but actually, if you actually think about it; there’s a tiny handful of positive strong effeminate male characters – most gay men characters are depicted as ‘straight acting’ in an attempt to normalise them and make them more palatable, which is, I think, a reflection on mainstream attitudes.
As an isolated gay teen, I was desperate to see myself represented in the TV and films I was watching. There's no way you could be brave enough to buy a glossy gay magazine or gay book for fear of being spotted or discovered. It can be strangely validating and encouraging to see someone at least nearish to yourself in mainstream culture – especially if that person is confident, successful and hopeful when you're not yet in that position. I guess that's still with me, even as a grown up gay but luckily I do get the encouragement and support I need from the people around me now!
In terms of the way I put the zine together visually, I'm sort of a perfectionist/worry-wart and so I was tweaking and adding to it even after I gave copies to my friends for feedback. Laying it all out on the computer rather than using the cut-and-paste fit the way I work better! It probably would have taken me months of extra work every time I picked out a typo and something that didn't make sense and having to start that page from scratch! I know zines are meant to be rough around the edges and there are still a few typos in Nancy which is as close to rough as I could comfortably get! Ha! My first zine I did using cut-and-paste and I remember the heartbreak of seeing that some of the elements had gotten chewed up in the machine while it was being duplicated and so some of the copies had half an interview missing; it's obviously left a deep scar too!
How do you see your zine operating in relationship to the 'Creep' blog?
Like I said, my first love is music – I live, breathe and eat it (- it's delicious ha!) and so the blog is my way of sharing the music I love in the hope that other people will end up loving it too. In terms of how the Nancy relates to it, it was great being able to make something as static as a zine come to life a bit with YouTube videos and extra information related to what I was talking about online – like a bonus disc on a DVD! Plus, I'd say that for me, my community/friends are intrinsically linked through our love of music.
Is there a zine you would recommend that we should all be reading? And please tell us why?
I’m lucky to have lots of talented friends who’ve created amazing zines! My favourite has to be Pamzine created by my friends The Savages – although it was produced a while ago and it's still an amazing collection – funny, smart, great music and pretty – I’ve been told if you drop them an email (pamzine [AT] yahoo.co.uk ) they might be able to sort you out with a copy/copies and I can’t recommend it enough! They were my original link through Ladyfest into the friends and community I'm part of now and we coincidentally covered a lot of similar bands in our zines – but their writing was far superior to my then teenage babblings in Sugar Babylon! Also, Unskinny Bop, the club that I DJ at monthly, has a great zine that's available as a PDF to download from the website here (http://www.unskinnybop.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/zine.html). It was produced by the people behind Pamzine and also Charlotte Cooper who I'm a fan/friend (frand? Ha) of! Charlotte has produced so many zines over many decades that I actually can't claim to have read them all, but the ones I have read are great – there's a listing on her website and a selection are available to download on bountiful resource, The Queer Zine Archive Project!
This is getting a bit Oscar-acceptance-speech-long but just a couple more I need to give a shout out to - Future Nature zine created by the industriously creative Andrew Milk is a great read and visually stunning and Ricochet! Ricochet! Fanzine is also brilliant and R! R! are kindly distro-ing my zine!
I'm also desperate to hear about zines written by gay guys about girliness or femininity so if people know of any please do get in touch! Also, I'm looking for contributors for the next issue – please drop me an email!
Creepclub (at) gmail (dot) com
xx
Matt Sidebottom is producer of Snap - a short story and literature zine out of Manchester, UK. Here he talks about his time at University, literary magazines and the role for print. Oh, and he wants you to know that he is travelling across America between February and April 2012 and is looking for new writers and project collaborators.
Tell us a little something about yourself and why you decided to publish a zine called 'Snap'?
Hi, my name’s Matt Sidebottom and in my spare time I’m the editor and art director of SNAP, a short story and literature zine. I studied Design and Art Direction in Manchester. While I was there, I found myself surrounded by a lot of artists, photographers and designers who were very interested in books and zines. Everybody was making little one-offs for their projects. I made a few at the time, but my work focused on Pulp, the student magazine I art directed and designed. I loved doing it, and got us nominated for a Guardian Student Media Award. After I left university I didn’t really have another output like it, but I was constantly looking around for one, but never finding another opportunity like it.
But about 9 months ago me and my little brother went to London. He had a university interview, so I had a few hours to kill. I went to The Tate Modern and saw the Van Doesburg exhibition. The whole exhibition was great, but what got me was this little exhibition case focusing on publications of the time. There was a copy of Merz. Reading the information explaining the contents in the case, I realised that this legendary publication was only ever produced in extremely limited runs. It was then I decided to put together SNAP. It was only three weeks later before SNAP Zero was released.
Where do you see 'Snap' sitting in relationship to traditional literary 'little magazines'?
I’m not really sure, to be honest. I know of them, such as McSweeney’s and Popshot, but I haven’t picked them up. The zines and magazines that I read and that inspire me are totally different from what I produce. The only exception is The Ride, which is a huge influence on SNAP. Its short stories are easy to digest in one sitting, which was the aim of SNAP. Saying this, I am completely surrounded by books. I have hundreds.
The magazines I do read, such as Esquire, Dazed and Confused, and Little White Lies have all interestingly taken to running literature sections, Esquire having a regular short story and Dazed have had a literature review section in the back. I like to think this has been influenced by its readership becoming more interested in reading fiction.
'Snap' also has an online presence. How do you see print zines and digital spaces operating in self-publishing?
SNAP’s online presence is constantly evolving. At the moment, SNAP is a print zine, with no true plans for the final product to go completely online. I like actually putting together and producing final copies to hold, and I know that my audience likes this too. But this might change, if the right platform comes along. I’ve dabbled with Issuu for other projects (see We’re Growing Up, Wearing Shirts, Getting Haircuts) but I don’t think it’s the medium for SNAP.
I’m really interested in making a more immersive project, using technology to create a short story based, multimedia ‘zine’ project. We’ll see where this will get us in the future. I do feel like moving online will be the way forward. I just don’t know how to quite yet.
Is there a zine you would recommend us to read? And, please tell us why.
I’ve three, actually. There’s Tourist Magazine, an online only magazine. It’s a hybrid of a website and a magazine. The content is always interesting. The page has been beautifully designed throughout all of its incarnations, and definitely worth a look, if just to see how an online only ‘zine’ can succeed. Then there’s the work of Mandi Goodier. She’s got loads of brilliant zines, and they’ve been a huge source of inspiration for SNAP. She’s helped me out a lot over the last 9 months, and has contributed stories and illustrations to both issues. Finally,Pull Yourself Together is simply brilliant. A music zine in its truest form, I always pick it up when I see it. It’s got great writers, and with Teacake Design art directing it, it always looks great.
The current issue of SNAP has just been released.
Find it at http://snapzine.bigcartel.com/
I'm always looking for new writers, too. Anybody interested in writing for SNAP, please contact me at, hello@mattsidebottom.com
Mike Nicholson is an illustrator, educator, comic artist, zine producer and publisher of Ensixteen Editions. Here he talks about his publications, teaching and small press fairs.
Please tell us something about Ensixteen Editions Imprint and your work as a comic artist.
I came to the point of creating my own books/comics/zines after parallel careers as illustrator (clients like Penguin Books, Time Out, Guardian Weekend) and storyboard artist (lots of work within British Comedy – primarily TV and some film – 'The League of Gentlemen', 'The Armando Iannucci Shows' etc.) This was around 1999, and I first exhibited the work at the London Artists' Book Fair at the Barbican in 2000. At this point I used the name 'Stokey Comics' – 'Ensixteen Editions' came later with the 'bio auto graphic' series (both draw from my location in Stoke Newington, London N16).
One factor, above all else, tipped me over into wanting or needing to make these things: my earliest storyboarding experiences within advertising. Though ridiculously lucrative in comparison to editorial illustration, the work became very demoralizing in its inanity over a few years. (Find anything the magnificent Bill Hicks ever said about advertising on Youtube and you’ll get a snapshot of how I grew to feel about it all.) I needed more than anything to vent some steam (I’d also always aspired to write), and the first A4 size comics I made (benefiting from the excellent quality of simple laser-copying) were almost incomprehensibly dense and self-referential. This vast brain-fart, lasting about six issues, starred a mouthpiece alter-ego in the shape of 'Ron', an antic little character that had stumbled from my subconscious back at school.
Ironically, the years spent storyboarding reshaped the way I worked, taking me from my colour pencil illustration style to a stripped-down black ink line on white. I liked the hard choices its’ minimalism forced me to make on the page, and –being from the pre-Mac generation of Art School graduates, trained in what you might call a 'traditional' process of (often observational) drawing – it was like coming home.
I still only use the computer as a means of disseminating the work, not in any way as a means to create the images themselves. I plan/plot pretty thoroughly – what will come where as the pages progress – in thumbnails, then move to original artwork in pencil. Inks follow, and the only real margin for spontaneity in the final making is in the writing – I'll have a broad idea of what the text will say on a given page, what it will contribute to the overall theme of the narrative, but the actual wording is only phrased as I write it down. What I come up with in the moment can suddenly introduce surprises that are exactly what's needed.
Illustration is often an interpretation of a text that's not your own, storyboarding a way to visualize the imagination of the director. The former is an entirely honourable tradition/craft that I am proud to be a part of, the latter at least in theory an interesting practical and intellectual challenge. . . But neither allowed my own voice to speak. Making my first issues in my late 30s, I think I was ready to say what I needed to say. The medium seemed a good fit, I just needed to work at the message...
How did your comic zine 'Bio Auto Graphic' (2004 - ) come about and what is it about an autobiographical narrative that you find so appealing?
I switched to a more forthright way of addressing the reader – replacing a character with myself – after a friend, Charlie Higson (writer, comic, telly guy), threw down a gauntlet: Why didn’t I tell my own stories in my own voice, through something more autobiographical? The idea crawled under my skin and stayed there. While it was obviously daunting to step into the shadow of luminaries such as Crumb, Pekar and Eddie Campbell. . . I have since grown to relish it.
The series – which the author Phil Rickman has called ‘the new social journalism’ (a definition I liked) – shifts in tone as I see fit, and, while I try new stylistic details as I go (perhaps collage or photography), the bedrock remains the drawing. Each edition – or short arc within the bigger series – is usually driven by a specific theme, always hosted by my avatar, addressing the reader directly. Themes can be as simplistic as a season of the year, or as specific as discussion of the relationship between the US and UK in our shared time of war. Certain motifs have recurred; identity, the individual and their community, the oppression of political or religious systems, the toxic values of ‘celebrity’ culture. . .
I finally feel qualified to suggest the pattern I think I see beneath the world and how we live in it. I’m setting out my stall at a time when I feel anxious that humans are forgetting their humanity and as a society our moral compass is spinning.In a sense, the series is my belief system as a part-work.
And it's also occasionally funny.
You have been involved in many small press fairs over the years. Do you think the UK comic/zine community has changed any and, if so, in what ways?
As mentioned above, my experiences only date back to the turn of the millennium. Prior to that my appreciation of what scene there was – any sense of a 'community' making and consuming small press/strip/zine work – is minimal. I suspect you’d find my comic reading tastes rather mainstream (the big US imprints, characters and genres), and I'm not by nature one to be drawn to overtly proselytizing or agit prop material. I'm delighted that people use the medium to channel their own passionately-held beliefs – as a means to 'shout' about what drives their hearts. I just don't necessarily choose to read the results. I didn't feel that zines I happened upon with 'challenging', anarchic ideals at their root had much relevance for me. It all looked a bit shrill.
Or is that just the arrogance of the male, white, heterosexual for you, perhaps? Actually, more likely the voice of the only child who always avoided groups, clubs, movements, inward-facing communities, and distrusted agendas which seem rather too strident.
I find myself more emotionally drawn to material that speaks rather than shouts, if that makes sense. This doesn't mean I'm not interested in people (read my stuff and you’d see that’s not the case at all) – I just realized quite some time ago I don't necessarily feel like they do. The role of the observer is one that's very important to these books, yet the clarity that comes with getting older - knowing what's really important to you – has finally made me want to comment on what I see. This is propaganda from a community of one. And, if some random book fair punter with whom I fall into conversation buys into it by taking an issue – well, that's a bonus.
Interestingly, when I began to put this heartfelt stuff down, in a format that people apparently called 'zine' (I’m happy to call them that, though I’m actually not sure what they are), there was definitely a snobbery from certain fellow exhibitors at the book fairs. The low production values (I'm less interested in fine materials than I am that the work is just accessible) I think offended those strongly involved in the traditions of fine binding and other crafts of making.
Of course, since then there's been an explosion of book arts activity and events and it's become much more common to see comics and zines for sale – it's a much broader church. Ultimately, I think I'd still probably choose to exhibit at these more eclectic events rather than 'zine-specific' ones. I like the diversity and wouldn't want to be drowned out in a sea of superficially similar work.
Along with my illustration and storyboarding, making my books – the zines – has involved me in notions of narrative, the way that a thing of sequential parts (pages read and turned) can come to contain a greater, cumulative idea when appreciated as a whole. I often refer to notions of storytelling within my work with BA Graphics students; broadly (in getting them to consider their creative process as a narrative), but also much more specifically (when we address their growing interest in book arts and zine-making through workshops).
Are comics any more popular nowadays with students? There's a passive enjoyment of computer gaming culture and Manga, but interestingly there’s a ground-swell of narrative activity, too. While, until recently, I can't say the students I meet expressed much awareness of gender or any other politics (though our Eton-clone Coalition Government has unwittingly triggered a real sea change in that), there’s definitely a real surge of interest in the means to transmit a message. Where they once visited as observers, they now take tables themselves at book fairs and zine events and sell their simply-made work at affordable prices. Good for them.
Please Recommend a comic of a zine which we should all be reading and tell us why.
As you may have guessed from the above, I speak from a point of relative ignorance when looking at what you might term the 'world of zines' (my reading material and storytelling inspirations come just as much from novels, comedy, serial television and the news media). However, I collect – and am always captivated by – the book work of John Bently, an English book artist whose 'Liver and Lights Scriptorium' imprint is based in Brixton. This freewheeling series embraces very personal expression in text and image, as well as music and film content. It has a very human heart to it, the work, and – despite John's impeccable punk history – rarely shouts. It talks straight, looks you in the eye, occasionally whispers and can even sigh. See www.liverandlights.co.uk for more.
Bastian Fox Phelan is creator of Ladybeard and lives in NSW, Australia. Here they write about the perzine and the importance of zine fairs.
Please tell us a little something about your recent perzine, Ladybeard, and how it came about.
Ladybeard is a zine about how I decided to grow my beard. I am a person that was assigned female at birth, although these days I identify as trans. Thanks to my genetics I have the ability to grow a sweet moustache and beard, but for many years I removed my facial hair and hid the fact that I could grow a beard. Then I moved cities and decided to grow it out and see what it felt like. And my whole life changed. So I wrote a zine about being a bearded gender-variant woman. After great deal of gender questioning my identity shifted again and I started to identify as transmasculine. So I wrote another zine. The Ladybeard zines are personal stories about surviving bullying and heteronormativity but they also present a critique of the gender binary and medicalisation of difference and a celebration of diversity.
What has your zine allowed you to do that other forms of artistic or written practices may not of?
Ladybeard covers a lot of taboo topics: bearded female bodies, queerness, transness, intersex bodies, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, gender questioning, shame, breaking sex & gender binaries, the way medicine reflects social values rather than being objective and scientific. There's a lot of hostility towards bearded women and anyone who doesn't fit neatly into the categories M or F. Writing my zine allowed me to speak from a point of view that is rarely heard and acknowledged. It allowed me to share and connect with other people who have similar experiences of their bodies, and with a whole lot more people who have been moved by my story. Because of the highly personal nature of my writing, zines are an excellent format for me. I love being able to slip my family a copy of my zine after dinner, post a few to a zine maker overseas, have piles of them sitting on my desk when friends come to visit. And because there are no restrictions on my zine making practice (apart from time & money) I get to be the ultimate authority on form & content, and that's very empowering. What other plans do you have for zines and/or any plans for extending the discussions emerging out of Ladybeard into other projects?
I've been wanting to write another Adventure Time zine - it's a zine about how to have fun in everyday life. I plan to make a radical trans health care zine to give to doctors so they can think about how they interact with trans folk and talk about trans bodies and identities. I want to encourage medical reform where doctors talk about and treat the body part rather than the sex or gender commonly associated with the body part, ie. cervical health rather than women's health, prostate health rather than men's health. I'm also thinking about the next Ladybeard and how I want to go into more detail about PCOS & intersex and the privileging of hair in transmasculine communities. I want to start conversations about the potential for a radical PCOS movement that questions how doctors 'treat' people with PCOS. I also think that hair and size are similar in terms of the experience of oppression and medicalisation of 'hirsutism' and 'obesity.' I've been inspired by fat-positive and body-positive activism so I'd love to start discussions with people about hair-positive activism. I also want to collaborate with a person from the United States who makes a zine called Femme a Barbe.You are also involved in a broader zine community. How important do you feel zine fairs/symposia are to fanzine producers in Australia?
Zine makers in Australia tend to keep in contact about zine fairs around the country and I know people who are willing to travel long distances for the pleasure of sitting behind a table for five hours. A lot of folks travel to Newcastle for the zine fair at This Is Not Art festival. The mailing list correspondence from Sticky zine shop is a good place to find out about interstate zine fairs, and Bird in the Hand zine shop/distro have a well-maintained blog. At a lot of zine fairs, especially ones that are part of a larger festival, such as Format Festival in Adelaide, there will be workshops and related events that zine makers put on. But we don't really have zine symposiums like in Portland. Zine fairs in Australia are usually one day only with a few workshops on the side, rather than a big zine-centric event that goes for a few days. I was lucky enough to get myself to San Francisco Zine Fest and Portland Zine Symposium earlier this year. I like Australian zine fairs more but maybe that's just because I get to see a bunch of really awesome folks I don't get to see very often.
Sina Evil is a comic artist and creator of BoyCrazyBoy, Atomic Love and the forthcoming zine Magic Urbanism. His work has also appeared in the zines Holy Titclamps and Boy Trouble.Please tell us a little something about your zine and how 'politics' plays a role. I have been making zines, comics and artwork since I was 16 years old. When I started making zines I had just come out as gay, I felt disconnected and alienated by my surroundings - I was going to a very homophobic all boys' school, and in the wider culture - in books, movies, magazines - I did not feel spoken to or represented - so making comics and zines was a way of finding my own voice and talking about intertwined personal and political issues that mattered to me and which I hoped mattered to other people - this connection with other people was and is also important - and political - It was and is, also, a way of trying to find a community of likeminded people, a group of friends.Who or what has inspired or influenced your drawing style? My drawing style has been inspired and influenced by many different cartoonists - both mainstream and alternative - as well as by looking at the work of "fine" artists that I admired. Marvel and DC Comics were early influences generally. Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, and Trina Robbins, were also important influences in terms of the more alternative comics. Queer cartoonists like the ones involved in the anthology BOY TROUBLE - people like Robert Kirby, Jon Macy, Mike Fahy, and Anonymous Boy - have all been - and continue to be - an influence on me.In what ways are queerzines/comics going through a renaissance? Queer comics seemed to slow down a few years ago but lately there are interesting people doing exciting new things - Carrie McNinch's "You Don't Get There From Here", Justin Hall's "Glamazonia", Dave Davenport's "Hard To Swallow", Steve MacIsaac's "Shirtlifter", Brian Anderson's "So Super Duper", Rick Worley's "Waste of Time", Rene Capone's "Hedgehog Boy", and Ned Hugar's amazing new book "Urban Buzz". But also older queer cartoonists who were putting comics out in the early 90s, and then seemed to take a break from it, are coming back with amazing new work. Jon Macy's graphic novel "Teleny and Camille" is an adaptation of an erotic novel by Oscar Wilde and his circle, and is incredible, and so is Jon's new supernatural, gay erotic series "Fearful Hunter" about werewolves and druids. Robert Kirby has started putting out an anthology of queer comics titled "Three"; the second issue, out soon, will have a story about how I lost my virginity, written by me and drawn by Jon Macy.How does your current PhD research inform or fit into your zine, if at all? Doing my PhD on queer comics has been an incredible experience for me in terms of thinking about why people make queer comics and what they mean both personally and on a wider social and political level, and having talked to and interviewed so many amazing queer cartoonists has given me a renewed passion and desire to do comics again more actively.
DIY or Don't We? is produced by Nicki Sabalu from Olympia, Washington, USA. Here is what she had to say about her zine,'community', and the DIY spirit.Please tell us a little about yourself and how 'DIY or Don't We?' came about?
The zine is a compilation rooted in collaboration, so much love and acknowledgment goes to all of the wonderful folks who have shared their stories. It came about in hopes of encouraging communication about how do-it-yourself ethics can be incorporated into the ways we work together as friends, family, collectives and communities. "Do-it-yourself" can seem like a solitary term. Sometimes that's okay, because it can be important to have time and space to do truly do things on our own. But sometimes it's important to collaborate on projects, work through tough situations with others, help nourish people we care about, and have fun together! That's where the "or don't we?" part comes in. The zine is intended to be an ongoing project, with two issues to date. The third issue, which should hopefully be printed next summer, will be about food and community.
In your opinion what defines a 'community' and a 'DIY' spirit?
A big reason for making this zine is that there isn't necessarily an all-encompassing definition of community, and it can mean so many things to different people. I was hoping that this zine could be a way for folks to share stories that explore what community means to them because it can exist in so many contexts. I don't think I have a concrete definition of community myself, but I think it can have a lot to do with things that are shared: interests, locations, identities. I also think that the strength of a community has much to do with working together – through good times and rough times – to address everyone's needs to the best of both individual and collective abilities. I think that a DIY spirit might be something that can emerge when DIY ethics are incorporated into many different aspects of our lives; when there's something more to it than just having hobbies. Maybe it's the passion that keeps us doing things ourselves, even though sometimes it would be much easier to rely on someone or something else to do them for us. DIY ethics and skill-sharing have been important to me because they can help empower people in ways that make us less reliant on corporations and governments, and hopefully more in tune with ourselves and conscious of the world around us.
With the publication of your zine, in what ways is it helping to foster another form of community?
By encouraging communication, I hope! Ideally, the zine is a way for folks to share stories, learn from each other, and maybe make new friends.
What fanzine would you recommend for us to read and why?
Oh, gosh. Decisions like these are tough for me, so I made a little pile of favorites, closed my eyes, and reached into the middle of it. My fingers have chosen the wonderful zine "Seeking Truth" by my friend Charlie Daugherty. It's a comic zine about an inquisitive character who is searching for their lost friend, Truth.
Ben Hutchings is a comic artist and creator of 'You Stink & I Don't' and more recently 'Comic of Smallness'. He talks to us about his work and the Melbourne zine scene.
Tell us a little about yourself and how your zine 'You Stink & I Don't' came about.
I've been into drawing and reading comics since I was ten and discovered British comics like Beano and Buster. In high school I began photocopying my own comics at school with no idea anybody else did the same thing. They very quickly became ruder and angry over the years (as I did), but they kept a cute, absurd tone which I like more than material that is serious and dark. Finally, I made issue #1 in '93, which featured strips about childhood friends, misogyny (represented as a parody of Archie), a long adventure about a body-builder named Mr. Sexxo (all written in rhyme) and an 'offensive' comic about Jesus doing all kinds of rude things with his bum. This is still the tone of the comic - mean but funny stabs at beliefs and attitudes and lots of rhyming and wordplay. I always spent heaps on professional printing with colour covers. The inside is all cut and paste though, and drawn with pens though. There have been 9 issues and I got a bit of a following from it. The city of Melbourne is fast gaining recognition for being a hub of zine activity. What is the zine scene like for someone living there?
It's great. I can't compare it to much but overseas visitors seem impressed with the art scene of Melbourne, including all the markets and that sort of thing. It surprises me too. There are zine workshops and zine fairs and arts markets all over the place. I think every citizen here has made a zine at some point. The centre of it all is Sticky, a zine shop run from a cramped little store in the subway. There are piles of zines and flyers covering every surface, with stacks of em falling off the shelves. In the middle there's always a table with a handful of misfits cutting stuff out of magazines and pasting it together. The underground comic scene in Melbourne is huge too. While Australia has no 2000AD or Marvel, we do have plenty of self-publishers and Melbournites chug out their own mini-comics like nobody's business. And it's a relief for me to be here. Doing comics for so many years from Canberra was a really isolating experience! Now I draw knowing that people will see it, and appreciate it. Y
ou are also involved in producing other craft-type zines. Can you tell us a little something about your current projects?
I've been printing comics for so long, I forgot the fun of crafting small runs of your own comic. I've been recently making "Comic of Smallness", which is a 32 page, 2 inch tall comic. I make my own little display stands for them out of cardboard. I print 12 copies at a time on 8 A4 sheets then chop em up and bind them with a single staple. Such an effort, but so satisfying making little bundles of em. The three issues are all about a cat named Barry who just 
sort of wanders about being silly. It's pretty much the cutest comic ever made I reckon.Please recommend a zine for us to read and why.
I mostly read mini-comics, and a great one is Lumpen by Pat Grant, an excellent cartoonist who loves setting stories in Melbourne suburbia as well as Australian coastal towns. It always comes out in different formats, for example one issue was a large, fold-out poster. Another one that tickles my fancy is Phatsville, a comic anthology from Queensland. It's great because Queenslanders are such dags, and the comic reflects this with its shameless obsession with sex and drug jokes. Then you go up and visit them and all they do is take drugs and talk about sex. If you'd like to see what Sydney cartoonists do, then the anthology Blackguard is definitely worth a look!
Nancy is a new queer zine by Alex Creep dedicated 'to all the girly gay boys out there.' A wonderful mix of serious essays, humourous stories and playful illustrations, we hope Issue Two is on its way! 
