Zines!

Zines!

Did you know that the Holland Project has zines?

Local zines, happy zines, sad zines, activist zines, art zines, photography zines, comic zines, travel zines, bicycle zines… So. Many. Zines. Stop in and check them out. Be inspired, let us know about other zines you have found and even zines you have made! For this month, I have chosen four zines that represent just a tiny fraction of the variety of zines in the collection. Check out these picks, and then come over and peruse the zines for yourself—you won’t regret it.  – Jessica Fanaselle

Public Notice, Nathaniel Russell

This collection of wry, witty fliers will make you laugh, smile, and (hopefully) go out and flier your own neighborhood. Stressing humor and almost suspiciously earnest positivity, this mix of nonsense advertisements (one advert is for “Gary’s blimp message service” and another encourages viewers to join a “Calm down party” by the creek) will leave you feeling inspired and delighted.

These fliers are very much in the alt. lit. genre made recently popular by internet poets/writers such as @horse_ebooks and Steve Roggenbuck. The use of simple language and unconventional sentence formatting provides insight into a provocative new form of art and writing that conveys one experience of and response to life as a young person in the 2010s.

King-Cat: Comics and Stories, John Porcellino

King-Cat is part travelogue, part meditation on the natural world, part introduction to an ancient Greek philosopher, and all awesome. An excellent example of some of the simple yet compellingly illustrated zines in the collection, King-Cat displays the power of black and white illustration and hand-written typography. Seemingly a meditation on things Porcellino and his wife were contemplating on a move from San Francisco to Denver, this zine meanders through the journey, stopping to observe the “Top Forty” of their trip (several things about Reno and Northern Nevada make the list!), the strangeness of the weather, and two squirrels running at one another on a telephone wire—I won’t reveal how it ends.

Beings: Film Photography

I am certainly no expert in this genre, but it is clear that the photography zine genre is really developing into something provocative. Beings is a small group of black and white photos that focus on beings: people and animals, some posing, some not, some alone, some together, but all unique. Flipping through this work helps you to appreciate the absurdity and wonder of the mundane. The uncanny is a sense of something being both familiar and strange at the same time, and many of these photos capture this sense beautifully. Featuring portraits of the everyday, there is much to ponder about the nature of existence packed into this photo-sized zine.

The Body is a Wild Wild Thing, Tomas Moniz

Thirty poems written during April, National Poetry Month, this poetry zine focuses on the body. With titles like “Clavicle #10,” “Uvula #26,” and “Beard #1” it is perhaps unsurprising that the poems serve as meditations on the human body and the experience of living as a human body. Running the gamut from humorous to wistful and nostalgic, these easily accessible poems compel you to contemplate your own very material existence. Sweet and simple, with lovely illustrations from Amanda Englund, these poems will help you appreciate the bodies in your life. One poem urges you to check out your own body, reminding us “there is such sweet sweet delight in self-exploration” (Back of the Knee #12).