July is International Zine Month! Originally coined by Alex Wrekk (of Stolen Sharpie Revolution / Portland Button Works), IZM is a month-long celebration of all things zine and independent publishing. Every year Alex also writes a list of daily suggested activities, here’s the one for 2020:
I’ve got some new things planned to release later this July, but for now I thought I’d say hello in my first post in nearly 4 years (!)
It feels like a long time since we last said hello in July – since then we’ve had tables at Hulme Is Where The Art Is, the Manchester and Salford Anarchist Bookfair, and 2 Poor Pals pop-ups, ran workshops at The Whitworth and Altrincham Library, and celebrated the distro’s first birthday ? ? !
NEW STUFF:
There’s also been some new additions to the catalogue, including – Brick: a zine about abortion, Forever Incomplete (issues 1 + 4), Poly/Not Poly, Lipstick & Jellybeans, a split issue of Say Hi & Wave 3 / Mythologising Me 12, and our anti street-harassment badges.
EVENTS:
We’re all done for the rest of the year now, but the 2017 zine-calendar is already starting to fill up with lovely things. So far we’re running a badge making workshop at Sale Library on January 14th + tabling at the Hull zine fair at Ground on January 28th-29th.
OTHER NEWS:
The Chapess had a great exhibition up at Salford Zine Library – sadly it’s over now, but in happy news another excellent one on Perzines curated by Ingrid Boring is now up in it’s place, and will be well into January.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by at DIY Cultures or came and made badges with us at Northwest Zinefest! The badge making workshop was so busy it could have gone on all day – we’ll try and put on some more workshops sometime soon.
♡ New zines added: loads of new zines this time! Call My Name issue 1, Call My Name issue 2, Call My Name issue 3, Call My Name issue 4, Beatrice’s Inferno, Guan Yersel! Here. In My Head. issue 15, Here. In My Head. issue 16, Here. In My Head. issue 17, Mae Danger issue 1, Mae Danger issue 2, Tiny Doodles issue 2.
♡ Events: We’ll be tabling at this years Leeds Zine Fair on Septhember 10th at Left Bank.
Last weekend was both Sheffield and Glasgow zine fests – and they were lots of (exhausting) fun. As usual as I was way too busy all day to remember to properly document things but here’s a few snaps I took. Thanks to everyone who came and bought things, traded or chatted with me, it’s always lovely to meet zinesters in person & I brought so many ace new zines to read home with me.
♡ New zines added: Fanzine Ynfytyn 20, Fanzine Ynfytyn 23, Fanzine Ynfytyn 25, Our Victory Line 1, and A Whisper or a Shout 1
♡ Events: I’ll be at DIY Cultures on May 29th at Rich Mix in London.
♡ Website updates: I’ve started making a google map of zine-y places but it’s kinda sparse at the moment, that’s on the zine resource page. If you know of any libraries, physical places to buy zines or wanna recommended your favourite places to copy/print your zines please let me know.
Welcome to our shiny new website! We’ll be posting our major updates here, but for more regular news you can follow us on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook.
♡ Events: We’re gonna be tabling at the Sheffield Zine Fest on April 30th & Glasgow Zine Fair on May 1st – a busy weekend for us!
♡ Website updates: We’ve compiled a zine resource, listing distros, libraries and other fun zine stuff. We’ve also started a Zine & DIY events listing for fun things we think people should support in the UK. If you’ve anything you’d like us to add to either of those, contact us.
Here’s a little guide to terms you may come across in the zine world, plus answers to some frequently asked questions.
Distro – as in distribution. A zine distro is a small distribution organisation (often ran by just one person) who sells or gives away zines made by other people.
Fanzine – A zine about a particular topic the author or contributors are a fan of – this could be, for example, a band or musician, TV show, a genre (such as sci-fi), a video game, a writer, or a sports team. There are also fanzines that cover a variety of topics, such as those centred around music, a local area, or a subculture.
Flats – A copy of a zine designed to be printed / copied from. Can be in physical or digital form.
Perzine – personal-zine, a genre of zines that are primarily about personal experiences, thoughts or ideas. They can often look and feel very diary-like.
Riso – Risograph, a brand of Japanese printers designed for higher-volume low-cost copying and printing. They function similarly to a silkscreen and come in an array of vivid ink colours. See more at What is Risograph printing?
Zinester – a person who makes or is otherwise involved with zines.
A zine is a DIY self-published, small-circulation work which can be on any topic imaginable. While there is debate about what does and does not “count” as a zine, they are often photocopied or otherwise cheaply printed, made for motivations other than profit, and are made either by an individual or a small group of people. They are a part of DIY culture and different to traditional publishing or professional magazines.
Like ZEEN, as in magazine.
There are many ways to make a zine. You could do it completely by hand, with writing and drawing or cut and pasting different paper elements. Or you can use a huge range of different software. If you are really stuck with how to start, I recommend attending a local zine club or zine workshop if you have any around you.
Where can I find zines?
How do I sell / share my zine?
how does a zine distro work?
Here I’ll be adding resources, lists and other nice useful things for you. If you have any requests, suggestions, or corrections, please contact me.
Info on events not hosted by us that we we think you should check out and support.
Here’s a little guide to terms you may come across in the zine world, plus answers to some frequently asked…
Would you like your zine-related-thing listed here? Or have a suggestion? Or notice a dead link or change I should be aware of? Contact me or leave a comment and I’ll happily add/change it.
♡ Vampire Hag Distro (Kent) – etsy / instagram
♡ Andromeda Zines (East Midlands) – website / instagram / tumblr / bluesky
♡ Footprint (Leeds) – website
♡ Daughters of Carmilla (South Wales) – website / instagram
♡ Plaintext Distro (Glasgow) – website
♡ Death Ray Distro (London) – website / instagram
♡ Zine Freak (Lancaster) – instagram
♡ Rare Mags (Stockport) – website / instagram
♡ Good Press (Glasgow) – website / instagram
♡ Village (Leeds) – website
♡ Housmans (London) sells zines in their physical store – website
♡ Specialist Subject Records (Bristol) sell zines along with records – website / instagram
♡ News From Nowhere (Liverpool) sells zines and radical books and other merch – website
♡ Category Is Books (Glasgow) – website / instagram
♡ Colossive Press (London) – website / bluesky / instagram
♡ Coin Operated Press (Edinburgh) – website
♡ You can also find lots of individuals selling zines on Etsy in the zine category.
♡ Glasgow Zine Fest – ran by Glasgow Zine Library website / instagram (annual)
♡ Dundee Zine Fest – instagram (returning 2026)
♡ Bradford Zine Fair – instagram (annual)
♡ Pagemasters Zine Fair (London) – instagram (annual)
♡ Grrrl Zine Fair (Southend-on-Sea) – website / instagram (annual)
♡ Zinezilla (Bristol) – instagram (annual?)
♡ Stockport Zine Fair – instagram (twice annually)
♡ Barnsley Zine Fair – instagram (twice annually)
♡ Over Here Zine Fest (Manchester) – website / instagram (annual)
♡ Belfast Zine Fair – instagram
♡ Sheffield Zine Fest – instagram (returning 2026)
♡ Drogheda Zine Fair – instagram
♡ Rose Tinted Spectacular (Brighton) – instagram
♡ Zine Cuisine (Bournemouth) – instagram
♡ Scunny Zine Fest (Scunthorpe) – instagram
♡ Plymouth Comic and Zine Fair – website / instagram (annual)
♡ Tees Zine Fest – instagram
♡ York Zine Fest – website / instagram
♡ Lincoln Zine Fest – instagram (returns 2026)
♡ Carlisle Zine Fest – instagram
♡ Print Gully (Westminster) – instagram
♡ Goblin Market Comic & Zine (London) – instagram
♡ Chelmsford Zine Fair – instagram
♡ London Spanish Book Zine Fair – instagram
♡ Thoughtbubble – website / instagram (annual)
♡ Notts Zine Fest – website / instagram
♡ Edinburgh Zine Fair – website / instagram (annual)
♡ North-West Zine Fest – website / twitter / instagram / facebook
♡ DIY Cultures (London) – tumblr / twitter / facebook
♡ Queer Zine Fest (London) – tumblr / twitter / facebook
♡ Alternative Press (London) – website / twitter / facebook
♡ Leeds Zine Fair – website
♡ Bristol Comic and Zine Fair – instagram (last active 2019)
♡ SW Zines (events in SW London/Surrey) – website / twitter
♡ Swansea Zine Fest – website / twitter (last active 2021)
♡ Swindon Zine Fest – website / instagram (last active 2024)
♡ Duplicate Publishing Fair (Birmingham) – instagram (last active 2024)
♡ Brum Zine Fest – instagram (last active 2024)
♡ South London Comic & Zine Fair – instagram (last active 2023)
♡ Margate Zine Fair – instagram (last active 2023)
♡ Multitudes Zine Fest – instagram (last active 2024)
♡ inQ! Comic Fair (London) – instagram (last active 2024)
♡ In/Between Gutterz comic and zine fair (London) – instagram (last active 2024)
♡ Penrith Zine Fest – instagram (last active 2023)
♡ Grimsby Zine Fest – instagram (last active 2023)
♡ Kendal Zine Fest – instagram (last active 2024)
♡ Levy Masked Zine Club (Levenshulme) – third Monday of the month – instagram
♡ Zine-O-Philia – zine clubs and occasional zine fairs (Leeds) – third Monday of every month – website / instagram
♡ Wrexham Zine Library socials – website / instagram
♡ Norwich Millennium Zine Library: Zine Club – monthly social to make and read zines – event info
♡ London Zine Club (Peckham) – every fourth Wednesday – event info / instagram
♡ Leeds Arts Uni Zine Making Society – website / instagram
♡ University of Manchester’s Zine Society – instagram
♡ MMU comic & zine society – website / instagram
♡ Cambridge Zine Society – instagram
♡ Read and Distribute – website (last updated 2019)
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♡ PoC Zine Project (USA) – tumblr / twitter / instagram / facebook
♡ Queer Zine Archive Project – website / twitter
♡ Stolen Sharpie Revolution – website
♡ ZineWiki – website
♡ Ace Zine Archive – website / tumblr
♡ We Make Zines social network for zinesters – website
♡ Fanzines news about zine culture from around the world – tumblr / twitter / facebook
♡ Zine Nation zine reviews and interviews – website / twitter
♡ UK and Ireland Zine Librarians – website / twitter
♡ Call For Zine Submissions tumblr re-blogging zine-related call for submissions – tumblr
♡ Fuck Yeah Zines – tumblr
♡ We Love Zines – tumblr
♡ Grrrl Zines – tumblr
♡ Nice Zines – tumblr
♡ Zines A Go Go – facebook group
♡ UK Zine Scene – facebook group
♡ Feminist Zines Europe – facebook group
♡ Solidarity! Revolutionary Center and Radical Library – website
50 zines by queer people of colour ♥ Cut & Paste (Bitch Magazine’s regular article on zines) ♥ How To Make A Zine a guide by Rookie ♥ How I Make My Zines by Emma ♥ How To Run A Zine Event also by Emma
Riot Grrrl Activism through Art and Zines (5:24) by Alien She at YBCA ♥ Self-Publishers of the World Take Over (34:11) by Salford Zine Library ♥ How To Make A Zine (3:49) by Nicki Sabalu ♥ Making Zines on a Budget (9:55) by Marie Annetoinette
♡ Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism by Alison Piepmeier
♡ Stolen Sharpie Revolution: A DIY Zine Resource by Alex Wrekk
♡ Girls Make Media by Mary Celeste Kearney