Urban hermits, twisted testicles, and the 2012 Milwaukee Zine Fest
For the past five years, the Milwaukee Zine Fest has celebrated the long-standing tradition of DIY, Xerox publishing by playing host to authors and enthusiasts alike, showcasing an extensive variety of zines from around the globe. In honor of the upcoming event (taking place at the Falcon Bowl Saturday, Nov. 3), The A.V. Club sat down with members of the Milwaukee Zine Fest Organizing Collective to talk about their favorite zines.
Monozine by V/A
Chosen by Joshua Sutton, author of Walking Distance
“I’m not sure how many issues they did, but basically people would write in stories of illnesses or sickness or scabs or wounds. One of the examples that really sticks out is this person who had their testicles twist around. Part of the reason that this zine is one of my favorites is because I read it in high school, and I’m still afraid of that years and years later. I still have them, and I moved across the country with them. I just have to have them, because they’re so good, even if I don’t read them for years.”
Daer Esaelp From East To West by Sonia Edworthy
Chosen by Christopher Wilde, author of Queers In Stardust And The Spiders From Halifax
“Sonia Edworthy is someone I met when I did an artist residency in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the Anchor Zine Library in 2009. The zine chronicles how she was giving up this really awesome life and was moving back to Calgary, where she grew up. The structure of the zine was rather unique in that you had to start from the back cover and read, essentially, backwards. One of the real powers that zines can have in peoples’ lives is that you suddenly stumble onto one that you really need to read, that you don’t set out to read. Instead, you’re just kind of rolling along in life and ‘Boom!’ something plops in your mailbox that you kind of need to hear at that point. I was really struggling with the length and structure of my own zine, and to read her narrative and see that she was using almost a similar style to what I was doing helped me to buckle down and get my zine finished.”
Daddy Babylon And The Moustache Ranch by Bawbee
Chosen by Shannon Connor, editor of Basements And Living Rooms
“I really like art zines because I just respect people willing to put a bunch of artwork in a zine and copy it a bunch of times and have it be accessible, something a bunch of people can look at instead of having one copy in a gallery. This zine has a lot of really detailed drawings and the binding is sewn, which is really cool. And they each have a hand-drawn watercolor that’s different on each copy.”
The Urban Hermit by The Urban Hermit
Chosen by Erin Broskowski, author of Famous Whales and Really Gay!
“The Urban Hermit is a ‘perzine,’ which stands for ‘personal zine,’ so the style of this one is just a single author, talking about their life, their opinions, etc. The first volume starts off in college where they identify as a lesbian, and by the end that’s not true anymore. Part of the reason I like it so much is because, when I was doing my zine, I wrote to the Urban Hermit and they wrote back to me. I never felt the need to do that and I never really felt a part of the community, but that was what my zine was about. It was an experiment. If I reach out to someone, what’s going to happen? Are they going to respond? And they did, and it was awesome, and they helped me write my zine.”
Go Fuck Yourself by Andy
Chosen by Milo, author of Rumpy Pumpy and Heavy Mayo
“At Queer Zine Archive Project, we have thousands of queer zines, and picking one is really, really challenging. When I get asked this question, I go to this one because it’s a little bit shocking, especially if you are lecturing academically. I also really like it because it’s a DIY zine. It’s all about making your own sex toys: how to make your own dildos and harnesses and how to do it safely, sanely, and consensually. I feel like, in a lot of ways, it epitomizes the spirit of queer zines and the overarching zine community or culture—this ongoing encouragement to teach each other in ways that are less traditional than just being in a classroom. It’s something that is so incredibly human and it’s stuff that doesn’t get talked about in more traditional media.”
Burn Collector by Al Burian and Doris by Cindy Crabb
Chosen by Jessica Bublitz
“My two favorite zines would probably be Burn Collector by Al Burian and Doris by Cindy Crabb. Both have great writing and were some of the first zines I read, yet they are still running today. Doris is very personal, addressing gender and working through hard times. Burn Collector is almost literary, and Burian has a very unique way of writing that weighs down seemingly insignificant events with an intense vocabulary that I can’t get enough of.”
