Zine times | LIFE

Hello friends!

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across an Instagram post promoting a free zine-making workshop hosted by Jeremy Staples. 

It was to be a series of sessions to create a community-based zine. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to meet some like-minded people and finally make a zine, something that I’d been meaning to do for years!

I became fascinated by zines in university, being around people that were talking about them and watching YouTube videos about how they're made – but always shelved making one for another day. My current tiny collection of zines started when I visited the 2016 ZICS (Zine and Indie Comic Symposium) event at the Edge. I remember being overwhelmed by the sheer number of zines on display and totally fell in love with the flexibility of the format.

2016 ZICS Brisbane at the Edge 

tiny zine collection!

I had such a great time during my zine sessions, I wish I’d started sooner – though I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to have made my first collaborative zine with. Here are some photos from our first session:

Photo credit: Mick from the Edge - Zine Session 1 at the State Library, looking at zines in the Asia Pacific collection 

Photo credit: Mick from the Edge - Zine Session 1 at the State Library, making mini zines

Photo credit: Mick from the Edge - Zine Session 1 at the State Library, making mini zines

Photo credit: Mick from the Edge - Zine Session 1 at the State Library, white gloves on to view zines from the SLQ's zine collection

The birth of a zine

We came up with the name HIVE ZINE as concept to capture community, identity, shared spaces, environment, collective, home (and a bunch of other words I can’t remember from our planning session). And I am so, so proud of our first issue. Here's a video flicking through the master copy of issue 1. 

Photo credit: Jasmine, @majimakes

The cover was designed by the talented Jasmine, you can find more of her work on @majimakes over on Instagram!

Photo credit: Mick from the Edge, Zine Session 5 - Emma, Bella and Jasmine with the Gocco Printer

Photo credit: photo of a photo of the zine dream team by Jasmine!

Our second issue is currently underway. The group agreed that the ‘this is fine’ meme was a concept we could work with given the state of our current socio-political climate. If you're interested in getting involved and would like to contribute a page to the zine just email your submission through to hellohivezine@gmail.com.

I’m so happy to have this bucket list item finally ticked off, and intend to make many, many more zines in months and years to come! Let me know if you have a favourite zine or enjoy making them yourself.

Catch you later!

xx E