WHAT IS A ZINE?

 

• Vocabulary: Zine is short for fanzine, a mashup of fan and magazine
• Costs little to produce
• Specific target audience
• Alternative to the mainstream
• Often photocopied and assembled by hand

• 
  
  

  A zine is a self-published collection of text and/or images, usually distributed on a small scale and aimed at a relatively specific community. Punk zines, poetry zines, political manifestos and fan fiction zines are all associated with specific factions of contemporary subculture.

  • Zine Culture grew out of the Punk scene in the 1970s and hit its stride in the 1990s, when zines like the feminist Bust and the underground graffiti zine 12 Ounce Prophet gained mainstream popularity.

  quote from site 
  http://www.mahalo.com/zine-culture
  
  

  •  
  • gRRRl zine network: History of Zines Elke Zobl (April 2004)

Singapore Reportage for Sticky Institute Zine Shop May 2010

www.stickyinstitute.com
Essential Communications from Sticky Institute for the month of May 2010
FROM OUR SINGAPORE CORRESPONDENT with Donna Lipowitz
This month: Short and sweet

The Little Dro:m (umlauts over o) Store
Finally I made my way to a new store in Singapore called The Little Dro:m Store run by Antoinette & Stanley...and.... They sell zines! , a little too polished by Sticky standards, however they are independently published zines all the same. I spoke with Antoinette at length on how to promote & encourage the concept of zine enthusiasm in Singapore. She genuinely is interested in helping to promote zine culture in Singapore by means of some kind of zine making, promotion and sharing event held in the shop. Our only hurdle is getting people who do make zines or who would like to make a zine to actually make new zines. However, the plan is set in theoretical stone, which is pretty awesome for the time being. I lent them my collection of zines to peruse and hopefully it will drum up some inspiration.
The Little Dro:m Store - 7 Ann Siang Hill, Singapore 069791
www.thelittledromstore.tumblr.com

Singapore Art Gallery in Chinatown:
Worth a small mention, I visited a small gallery here in Chinatown to see an exhibition of postcards including “zine like” booklets by local artists. Unfortunately I couldn’t take a look inside as all the artworks were enclosed in a plastic envelope.
The Gallery: “My Art Space”, 21 Tanjong Pagar Rd #4 – 01
Exhibition of Postcard sized works “Pameran Poskad” (till 01.05.10)
www.keyakismos.com/pameranposkad

MY ZINES

SWAN BRAND REDISCOVERED!

Welcome to my 'Pre-launch' of '5005Rainbow'!!!
I have been busy hunting out treasures from the local shops here in Singapore. I plan to make my own customisations from the t-shirts and singlets from ‘SWAN BRAND’ Chinese Clothing.
In the meantime I wish to share the fruits of my searchings in its raw form as to inspire the more financially challenged amongst us to create their own fashion masterpieces.
Following is my new trial listing on ebay...
“SWAN BRAND REDISCOVERED! Originally sold in Australia during the late 1980's as part of the oversized fashion trend by such labels as 'CHERRY LANE' and 'SPORTSGIRL'.
'SWAN BRAND' is a Chinese Traditional Basics clothing brand made in Shanghai China for Chinese locals.
Sourced by Australian clothing designer living in Chinatown Singapore. Purchased from local stall holders.
Plain 100% cotton white plain t-shirt perfect for DIY customisation projects. LIMITED STOCK pending on local suppliers.
Sizes 36 & 38 currently available (sizes sml to med)
*larger sizes available on request
http://www.ebay.co.uk

SEARCH for 'SWAN BRAND' or 'DIY CUSTOMISATION' or '5005Rainbow'
Please note that even though the products are listed on the UK site (and US and Singapore sites), they are of course available in Australia; my initial motivation for sourcing this stuff with Australian buyers in mind.
**Please also note that I am embarrassingly new to this concept of online selling so I apologise in advance for any confusion of details X )
To be continued...

5005 RAINBOW

NEW LABEL LAUNCH COMING SOON!
'5005 RAINBOW' SINGAPORE 2010
T-shirts and homewear sourced from Chinatown Singapore
Products include:
Original 'SWAN BRAND' 100% cotton T-shirts and singlets
Original 'TALENT' 100% cotton T-shirts
Original 'GOOD MORNING' teatowels iconic to Singapore
Original 'FLOWER BASKET' hand towels (5005 Rainbow towel pictured)

"FULL MOON" Singapore Reportage for Sticky Institute March 2010

FROM OUR SINGAPORE CORRESPONDENT with Donna Lipowitz

This month: FULL MOON

WAH LAU! What happened to February!
The moon is full again, hence the Lunar New Year Celebrations are
drawing to a close...
..not quietly though, with the 'Dance of the Dragon' and Drum
ensemble' guys driving all over town unseatbelted in the backs of
utes, doing the annual duty of scaring away the bad spirits with
a dragon dance and an eardrum-shattering drum beat'.

It is just a matter of an advance booking and a donation and you
too could have a dragon dancing round your living room.
Guaranteed to be loudest but maybe the shortest party you ever
had. (there are many evil spirits to be scared away this time of
year : )

I finally visited the "Dinky Doodles' shop in Bali lane
Singapore, and met the owner Xin. I talked to her about trying to
drum up some more local interest in Zines.
As we discussed it is very difficult in Singapore to get people
interested in printed media these days; however I proposed to her
that we try to encourage a few people we know who have made zines
in the past to actually make a new zine! If there were a larger
collection of zines she mentioned it might be more worthwhile to
sell them in her shop.

In any case, I gave her my most recent zine and she gave me one
of her old ones I hadn't seen yet. She does lovely illustrations,
kind of like a comic strip merged with a personal diary. I hope
to encourage more artists and writers to make zines in Singapore.

The general response about zines here in Singapore is that
younger generations do not actively read printed matter anymore;
all information is via the internet and TV - and Art without
financial benefits is essentially a confusing notion amongst the
prosperous conscious society that is Singapore.

Doinky Doodles 33 Bali Lane Singapore
www.doinkydoodles.com

*Wah Lau (singlish for Oh My! or Oh, My God!)

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Toyko January 2010

Singapore/ Tokyo reportage by Donna Lipowitz 11012010 * for sticky  

http://www.stickyinstitute.com/

Title : Tokyo!!!

Yes... any previous unearthings of Singapore zine happenings have been heavily overshadowed by my 9 day trip to Toyko Metropolis over the New Year period.

Tokyo.  Was.  Awesome.

There are many photographs and unforgettable memories that are perhaps not relevant to my usual reportage; however, nonetheless Tokyo was undoubtably swimming with inspiration and I’m sure I have only scratched the surface.

My favourite place was a more bohimianesque part of Tokyo called “Shimokitazawa”; a marvellous maze of alleyways – the main drawcard for me 2^nd hand clothes shops and record stores. It was in the tiny corner of one record store I happened per chance to stumble upon a little zine like book called “ murren” vol. 5 (the ‘u’ with umlauts) Now I can’t read Japanese kranji but I asked my Japanese friend to explain the general gist of it. Its basically a diary by a small group of people about ‘bird listening’ I bought it because of the pretty pictures but perhaps in a year or so I might just learn Japanese and I’ll fill you in then. It’s full of hand drawn illustrations and a few colour photographs and lots of practical tips and notes about the art of bird listening in ‘Takao’ in the Japanese mountains. Its called “ Sound of the Mountain” (those few words are in English) ...a precious little publication...

There is a web link http://www.murren612.com/staff.html

Other than this little find I have to admit that my interest in the Textile district was at the forefront of my desires. There is an entire kilometre long street in “Nippori” called ‘Fabric town’ One shop in particular aptly named “Happy” had all kinds of ribbons and lace hanging from the ceiling of the shop. I was drawn to it like a bowerbird who’s Christmases had come all at once.

Now I’m sitting here at my computer in sweaty Singapore with some kind of throat infection and I’m drinking Saki to sooth both the physical and emotional distress in result of having to depart from such a blissful experience. 

In Singapore a couple of weeks before the holiday madness I did visit the “Red Dot Design Museum”  in ‘Tanjong Pagar’.  www.maad.sg A weekend market is held here once a month showcasing various designers selling locally handmade wares, mostly clothing. Amongst it all though there was a girl sitting at a little table selling stickers of her illustrations...and she had also made a zine! After chatting to her I discovered that she has in fact been studying illustration at a university in Melbourne. She was so pleased that I wanted a copy of her zine and that I indeed knew what a zine was.

It is called ‘ A #2 Pointlessly Random Collection’ “Anne Gee illustrates” a book of cute little doodles, simple b/w photocopies with a coloured cover. annegeeneo@gmail.com

I will be keeping an eye out for her in the future and she does know about the ‘Sticky Shop’ so i’m sure she’ll check you out when she returns to Melbourne to finish her studies this year.

Happy New Year and Happy Chinese New year to all!

The End.