Idea + Paper + Stapler
Freedom of expression: a galaxy of zines.
Image credit: Tate Carlson
Recommended by the Editor
Seven years ago I was a recent J-school grad ready to start a ballin’ career as a writer for some New Yorker-caliber publication. Before long the universe put the kibosh on those tragically misinformed aspirations. Turns out four years of tuition didn’t just buy me a membership in the Bachelor of Arts club. It also earned me the privilege of setting food and drinks in front of people’s faces eight to 10 hours a day before going home to slave away at the computer. I was writing, but wasn’t making a living (or a cent, really) doing it.
Sick of watching rejection letters pile up and unwilling to wait around for some shining armor-clad magazine mogul to help me out, I did what anyone raised on Maximumrocknroll—and who has an insane Type A streak—would do: I published something myself. The zine formula was relatively easy to crack (idea + paper + stapler usually does it), and soon I was the proud author of a hand-drawn collection of insomnia stories. That people actually wanted to buy. Over the next few years I wrote, edited, designed and distributed some more themed zines before embarking on what is now my main project: She Must Be Having a Bad Day, a publication about women in the food service industry.
Along the way I exhibited at Twin Cities Zinefest, Minneapolis’s annual celebration of all things Xeroxed, hand-bound and self-published—of which there was not only a supply, but a staggering demand. People were paying (often less than $5, but cash nonetheless) for everything from an eight-page handwritten vegan recipe booklet to an elaborate, hand-bound novella with a letterpress cover. I met other writers and artists bypassing traditional publishing routes in favor of a DIY model. One of them was Mike Haeg, a graphic designer, writer and comic artist who founded the La Mano publishing imprint with Duluth graphic novelist (and Low’s former bassist) Zak Sally. Haeg came of age in Shakopee during the pre-Internet printed-word heyday, and is known as one of the big names in the Twin Cities zine scene.
“The fanzines and DIY mags I would pick up on my sporadic escapes into the big city were the Harlequin romance novels to my ‘locked in my bedroom against Reaganomics and rednecks’ loneliness,” he confesses. In 1991, with an overnight job at Kinko’s to facilitate his craft, Haeg published Ye Olde Stinkhammer Press. (“Bear with me,” he adds. “Grunge was casting a heavy, flannel-draped dude vibe on everything in those days.”)
Along with—and many times alongside—music, zines have served as a vehicle for freaks, geeks, punks and other marginalized species like Haeg to propagate, often via mail or independent record and bookstores. For writers, zine making isn’t just a way to find like-minded people. It means you don’t need an editor or a publishing house to validate or legitimize your work—and that it’s possible to reach an audience while retaining creative control.
For Minneapolis-based writer, artist and librarian Lacey Prpic Hedtke, whom I also met through Zinefest, the motivation was simpler: she couldn’t decide on a boyfriend. She wrote Likes/Dislikes in 2004. “I thought I would write this handbook so [potential suitors] would know what they were getting into,” she explains. “They were all sort of wasting my time.” Soon after, while living in Boston, she almost literally stumbled into zine culture after finding one lying on a subway seat. “I thought, wait, you can make these things and do whatever you want with them and leave them places and give them to people? You can go into Kinko’s at 2 a.m. to make this thing and then say, ‘Hey, you want this?’” After moving back to the Twin Cities, Prpic Hedtke started hanging around fellow zine makers at Arise! Bookstore (which closed in 2010). She’s since published an etiquette zine and Excitement and Adventure, a history of gangsters complete with ransom notes, mug shots and trading cards.
Part of the appeal of zines is their lo-fi, approachable nature and the fact that they can be made by anyone. But Haeg and Prpic Hedtke are educated and talented artists and writers who can (and do) easily find work in mainstream media channels, yet choose to exist in the considerably less-prestigious world of self-publishing. Many zine makers (myself included) carefully curate content, edit copy and lay out pages in professional programs like InDesign.
Whether the advent of blogs and social media as a catch-all for obscure obsessions and tangential musings has affected DIY publishing culture is debatable—in the Twin Cities at least, it’s still booming. In fact, Haeg claims it has been on a roll since the ’20s, when socialism and the union movement meant Minneapolis was “littered with handmade propaganda.” If the longevity of Zinefest (now in its eighth year and headed up by Prpic Hedtke) and the sheer availability of local zines (the Twin Cities is home to at least two zine libraries and several stores that sell them) is any indication, that roll won’t be slowing anytime soon.
“There is an alchemy in zine crafting that is undeniable,” says Haeg. “It’s about banging away on something that makes sense to yourself, putting it out there and hopefully making a connection with a reader.”
Other local zine resources:
Minnesota Center for Book Arts
Keep Reading
|
Author Larry Millett unburies the history of some of the Twin Cities most opulent residences
|
One Minneapolis, One Read encourages residents to share a good book -- and a good conversation.
|
Book recommendations for the voracious, or at least sporadic, reader.
|
Printer-friendly version
Send to friend
Comments
Post new comment