HONEST AND UNEDITED: MELBOURNE ZINE CULTURE

In the Sticky bookshop tucked away in the Campbell arcade under Flinders St station, the crisp smell of newly xeroxed paper permeates the air. Masses of black and white printed booklets stare out at you. They have bold headings like Kiss Off, Local Anaesthetic, and Punctuation Training, and are combined with strange pictures. A few are in colour or have photos stuck on their front. One item that stands out is a stapled brown paper bag with Y-O-U stamped on it in red ink. Inside is a photocopy of a handwritten letter written by an anonymous author. Dear You… it starts off… I went to see No Through Road at Bar Open last night and goes on to describe how the author was moved by the musical performance. The writing is awkward and unedited, but deeply honest. This is a zine. A self published work free from the censure of editors or the constraints of commercial interests. Y-O-U is a weekly zine that has been running for over 4 years and is distributed free. Hundreds of zines like this are produced in Melbourne every year and circulated with little or no financial gain.

The Sticky bookstore is one of the biggest carriers of zines in Melbourne. In the 4 years it has been running, it has held over 1300 zines. Most are from Australia but some come from as far away as Greece and Croatia. Luke Sinclair is coordinator of Sticky. He first came across zines through the live music scene and has been contributing to zines since 1994. Sinclair, an artist and musician, says that as with many young artists, zines were an important entry point for him into the art world. ‘Before I came to zines I had never made any artwork at all. I didn’t draw as a kid. Zines were something I could be a part of and something that I could do. It was a really important first step in doing something creative and when I made that first step I was able to pursue other forms of artwork, and music. But it all stemmed from that important first experience of zines.’ Sinclair says zines provide an accessible avenue for beginning artists to create a piece for an audience. ‘Zines are a real, possible first step in terms of a first art project. You don’t have to rent an art space for $500 a week. You can just make 10 copies of a 4 page photocopied zine and that will cost you a couple of dollars in photocopying. You make 10 copies for your friends and you’re making a serious art project.’

Zine makers can approach the bookshop with their zine and negotiate a selling price. The bookshop is able to provide the space to zine writers without concerns about profit margins through financial support from the City of Melbourne, Arts Victoria, and The Australia Council. Sinclair sees the shop as important in supporting the art scene in Melbourne. He says that while some younger zine writers may not produce the most remarkable work, the shop gives them the opportunity to sell their work and develop as a serious artist.

The zine, short for fanzine, first originated in the U.S. in the 1930s as a forum for science fiction fans. Gradually, zines branched out to incorporate other forms of popular culture, such as comic books and film. In the late 70s zines became synonymous with the punk movement, embodying the same D.I.Y. principles. Grunge, borrowing from punk, created a resurgence of zines in the 90s. According to Sinclair, this is when the upsurge of zine writing in Melbourne began.

Many Melbourne zines are still made about the music scene, such as Punk Trash, a monthly guide to the Melbourne punk scene who’s mission is to Help bring punk back from the dead, and Local Anaesthetic, focusing on the Geelong music scene. However,

Sinclair says that zine writing has branched out in the last few years and a majority of zines held by Sticky are personal zines where people write down their thoughts, confessions, and everyday events from their life. One of the biggest sellers is Twenty Eight Pages Lovingly Bound with Twine by Christoff Meyers, which has been going for 3 ½ years and is now up to Issue 12. This is a rare feat, Sinclair says, as many zines fold after one or two issues. The zine sells 40 to 50 copies per issue. It is the story of the author’s daily life, in painstakingly graphic detail. It discusses fatherhood complete with baby photos, zine fairs, and even the merits of different twines used to bind the zine. What you want is a thick, full bodied twine; a twine that’s rugged, angry, rebellious, and hairy. It’s obsessive and sometimes a little dull, but strangely addictive.

Many personal zines are extremely confessional, discussing very personal issues. For example, Punctuation Training by Angela Weyrens is a clever, humourous recount of dealing with ‘punctuation’ (adolescent code for getting your period) complete with pictures and diagrams. But the tampons…phallic objects… will render you unfit for ritual sacrifice, should any satanic cultists need a virgin for such purposes.

In Thoughts of a Wannabe Emo Kid one contributor writes about his lack of love life. Dear fucking diary, I have total issues. I was out in the city today and I walked straight past her. She looked me in the eye and I just fucking ducked my head and kept walking. It was obviously a smile out of sympathy. I’m such a fucking moron.

‘A lot of people now do very personal zines about their life and it’s very self indulgent. It’s almost like therapy,’ says Mardi Nowak curator of the Hawthorn Town Hall Gallery. She recently organized an exhibition called Are You Going to Buy That? displaying works by zine, comic book and graphic novel artists. As well as the therapeutic aspect, Nowak believes that zines are an important cultural record. ‘It’s a different way of telling stories for a community. Zines are a very important community development tool. Melbourne is such a multicultural place, there are so many different kinds of people here and it really allows people in a very inexpensive way to put their story down and get other people to read it.’

Nowak says the exhibition aimed to promote a greater understanding of zines and expose them to a wider audience. ‘I wanted people from the area to have access to this type of genre and to be challenged by it. There is often the notion with zines and comic art that it is only young people that do it, which isn’t always the case, and that youth culture is always about graffiti.’ According to Nowak, the exhibition represents an evolution for zines, allowing them to engage with broader themes and mediums. ‘I wanted people from the zine community to have work in a gallery environment, which a lot of them don’t. For a lot of the artists it was really quite challenging for them to step outside of the book format and do something for the wall.’

Zines are also used as a way of publishing topics that mainstream media would not consider appropriate. Paul Elliot owns Polyester books in Brunswick St which dedicates a section of the store to selling zines. Elliot is vehemently against all forms of censorship and feels that it is his role to provide an outlet for the distribution of zines and other books regardless of their content, leaving it up to customers to choose what they read. However, this has landed him in trouble with the authorities on a number of occasions. ‘A girl did a sexual zine and we got raided because we stocked the zine. We’ve been raided for adult comics and dope growing books. We had to go to court but in the end they abandoned the case. But I’m willing to take it as far as it’ll go for the right to sell whatever. We don’t have a 1^st amendment in Australia but I run the store almost as if we do because I believe in that fundamental right. We don’t have any protection in Australia. People think we do but we don’t.’

Elliot is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what is considered acceptable. While in America, he discovered some right wing heavy metal zines and brought them back to sell in the store. ‘I’m nothing like a fascist but I like to read about anything and if I like to read about it, I think other people will like to read about it.’ Many people considered the zines of offensive and several people picketed the store. However, Elliot stands by the right for people to make their own decisions about the material. ‘I’m intelligent. I don’t read something and become a fascist,’ he says.

Given the ability to self publish on the Internet, it would seem that zines have been made superfluous. ‘I remember when the whole web explosion happened, it was like, well zines are dead, but it didn’t happen,’ says Sinclair. While web based e-zines have emerged, Sinclair says that people rarely make both. Many zines even take an anti-technology stance, using typewriters and handwritten pages rather than computers. Meyer who writes Twenty Pages Lovingly Bound with Twine even apologises for the amount of computer printouts and writes: Typed and handwritten pages are, to my mind, aesthetically superior and I will try to tip the scales more in their favour in future issues.

Nowak believes that zines will never be superseded by an electronic equivalent although she says that zines have adapted to become more art based and object like. ‘People like to have something tangible. The beauty of zines is that you can take them home. I don’t think the internet or websites will ever take over from that. There are different forms but I think people still want that hard copy.’