[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":10},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-zinefest":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":8},"blogPost",null,"\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/zinefest3-b280c6ac32.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThis afternoon I popped by \u003Ca href=\"http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/thewomenslibrary/\">The Women's Library\u003C/a> for \u003Ca href=\"http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/thewomenslibrary/whats-on/events/workshops/zine-fest.cfm\">Zinefest\u003C/a>. It's funny, because in children's book societies, most of my friends are women, but in comics here I've found the meetings generally have one female for every twenty blokes. So this was the reverse, about one guy for every twenty women, and unsurprisingly, I hardly knew anyone. I had a good time looking at the exhibition (I'd donated a print of \u003Ca href=\"http://www.jabberworks.co.uk/trotter2.html\">Terrence Trotter\u003C/a>) and tried not to be self-conscious that almost everyone else's comics were about women and mine was about a little boy pig. Ah, well. \\r\n\\r\nJust as I really thought I wasn't going to see a single familiar face, I suddenly found the \u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/118755.html\">Caption crowd\u003C/a> (hooray!): \u003Cb>Jay Eales\u003C/b>, \u003Cb>Selina Lock\u003C/b> and \u003Cb>Jenny Linn-Cole\u003C/b>. Selina (\u003Ca href=\"http://girlycomic.livejournal.com/\" class=\"lj-user\">girlycomic\u003C/a>) showed me the latest publication she'd edited, \u003Ca href=\"http://www.factorfictionpress.co.uk/girly/index.html\">The Girly Comic\u003C/a>, a collection of all the Girly Comic anthologies and a really attractive, slick piece of work. Nice job, Selina! She'll have it on sale at her table at the \u003Ca href=\"http://www.ukwebcomixthing.co.uk\">UK Web & Mini Comix Thing\u003C/a> in London on 28 March.\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/zinefest2-009e0163d1.jpg\">\\r\nOn the \u003Ca href=\"http://www.factorfictionpress.co.uk/girly/index.html\">Factor Fiction website\u003C/a>: \u003Ci>The Girly Comic is a comic strip anthology that was first launched at the Comics 2002 Festival in the UK. After witnessing the sight of so many comics widows being dragged around by their partners at Comics 2001, I decided that it was about time that someone attempted to fill that niche market! While by no means restricted just to women readers, the plan was to produce something a little more woman-friendly than a lot of mainstream comic titles out there, with a diversity of material, at an affordable price.\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\nI've heard Will Kirkby mention \u003Ca href=\"http://www.stuffsucks.com\">Liz Greenfield\u003C/a> (\u003Ca href=\"http://lizgreenfield.livejournal.com/\" class=\"lj-user\">lizgreenfield\u003C/a>) a few times, so I was very curious to meet her. She had a table with \u003Ca href=\"http://jigsawyouth.wordpress.com\">Sophie Peck\u003C/a> and I bought one of Liz's comics and a zine the two of them had put together specially for Zinefest.  \\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/zinefest1-1-36c064f5f7.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>Liz Greenfield and Sophie Peck\u003C/i>\\r\n\u003C!--more Click here for more photos and ramblings-->\\r\nHere's \u003Ca href=\"http://remember-who-u-are.blogspot.com\">Melanie Madison\u003C/a>, Zinefest's main organiser:\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/zinefest6-0604843bd3.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere are two sketches I made during one of the talks. I never caught their names, but the shy anarchist on the left represented \u003Ca href=\"http://ragdublin.blogspot.com\">The Rag\u003C/a> in Dublin and the other was a long-time participant in \u003Ca href=\"http://www.feministactivistforum.org.uk/page32.htm\">Outwrite women's newspaper\u003C/a>. \\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/zinefest8-6d87f23e68.jpg\">\\r\nI went to another talk by \u003Cb>Colette Rosa\u003C/b> called 'History of Queer Zines' and saw \u003Cb>Sina Shamsavari\u003C/b>, who gave a talk on queer comics at \u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/147384.html\">Comica at the V&A\u003C/a>. Some of the comments raised in the discussion included a thought that queer zines seem to keep reinventing the wheel because zines are so ephemeral; Rosa encouraged people to archive their zines with the British Library (which is very interested in collecting zines), The Women's Library, the V&A queer comics collection and even local libraries. Shamsavari commented on the difficulty of learning about zines in languages other than English, and I put in a plug for \u003Ca href=\"http://www.comixinflux\">Comix Influx\u003C/a>, which is keen to get grass-roots translations of comics (and very likely zines) from French and other languages.\\r\n\u003Cb>Rachel House\u003C/b> was very chuffed to see several of her zine pages and comics show up in the history slideshow, and she was there with \u003Cb>Jo David\u003C/b>, her partner in running \u003Ca href=\"http://www.spacestationsixtyfive.com\">Space Station 65\u003C/a> in East Dulwich. (They were the people who originally put me in touch with Melanie when I ran into them at Frieze art fair last year.) I was also glad to run into \u003Cb>Anna Mondo\u003C/b> (\u003Ca href=\"http://mondoagogo.livejournal.com/\" class=\"lj-user\">mondoagogo\u003C/a>) whom I met for the first time at last year's Caption. And \u003Cb>Jimi Gherkin\u003C/b> was buzzing around the tables plugging the \u003Ca href=\"http://comicsandzines.wordpress.com\">Alternative Press Fair\u003C/a>.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/zinefest4-5bb773e4fb.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>Jo David, Sina Shamsavari and Rachel House\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/zinefest5-eaff60d5dc.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>Jenny Linn-Cole with the very lovely cupcake trolley\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\nI was very impressed by the interior of The Women's Library building (just around the corner from Aldgate East tube station): lots of great exhibition space, a nice lobby lounge and reading room and several good event rooms. (Makes mental note for future exhibitions.)","2009-01-24T21:16:00.000Z","zinefest",[],1776628727437]