Zines
I discovered zines in the mid-90s, when I was a suburban teenage punk living with my mum on Gadigal country.
The first zine I made was called ‘Judgemental Bitch’. It was a booklet of A4 photocopied pages stapled together along one edge, with ultra-limited circulation (shared only with my friends at Kingsgrove High, even the one who called me a judgemental bitch in the first place. He may have had a point, but that’s another story). This would have been 1995 or 1996, when I had a picture of Courtney Love on the cover of my school diary; a photo of Courtney sitting on the ground drawing a big heart between her outstretched legs, with the words ‘PROPHET PROFIT’ in the middle.
There was only one issue of ‘Judgemental Bitch’.
Next I made a zine called ‘Telly Narcosis’. The cover of the first issue had a photo of then-Prime Minister John Howard scratching his head, with a monkey-ish expression on his face. The pages were full of collages and rants of the sort you’d expect of a suburban teenage punk at the turn of the millenium. By the time I got to #4 of ‘Telly Narcosis’ I’d developed a style I was proud of, and which has informed my art ever since. I spent hours and hours cutting and pasting text I’d typed on an electric typewriter then reduced or enlarged on the photocopier at my dad’s work. I can still see myself hunched over the coffee table in the loungeroom at midnight with the TV turned way down, so as not to wake my mum.
Twenty-odd years later I still make zines. I imagine I will keep making them till the day I die, or when photocopiers cease to exist, whichever comes first. These images are scans of the covers of some of the zines I’ve made over the years.
The first zine I made was called ‘Judgemental Bitch’. It was a booklet of A4 photocopied pages stapled together along one edge, with ultra-limited circulation (shared only with my friends at Kingsgrove High, even the one who called me a judgemental bitch in the first place. He may have had a point, but that’s another story). This would have been 1995 or 1996, when I had a picture of Courtney Love on the cover of my school diary; a photo of Courtney sitting on the ground drawing a big heart between her outstretched legs, with the words ‘PROPHET PROFIT’ in the middle.
There was only one issue of ‘Judgemental Bitch’.
Next I made a zine called ‘Telly Narcosis’. The cover of the first issue had a photo of then-Prime Minister John Howard scratching his head, with a monkey-ish expression on his face. The pages were full of collages and rants of the sort you’d expect of a suburban teenage punk at the turn of the millenium. By the time I got to #4 of ‘Telly Narcosis’ I’d developed a style I was proud of, and which has informed my art ever since. I spent hours and hours cutting and pasting text I’d typed on an electric typewriter then reduced or enlarged on the photocopier at my dad’s work. I can still see myself hunched over the coffee table in the loungeroom at midnight with the TV turned way down, so as not to wake my mum.
Twenty-odd years later I still make zines. I imagine I will keep making them till the day I die, or when photocopiers cease to exist, whichever comes first. These images are scans of the covers of some of the zines I’ve made over the years.
