Cherry-picking the best new zines on the scene right now
Sometimes it’s good to tear your weary eyes away from the computer screen and behold something hold-able. Other times, it’s nice to know that the slick indie blog you’re reading has an in-print counterpart; the end of print is a long way off yet. While some hearken back to the days of copy-cut-fold-staple, others make mainstream publishers look like amateurs. With the Brooklyn Zine Festival having finished up over the weekend, check out ten of our favourite zines out now (or soon).
If all your smartest, coolest, most-versed-in-contemporary-printing-strategies friends made a zine (and we acknowledge the probably-60% chance they already do, but just go with it), it would be like this one. Its purview goes from hyper-local (hence the name) to inter/national, your standard short fiction and poetry to quirky ephemera—tarot cards, haikus, the newest issue’s cover is an optical illusion. The spring/summer 2014 issue is out now.
In keeping with Berlin’s chill vibes, the English/German zine Dog-Ear doesn’t publish on a schedule – they collect bookmark-sized poems, drawings and miscellany on their website, and when they accumulate enough, they print a free, folded version that is sold in locations around the UK and the Hauptstadt.
Covering class issues and queer feminism (and sometimes the intersection of the two), Poor Lass is just over a year old and dedicated to examining, questioning, and giving voice to the lives of the less-privileged, without blame or. They’re currently seeking submissions for issue 4: Relationships.
The first issue of the Berlin-based fold-out launched at the beginning of April, and it is equal parts style and substance: you should take a whack at the self-described ‘dense’ texts dedicated to the rigorous, detailed examination of and speculation on a single theme before flipping the 84 x 59.4 cm thing over to ogle at the similarly meticulous artwork. the first one is about the cross-section of transparency and love: drones, ‘the ultimate peeping Tom of modern warfare’.
A quarterly photography zine out of Glasgow, Goose Flesh showcases photos that are quietly provocative, like a light touch that elicits the zine’s namesake, and mostly focuses on Scottish work. Issue 3 is out in May.
Yearly on broadsides and web-paced online, Dum Dum feels experimental in the same vein as its LA neighbours theNewerYork Press – the stories and criticism (and text-message interviews, and radio plays, and etc) are fluid in form and fun to read, and the editorial voice is sharp, accessible, and new.
MEATY DELUXE
New Zealand single-issue that employs a lot of textural elements – unless you’re bopping around Auckland, you’re probably not going to get to see this live. Still, that’s part of the beauty of it (it being zines in general), and its creator, writer and performance artist Hana Aoake, outputs a lot, including the online zine Stockings dedicated to intersectional feminism.
A bi-annual photography zine published by Portland’s Pine Island Press, Incandescent showcases color film work from emerging international photographers; the photos are often a balance between the intimate and the expansive. Issue 5 was out in February, 6 will come out in July, and they’re taking submissions until the middle of June.
Say ‘Scandinavia’ and you’re likely to get expressions of wide-eyed longing in response. The chairs! The smoked salmon! The public benefits! While the fetishization of all things may be (somewhat) misguided, it’s true that there are many reasons to be fascinated with the happy high-cheekbones of our friends up north. As is expected, covering art, design, fashion, music, and miscellaneous culture, the magazine is as crisp as a Bergen sunrise. Issue 2 was out in January.
The ‘let’s talk about twenty-somethings’ thing should perhaps die a slow death by unpaid internship, but Melbourne’s Talking Trash zine breathes fresh energy into the topic by way of self-awareness and straight-talking. With themes like Love Stories, the city, and (most recently) Etiquette, Talking Trash tackles ‘the experiences and opinions of young people’ in a way that makes them feel important, not annoying.
