LA Zine Fest showcases local self-publishers
For lovers of literature, subverters of the status quo and do-it-yourselfers alike, one event delivered hands-on entertainment and creative growth. The L.A. Zine Fest, featuring more than 200 zine vendors, took place in Los Angeles’ own Majestic Downtown this Sunday, March 6 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The L.A. Zine Fest, originally founded in 2010 and currently in its fifth year, celebrates local writers and artists who compile their works in small batches of self-published magazines. The festival was the culminating event wrapping up L.A. Zine Week, a seven-day circuit of live readings, workshops and special sales dotting the downtown area.
Unsurprisingly, the event was a wild success, going over capacity as visitors clamored elbow-to-elbow to make their way by the booths. “This is the biggest turnout I’ve ever seen at a zine festival,” said Vince Roque, festival volunteer and publisher of Like Like Zine. “Vendors have come from all over the country, and the diversity is incredible.”
The welcoming and interactive ambiance at L.A. Zine Fest was unlike that of any other art event. Vendors encouraged passersby to assemble their own zines, subscribe to mailing lists and even trade physical publications. Taylor Collins of 3451 Zine, which focuses on themes of afrofuturism and feminist science fiction, appreciated the openness of the zinemaking community.
“Zines are a friendly medium, and we have a lot of creative license when working on them,” Collins said. “A lot of the visual art is about finding the beauty in everyday things, like a dirty street in West Hollywood as opposed to the famous, cliched Hollywood sign.”
The festival itself also offered attendees supplemental activities and seminars that showcased topics of presentation like zine archiving, the feminist movement and racial inequality. Offsite events were held at L.A. mainstays like The Last Bookstore, Spring Street Bar and The Falls Lounge. Collaborators of the festival included local advocacy groups such as Nalgona Positivity Pride and Project Intersect, and even public schools whose students read from their own zines.
Since the inception of zinemaking– which arguably began with Thomas Paine’s 1775 pamphlet Common Sense — the printmaking form has been lauded for its capacity as a vehicle for free
speech and taboo topics left unaddressed in mainstream magazines. L.A. Zine Fest’s panelists explored the liberating quality of zines in various talks; in “Writing Ourselves into Existence: DIY Publishing as Feminist Resistance,” attendees learned about the relationship between publishing and reclaiming selfhood as women, and the panelists of “Racial Disparity and the Plight of the African American Female” similarly addressed issues surrounding the African-American experience as expressed in speaker Sarah Gail’s own zine.
The headlining act, “Alice Bag and V. Vale in Conversation,” appealed to zinesters’ anarchic and riot-grrrl sensibilities, as both speakers had roots in the 1970s. Bag, a punk musician and activist, distributed her book Pipe Bomb for the Soul — a tale of post-revolutionary socialist Nicaragua. Vale, a prolific self-publisher who founded San Francisco’s first punk-rock zine with the help of famous Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, ran the booth of RE/SEARCH Publications, of which he is the sole proprietor.
Zines were not the only works that exhibitors had on display. A special section of the Majestic was dedicated to independent video game creators who brought monitors and tablets for attendees to engage with. One such game was reVAMP created by Ashley Zeldin and John Nesky, directors of grassroots gaming company Adorkable Games. Zeldin, who graduated from USC in 2008, conceived the game at this year’s Global Game Jam, a game-creation convention. The game follows the Jam’s chosen theme of “ritual”: it prompts the player to perform the ritual of applying makeup in the morning– except on the absent reflection of a vampire — only to see the botched results afterward.
Another special feature of L.A. Zine Fest was its roving zine library, where donations from past festivals were displayed and made available for public perusal. The festival’s iteration of the zine library is just one of many in the city — concert enthusiasts can find one at grimy DIY venue The Smell, and UCLA’s Powell Library has its own fixed collection. This year, exhibitors had their own library to feature works — a way for attendees to overcome the social barrier of “shyness and crowds,” as stated by the L.A. Zine Fest site. At these makeshift libraries, curious readers sifted through bins of zine material at their leisure and were provided with a cozy pillow fort to relax and read in.
Indeed, the festival represented all aspects of L.A.’s community of independent makers, activists and content creators. KChung Radio, an independent station based in Chinatown, hosted a “Drink & Draw” event along with prominent radio station KXLU at The Falls Lounge for the musically inclined. Exhibitors like ¿Serio?, #Snatchpower and Nia King represented themes of social justice from minority standpoints. Unlikely zinesters like the mother-daughter duo behind the kid and i were also present at the festival.
L.A. Zine Fest’s influence is not limited to its annual exhibition. The group behind the event has worked with the Craft and Folk Art Museum, the Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls, Meltdown Comics, Renegade Craft Fair and Unique L.A., among other organizations.