The Zine is the Thing

What is a zine? 

Author and cartoonist Ebony Flowers makes them when she has an unformed idea for a book she’s working on or a piece of content that doesn’t quite fit elsewhere. Feminist scholar Mimi Thi Nguyen started making them to explore misogyny and racism in the punk scene. Comics journalist Shay Mirk creates them to process feelings and ideas about their place in the world. 

At ZineFest on Monday, October 7, Smith students heard from all three makers about their reasons for creating zines, a form of self-published art that can be a small book, pamphlet or even single page. The panel kicked off a day-long celebration of all things zines, Including sessions where students were encouraged to make their own creations. 

“We’re so eager to share our stuff, we want to do it before it's actually finished,” Flowers explained of the concept of zines. 

“Zines are about embracing the imperfect and seeing what comes from the heart,” agreed Mirk. “Making a physical thing to give someone else feels really special. It feels very magical.” 

In the afternoon, Flowers, an award-winning cartoonist, zinester, and educator, offered a workshop called “Sister Zines” to explore relationships amongst past, present, and “meanwhile time.” Mirk, a comics journalist, teacher, and prolific zine-maker, offered “Playing With Gender and Zines,” on how to document gender expression through a mini-zine. Nguyen, a self-described “old punk” and feminist scholar at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, closed out the day with “No One Turned Away for Lack of Future,” a discussion about punk zines made by queer and people of color that was followed by hands-on zine making.

ZineFest was co-sponsored by the Design Thinking Initiative and the Wurtele Center for Leadership. Wurtele also sponsors the annual Amplify Competition, which will include a wild card category for zines this year as well as the categories of public writing and speaking.

What is a zine? Here Smithies respond with a few zines of their own.