It's International Zine Month and KALW is exploring the Bay Area’s thriving zine subculture! Last week, we took you to the Prelinger Library to learn about the history of zine making. This week, we bring you to a zine party in the Mission.
A 1984 dark wave hit by the iconic drag queen Divine drifts out from the dim interior of the Mission District bar Mothership out onto its sunny patio, where a small group of people are setting up tables with zines, stickers, and other handmade goods for a kickoff party celebrating International Zine Month.
Since the early 2000s, the Bay Area has been home to spaces like the San Francisco Zine Fest, the East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest, and the Bay Area Queer Zine Fest. They are places for zine lovers to hang out, find community, and explore this art form.
At the zine party I went to, I saw zines on a range of topics - queer video game theory, grief guides, snail poems, genderless fashion inspiration, and comics about daily life.
"I like to do collage," said Oakland-based textile artist and zinester Caspian Walters, who sat surrounded by a colorful collection of their mini zines. "These are both collage: Animal Crossing, Kpop. This is cut paper. This is stamps. This is drawings of tchotchkes."
Zine fests have exploded in popularity in recent years. Last year’s SF Zine Fest had over 200 people tabling. As these events expand and gain traction, they pave the way for a thriving zine ecosystem.
"It’s so cool because there's new zinesters emerging from different fests that they're tabling - different new fests," said Maira McDermott, who founded the Bay Area Queer Zine Fest and hosted Sunday's zine party.
"And then there are more zine makers, and then those zine makers are creating their own events in turn. And so it's just this, like really beautiful cycle of just kind of things growing. I think zine makers in the Bay are creating the events that they want to see."
Maira said they have been making zines since they came out as queer.
"And that's been really helpful with, like, my journey, and just finding other queer zinesters - queer and trans zinesters specifically," they explained. "And just having that community has been really, really positive for me."
Like Maira, other local zinesters have used the medium to create gathering spaces that cultivate belonging and lean into what makes them feel unique.
Next week, KALW will take you into a new bilingual zine space and workshop in the heart of Chinatown.
