At Pride festivals held across the U.S. and beyond, among the tables offering voter registration forms or condoms, you’ll likely run into some queer zinemakers. Zines are DIY publications circulated by their creators. They originated in science fiction fan communities in the 1930s, when enthusiasts self-published stories and critiques. It’s hard to capture the scope of zines with one overarching definition, since they take so many forms. There are personal zines centered on memoir or essays, known as “perzines”; fanzines, which celebrate favorite celebrities or music; educational zines that cover topics like mending clothes or choosing a birth control method; and political zines, which might explain people’s rights or the web of the surveillance state. They’re often photocopied and vary in visual style length – usually anywhere between eight and 90 pages. One zine title might be eight issues long; another might be a single issue. I’ve been studying how zines can advance gender justice. As part of the grant my colleagues and I received in 2024 to pursue this work, we created our own zine lab and zine archive at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. We’ve also shared zines made by our students at the St. Louis…
Creative
DIY zines are helping queer communities tell their own stories and craft their own culture
Source: The Conversation Arts — CC BY-ND 4.0