Dynamic and culturally significant, artists have come together since the 1930’s to create zines for their niches
By: Melanie Nava Urribarri
Art has always been ever-changing. From the ancient civilizations carving stone statues, the paintings of the renaissance, to the digital work easily published on our various social media platforms, art has never been able to be defined as one thing. What has also varied greatly throughout history, is how artwork has been published and disseminated to audiences.
As described by the Art Gallery of Ontario, zines are generally non-commercial, non-professional publications created out of a community’s interests and passions and are often self-published.
Zines compile all sorts of art together, – from creative writing and poetry to illustrations and photography – and aren’t usually for profit, but rather exist to grant opportunities to unheard voices and artists of all levels.
Zines and zine culture have been around since the early 30s and have become the most accessible way for artists to collaborate with other artists and share their work widely. They originated from science fiction “fandoms,” defined as a community or subculture made of fans of a particular interest. According to Book Riot, the largest independent editorial book site in North America, the first zine was “a little publication called The Comet” created by the Science Correspondence Club. In 1947, the first ever queer fanzine was published.
Today, zines come from a wide variety of fandoms and other cultural communities around the world, bringing together artists of multiple backgrounds and experiences. Zines mean something different for all artists, making each project a unique experience for both its creators and those who get to bear witness to their creation.
“Zines are a way for me to connect with other creatives that love the same thing I do,” said Zabrinah Santiago, a freelance illustrator known as @itme.z on Instagram who has participated in over 20 zines since 2019.
“I don’t think I’d have gotten close to my current art style if it wasn’t for being in my first zine. Being surrounded by so many wonderful artists who were willing to give helpful advice heavily improved my art so much,” she added.
For some artists, it was friends that introduced them to zine culture.
“I first came across zines through friends. Zines allow me to push my skills with every new illustration…the books and merch seem surprisingly professional despite often being fan-made projects,” shared Instagram artist Mishii.
For many others, fandoms linked them to the zine canon.
“I’ve been a part of fandom culture since my pre-teens, and to this day I love making a lot of fanart for my current obsessions,” said Lio Chan, an illustration student at Rhode Island School of Design that currently focuses on traditional and 2D digital art with different styles and compositions.
“Because of social media and dedicated zine blogs, I found out about several fandom-related zines and I immediately wanted to be a part of these community-based efforts to celebrate artists within fandoms,” he said. Chan adds that being surrounded by other content creators with the same niche interests helped him network and gain credibility as an up-and-coming artist.
The further he delved into zine-making, the more Chan ventured into topics such as other forms of art, history and the culture of self-published zines often based around social justice and identity.
While the first modern-concept of zines did reach the public in the 30s, many social-justice works and texts by various historical figures could be considered some of the earliest forms of zines – or at least ideas that the zine community now has built on.
For example, in 1895 during the French Revolution, French anarchist Sébastien Faure used the self-publishing practice to publish the issues of his newspaper Le Libertaire as a means of subversive political expression.
Toronto Grade 12 student and head of management of the zine The Brain Scramble Elisa Penha joined the zine community initially as a writer and photographer. By helping a friend who had been active in the zine community in Taiwan but was unfamiliar with the Canadian zine community resources, Penha said she was able to immerse herself in zine culture which she found so liberating, as artists were able to express themselves independently and with agency.
“I think it’s a really good way for marginalized communities to express their stories in physical means,” said Penha. “Because a lot of the time queer communities and POC communities, they don’t get the chance to be part of larger publications just because of institutionalized discrimination all the time, no matter how talented they may be.”
“Zines are very much against that sort of system.”
As freeing as these collaborations and publications can be, some may find entering the zine scene to be a little daunting. Like entering any field of work, whether as a hobby or profession, it is always important to do your research while choosing a zine and community to collaborate with to make sure it’s right for you.
“Recently, there has been some backlash in the online zine community, especially on Twitter,” said Chan. Chan attributes this to the commodification of zines by influential online artists, making zinemaking inaccessible. This creates “a standard of art when the concept of zinemaking is inherently against setting an art standard,” he says.
Chan gives the example of an event in which a zine moderator of an extremely popular online zine project was caught embezzling $80,000 from the project and spending it all gambling on a mobile game.
He adds that “even though non-fandom related zines continue to be impactful in their own communities, the sheer influence and money that some fandom-related zines are able to amass have led to inevitable standards that are placed to avoid huge disasters like this from happening again.”
But Chan still has hope for the zine community. While capitalistic undercurrents can be frustrating, the zine community is so large that the path to being part of a zine or self-publishing your own work does not have to be hindered by these poor experiences.
If you yourself are an artist interested in being a part of zine culture, Santiago shared three pieces of advice based off her experience on applying to zines:
- Research moderators
- Look for experience and age. Most issues that arise in zines are because of mishandling due to a mod’s inexperience in zines or working on large-scale group projects.
- Don’t be discouraged if you get rejected from a zine. It does not ever mean your work isn’t good. There are lots of reasons to be rejected like your art style might not fit with the theme (i.e. hardcore edgy styles may not work super well with sweet family-centric zines.) Being rejected so many times helped me improve more or helped me build a skin that can tolerate bigger work rejections.
