alex d r horn has found the time in their schedule to join the blogger Alex Horn in a discussion about our love of the physical, the concrete nature of reading and the persistence of zines. To distinguish between the two, alex has insisted they be presented in italics because they, and I quote, ‘am not straight and so neither is my type.’ Thus, let us begin the parley.
Zines are here to stay. Even in the face of the digital age and the changing methods through which we engage with media, zines are still incredibly popular. In fact, though print magazine sales have dropped by almost half in the past 6 years, zines are still growing and becoming more successful, with dedicated events and shops popping up all over the world such as Bird in the Hand Zine Shop in Newcastle, Australia, and the Bristol Comic & Zine Fair. Why, alex, do you think this is?
there’s something about touching,
about holding in the palm of your hand
the object
the relic
the real.
it tells us a story. it calls us
to the fireside and says in
concrete papery unmoving tones
‘this is it. this is the sign
you were waiting for.’
you revisit the zine as a pilgrim
to the bathroom after a vindaloo
its permanence pleases you.
there will always be ‘the great escape’
on around christmastime;
there will always be the
zines on your shelf.
So the consistency in the physical is important to the consumer. This is shown in the statistics, actually. We are falling on the side of the tactile and print book sales are continuing to rise, despite the boom of ebooks in the late 00s.
But then zines aren’t mainstream: by design they serve counter-cultures and minority groups who often don’t get representation elsewhere. These stats show society as a whole but not the niche groups perhaps. These groups, these cultures, often seek representation online as well, however. Instagram poetry has emerged for young, often unheard voices to blossom on an accessible, instantly sharable platform. Some are, of course, skeptical, but could this rise mean the end of zines?
the zine feeds from the grasses
of twitter, drinks
from the river of instagram
and when it dies
its body dissolves
becomes mulch
which itself sinks
into the earth and seeps,
like a spilled wine on a white
tablecloth, back online.
the cycle continues.
the eye goes around.
The system keeps itself alive, both organisms cohabiting, benefiting one another. Book deals are being secured from lucrative Instagram poetry accounts (see Rupi Kaur’s two collections) and zines and their creators more often than not have an online presence (there are, at the time of writing, over 820,000 posts on Instagram with #zine. So zines are staying, as we can see, and it’s good to know that low-cost, personal work is still thriving. Any final thoughts, alex?
buy my zine
coming soon.