International Zine Month -Catch-up!

The past week has been just a tiny bit busier than predicted. But while the blogging has quietened, the Zine Month fun has continued!  Here are a couple of entries from my art journal for the past few days:

The prompt for Day Five of the challenge was to check out a zine that was different than the kind you would normally, so I picked one from Zineopolis, Portsmouth University's collection of zines. Het Moet Onverstaanbar was a lot brighter, more surreal and in places slightly more morbid than the zines I normally read (generally perzines with a feminist slant), but I really loved the vivid colours and the chaos of the comics. Will definitely look out for more like this!

Another favourite day was Day Eight: Try Something New Day. One thing I've never really considered featuring in Second Hand News is poetry, mainly because it would pretty awful. But for IZM I decided to brave a haiku at least. Haikus are fun. This one is something I wish I could legitimately say to people at work. 

For more of the challenges, check out my FaceBook page which has all of the entries in the art journal so far as well as some bonus zine stuff from Issue Two of SHN, which is nearly finished!

International Zine Month: Day Four

Belated post time! 


Yesterday's challenge was to learn a new skill of some sort, be it a new binding technique or how to fold a one-page zine. I decided to finally develop a skill I'd been meaning to learn for ages: making a newspaper shopping bag. This is something that should hopefully come in handy should I decide to sell at craft or zine fairs in the future. The bag-making process is as follows:


1. Spend an unsuccessful hour searching online for "paper bag folding instructions".


2. Take apart a paper bag from the last time you went shopping.


3. Take a page of broadsheet and try to work out which of the awkward diagonal creases in the original bag were meant to be there and which were a result of you squashing it down in the bottom of your handbag. Fold newspaper. Unfold newspaper. Curse repeatedly.


4. Realise that the majority of bag-folding is actually very similar to wrapping a present but with one end left open. Feel like a bit of a plank for not figuring this out sooner. Start again.


5. By now your hands should be almost entirely covered in glue. Re-stick the side of the bag that just won't stay together, whilst in the process making a massive tear across the other side.


6. Go away for a while, taking a few deep breaths. Then come back and repeat step four, only this time much calmer and with two doubled-up sheets of newspaper for reinforcement. Not bad for a second attempt, no?

Today's IZM challenge involves checking out a zine that you wouldn't normally read and should be up on the blog later today. Keep checking back!

International Zine Month: Day Three

Today’s IZM challenge: organize your zines! Behold, my highly sophisticated zine organization system:

Yes, it is a muesli box. Luckily I found that the Dorset Cereals boxes are pretty much the perfect size for storing A5-sized zines. Usually for this kind of craft project I would cover the box with a patterned paper of some kind, but I really loved the packaging design for this one, especially the windows in the front which allow the zine cover to show through. And of course, the rest of the box didn’t go to waste either (I’m talking about the art journal here, not the muesli).

International Zine Month: Day Two

Today’s challenge for IZM is all about spreading the zine distro love! A distro is a zine distributor; generally this means a catalogue of issues by different zinemakers. Distros are fantastic for finding new zines, usually in an ‘if-you-like-that-then-try-this’ way. Basically distros like V.S. are an awesome way to support zines old and new and to build a real sense of community, both locally and across the globe. 

The site I’ve picked for Distro Appreciation Day is Vampire Sushi, a midlands-based one who specialize in perzines of all kinds and who stock one of my long-time favourites, Culture Slut (but more about that later in the month!). They also have a tumblr where they post regular zine news updates and calls for submissions, and in August they’re holding a bit of a zine party in Birmingham which I'm all kinds of excited about. But for now, it's just waiting for the zines I ordered to arrive...

International Zine Month: Day One

To celebrate International Zine Month this July I’m going to be following the thirty-one day challenge created by Alex Wrekk of Stolen Sharpie Revolution (a must for anyone wanting to find out more about zines and all of the events of IZM). I’m also going to journal about my attempts every day and post them here, so keep checking back!

Today’s challenge was to sign up to social network We Make Zines to talk about IZM.

And here is my post!