Zine Counter-Culture Lecture

When we were given a lecture by Simon Faulkner, he explained to us in further depth about the culture of the zine, and how it has been influenced and changed over the years.

Previously, I had always considered a Zine to be a "face book page" of the 70s/80s. It conveyed a small ammount of information, in a fanzine, or perzine format. This being true, was now not completely the case in the modern day, several decades on.

Key Topics We Discussed:

• The "do it yourself politics" of the zine creation
• Punk as an influencial genre towards Zines
• The "capitalist society" of buying and selling (how zines responded in groups)
• The ways that the produced work was for other fans
• How we percive the zine then and now
• Entrepreneurialism for Punks
• Making zines to sell
• Advertising and profits for part of the purpose of the zine
• An "escape attempt" for the fans of a particular subject or movement
• It's purpose being "progression"
• Xerox copiers being the means of mass production, using collage and mixing type to create a striking image
• The "copier technology" being used in a non "capitalist" way, like using their technology against them, etc
• "Escaping Control" through visual or text based means.
• Relations to other works and artists/ writers/scholars: Dimitri Kleiner - The Telekommunist Manifesto (for example)
• The idea of copying intelectual property
• Working against the control of ideas, influencing zine content
• The so called "politics of Production"
• The consumer becoming the producer
• The reader becoming a writer
• Taking hold of the means of production
• Inventing new modes of cultural production
• Bypassing copyright and the maker
• Punk DIY as an asthetic to creation of zines
• looking into particular zines of the era, and how they use most of the above to make a statement (like temporary hoarding in the last post)
• "Sniffin' Glue" an old zine of 76-77 as another example
• The crude style around most zines of the time, being accepted as a signature sign of creation
• Having minor commercial value, more about the statement it said.
• "Self expression" through a culturally rebelious publication format
• How self expression is tricky, and how breaking away from the cliche is a difficult thing to do, (a probably reason why the punk asthetic died down for abit)
• "Up yours" another 70s zine - notice the titles and names were to provoke a response in the reader, something normally referencing an semi illegal act, like drug use (sniffin' glue)
• Ripped and Torn - another example of a zine of the era
• The act of being passive when it comes to zine work. "you need to engage with the subject, in order to fully contribute and understand"
• Johnny Rotten's experiences with the genre (as said in temporary hoarding examples seen in the last post) and how he wanted to take part in the audience, and in the bands he watched, not sit in the distance, watching from far away
• The alienation of our life energy - making something with your own skills and sesslign yourself - the personal interaction
• How anthologies and Zines are similar
• Repurposing the societies and and cultures
• How plagerism is percived in the zine culture, and how it effects the purpose of the movement
• How DaDa infulenced the zine culture
• The idea of a "revolution of style"

Responses:

After discussing this wide range of topics, it's clearer to me that the zine culture seems to strongly be about rebelling against a particular form of generic work, or against some kind of government or genre.

This may not be the case today with the punk movement dying down, however the zines themselves, from the examples I have researched so far, tend to be still trying to emulate that in the sense of a particular subject, such as making zines of TV programmes or personal traits or outings.

"This is my story and art, this is how you will see it, it goes against the normal way of drawing or writing because I want it to"

I feel like my zine submissions should try to emulate that somehow, maybe drawing or editing differently or conveying a different message within the given theme, to try and capture of of that old zine logic of the 70s.

Oliver Jeffers - A Special Lecture

Background: 

Born in Australia, but from Northern Ireland, the super creative Jeffers visited us and gave a lecture on his work, and how he progressed to where he was today. 

His range of books have been slowly built from a visual language progression, through his university training, inspirations from the everyday, and his burning desire to further himself and try new things. 

The examples above were featured in his talk, as he showed us various tips, and how he works. 

His range as a painter however is broad, and the way he interacts with colour, and puts it to use in a visual story, is something I want to try to capture myself, in my Zine work. 

The way the characters interact with a background, the use of line art and simplistic colour, make a bold impact in their own right. 

He told us to not give up, and to remember that no idea is original, alongside other tips such as not fearing space, (something I do alot) 

I hope that my work style can take a good lesson from what he taught us, and that i'll be able to fully master composition arrangement.

I believe that the key thing to take from his talk was to not be afraid of the blank space in an image. How could it possibly aid the work? what chould go there? where could my work branch out to? and to whom?

The Idea - Brainstorming Session

When we sat and planned our ideas, we began to rotate the brief around specific keywords that could prove handy, when thinking of a theme for our Zine project. 

The Planning:

Keywords: 

Starting with broad expansive words, such as "pattern" or "love", we quickly became massed with words, and possible ideas of interest. This spanned into a "Zine-a-week" theme, regarding one of those words, and how we personally react with the subject matter. The "Eyebrows" were going to be our first random keyword zine, featuring various drawings of... you guessed it, eyebrows. However due to time constraints and planning, we felt that this particular subject was a little too sparse and simple for the overall goal, and decided to move onto a more solid content idea. 

Format: 

Print and layout are very important for us overall, and we stormed several ideas out in terms of production, such as different methods of binding, and ways of printing, such as Risograph and Lino methods, to keep our pictures in a similar unity. An A5, stitch bound Zine, would be ideal to present our ideas.

Zine decisions: 

From what I personally gathered from our brainstorm, we aim to produce a form of A5 publication, that is sticking to a broader subject of place, particularly a trip to given locations. We can use the trip to gain a personal recollection through photography,drawing,digital adjustments.  

My personal response is something that I would like to form in tribute to the old zines of the past, a form of visual "mash up" or along those lines. 

Further Zine Based rules and ideas will be decided in due time. 

"Temporary Hoarding RAR" - Punk Fanzines

A research session into the fanzine popularity of the 80s was an interesting point to explore how these Zines were formed, years back. 

Examples: 

Front Cover

interviews and fan letters

Johnny Rotten Interveiw

Cover art

Anti Police collage

Anti Capitalist montage

 These particular examples used a large mix of photocopied images, photographs, and newspaper/letter text to create their outlook. Bold messages and a strong fanbase was born from the punk movement, which is clearly reflected in the mash up designs. 

The halftone pattern used, alongside the type was like an early photoshop mashup, almost like a pinup of various events at the time. 


Personally, I love this mashup of angles, colour, texture, and type. I think I feel inspired to take a further look into this style of visual collage, almost tributing the work that the old punk zines worked hard with, to deliver a strong message for their fans and feelings alike. 

Practitioners - Craig Atkinson Lecture

After an Essay-based break from the Zine, I have returned to the project with more progress into the general workings of the product we aim to produce as a result of the Unit X project. 

Recently, Various working practitioners came to speak to us about  their work, and how they have progressed in their field. 

Craig Atkinson - Cafe Royal

Cafe Royal (Click Here)

A graduate of Leeds Metropolitan in 1999, after studying Fine Art, Atkinson has become a publisher / editor /contributor of his  art book publisher, Cafe Royal as of 2005. 

He visited us and gave a talk on various tips, and how he generally progressed into starting his venture into creating his publisher, speaking of how it became available worldwide, and the kinds of work he created in previous years, to get where he is today. 

Taken from my notes on the lecture: 

Key Points: 

• Began making large abstract works to expand knowledge and gain experience 
• Decided to move away from standard painting 
• Began an early website to advertise presence, and took a larger interest into drawing 
• Spent a few years as a commercial illustrator 
• "Heads for a Fiver" project became somewhat interesting 
• Looked into character design 
• Worked with Galleries 
• Started Cafe Royal, focusing on it 100% 
• Works as an artist, illustrator, publisher and Lecturer, with some photography too. 

Looking into the Cafe royal books, I feel inspired by the general way he talked about breaking into the industry after his degree, and how he actually progressed in terms of publishing, and the content he produced. He also gave some handy tips during the talk: 

Tips: 

• Plan your future 
• Have a supporting job 
• Take Work head on 
• Find and problem and find a solution 
• Work 100% 
• "Publisher - Book Maker" 
• "Maker - not a publisher as such" 
• "Distributor - dissemination for £'s" 
• "Copyright- Them and me" 
• "Legal deposit - Obligations etc" 
• "Commission - Sale/return 40/60%?" 
• "Selectivity - What's published?" 

Overall, his published works show a variety of artists and their work, allowing them to use his setup as a playground for their ideas. 

I think this creative playground idea is the best way to fully express any thoughts or works, without too much restriction on specific traits. 

Another Handy Zine Guide - The 12 steps

(Kudos to fellow Zine'r Caitlin Gillian for the Facebook link!) 

This super handy guide was linked to our group the other day, and contains some really straightforward tips to creating a Zine. 

12 Steps:

1. Figure out your style/language
2. Brainstorm
3. Selection of subject matter
4. Begin processing content
5. Continue to produce, multi-tasking if possible 
6. If writing, get writing, and explore possibilities 
7. Remember to be descriptive 
8. Proof read material 
9. Be open to critiques 
10. Adjust it if need be, so that its visually appealing 
11. Make the cover, last job
12. Create something you would enjoy! and get it completed!

Click Here!

Back from Easter Break - Brainstorming

Return to work

The break gave me some thinking space while away, to unwind and and mostly relax.

During this time, I thought that it might be more sensible to look into the more simplistic ideas of creating a zine; something that doesn't seem overly complicated but still an effective idea at the same time.

Then again, joining a group was also something that needed thought about. Currently, my plan was to brainstorm and branch out at the tutorials to see what other groups had in mind, and see if my own ideas linked in with them, if it was possible.

Before doing so, I thought it best to do a word association style brainstorm, just to get some ideas out atleast. 

Examples of the Inital Ideas:

 Overveiw

Monsters, folk, supernatural, cults, all being inital random points to maybe start with?

 Initally selecting "Keyword" as a starting point, some random words sprung off the side

Maybe a particular setting or era could also provide various points of interest? Underground cultural movements, springing off the random words theme came to mind, like the ever growing steampunk genre. Possible Zine to expand on this area?

More ideas to follow from here...