What a blast. While I missed the opening party, featuring a film about independent comic makers, it was a pleasure to spend the whole weekend vending, buying and conversing at the Radical Montreal distro, now in it`s third year at expozine.
The place was packed almost constantly all weekend, especially after 1pm. One must have a lot of patience to circle to expo once or twice, purveying the hundreds of comics, books and zines available. I always find it a shame when people just blow by quickly and don`t even open the pages to see what the zine is about. My best experiences of the weekend were when people came up to me and shared a moment, a story or a compliment for the Radical Montreal blogand my random zines and art.
I sold a lot of zines and bike crafts, and it really always inspires me to keep creating when people support my art and writing. So thanks again everyone! I also did a quick interview about expozine over at The Link!
This year's Expozine was really fantastic with cheap beer, delicious samosa's, and a Distroboto art vending machine! I was able to find a ton of great zines, prints, magnets and card for about $40.00.
New Zines to the Radical Montreal zine distro
I launched 5 new zines from last year including two more zines from my queer perzine series called Representing the Q. I made this zine in only 4 hours just before the zine fair Queer Between the covers, which happens every August. It`s a series of jammed postcards that follow the story of my experience rejecting conformity and working to define my sexuality. The other zine is a mini zine which I call simply "Poly" which includes a short series of tips for redefining our relationships with non-monogogamy.
My new Winter Survival Guide offers tips for staying warm, indoor and outdoor winter fun, cycling in Montreal's winter, DIY Erotica, cheap date ideas and more.
I also released a zine I made called Guide to Joual: A Quebecois dialect, which I created in response to the attitude of my teachers and many others about the local dialect and slang. This zine includes my thoughts on evolution of language, the attitude of traditional language structures, as well as a bare bones Joual dictionary with some anglasized verbs and loan words. This seems to be a popular zine for french and english-speakers alike.
Finally my last new zine this year is Alley Cats, which includes short stories detailing the relationships, personalities and cat drama of the felines who live in my house and in the Ruelle Ontario. This zine was a lot of fun to make, and is illustrated with some of my silly cat caricatures.
Also new to the Radical Montreal distro is Transcending Barriers: Queer Solidarity for Palestine and addresses queer struggles in the middle east.
Some of my favourite zines from Expozine 2012. Check it out!
Mindful Occupation: Rising up without burning out
One of the only political zines in english at this years expo, Mindful Occupation is a thorough and thoughtful read with chapters delving into topics such as basic tips for sustainable occupy movements and coping skills in times of stress. A perfect guide for any activist who feels the burn from time to time. This zine was made by a group of radical mental health activists from all over North America. mindfuloccupation.org
Choose Your Own Sex Adventure: The Play Party by Jon Pressick
A new adventure unfolds when you receive a surprise email from your new gym buddy to go to a sex party. What to wear? This play on old 90's choose your own adventure stories goes to the next level with it's sexually scintillating storyline and interactive options. What a novel idea!
sex-in-words.blogspot.com
The Journal of Fantastical Creatures, Issue 22 by Vanessa Vaughan
The Journal is a quarter-page sized zine with cute cartoons of mythical creatures, which are accompanied by their fantasy latin names and species data such as lifespan, habitat and food preferences and details about everyday life. This vendor was sitting beside me at expozine, and was a really sweet artist which a good imagination. www.vvaughan.com
Broken Pencil
Members of Broken Pencil magazine, which is a small publication which highlights zines, comics, small press and DIY culture traded me their latest issue in exchange for a zine which they may review in their next issue. I`ve heard about this zine, but after finally checking it out, it seems like a pretty sweet read with lots of great articles. I just may get one of their mega-cheap student subscriptions! www.brokenpencil.com
Bikeman by Jon Chad
This comic featuring a bike herding bear superhero is as amusing as it is cute. The author resides in a small town in Vermont, where he is one of the only bike enthusiasts, and so he creates a bike-centric world of fun and fantasy. We had a cool conversation about the bike culture in Montreal and other places. Thanks for the free zine Jon!
http://jonchad.blogspot.ca/
Five Easy Ways to Bind a Book by Sharon
This useful mini-guide offers written and pictoral descriptions on how to bind your own books using five different techniques, such as saddle stitch and pamplet stitching. I met this author when vending at the Concordia Sunstainable Food Fair. She was selling beautiful hand-bound books and we were talking about how making a zine is a cool little project you do for yourself. I suggested she make a zine about her binding passion, and voila! she presented me with a copy at Expozine. Check out her stuff at www.soundlesssolioquy.etsy.com
Squidgee 3 by Keenan
The latest in his comic series, Keenan delivers squid-based delight to my brain. Squidgee is a black and white comic in incredible detail, chronicling the adventures of a squid squeegie kid, his jellyfish friend, and a host of other under-the-sea creatures in a fantasy underwater Montreal. Keenan will be releasing this zine at Touski cafe on Thursday, the 13th of December at 5pm, if you want to come check it out and his other awesome comics. www.touski.org
Dangerous Cooking by Katherine aka Verwho?
This art zine includes a series of comic depicting a kind of foodie love poem... "...a fine expresso, good while it's hot, thick while it's young." Breakfast lunch dinner and love make for dangerous cooking in these visually erotic poems. I had the pleasure of sitting next to this artist during the weekend, and her art is really quite appealing. It's so nice when you get to table beside someone interesting for a fair! http://verwho.tumblr.com
Little Apocalypses: A tiny book of great catastrophes by D. Boyd
This incredibly amusing (if you're into apocalyptic shit) mini-zine was actually purchased out of the distroboto machine at Expozine. This zine depicts tiny catastrophic scenarios, right in time for the verge of 2012. You can pick up this zine at Distrobotos in cafes in Mile End, or find out more on his site www.pastureoflove.com
And finally the only zine I came across that I really disliked, was a hand-out from Ste. Emilie Skillshare titled "Why should I cut my dreads? What's wrong with a mowhawk?"
This zine created by Colin Kennedy Donovan and Qwo-Li Driskill from the Planting seeds Community Awareness Project attempts to outline why white people should not wear their hair in dreadlocks, nor shave the sides of their heads. They argue that wearing ones hair in these particular ways is cultural appropriation and racist. Personally I feel that we can use our energy in better ways than trying to control other people's hairstyles. Cultural appropriation in fashion is one thing. Not brushing or shaving parts of your head is up to the individual. Dreading or removing hair is not unique to any one culture!
For zine purchases (see Distro at top) email me at sheena.swirlz@gmail.com!