Table Building and why zines ain't the same anymore
Got confirmation that we'll be attending the Des Moines I-Con June 18; it'll be the debut of our new table setup. It doesn't hover or transform into a giant boombox or anything, but we here at CLP think it'll make a nice impression.
Whenever I think about the I-Con, I think about THWIP!, a zine put out by Ivan Martin, one of the organizers of the I-Con. I've read a lot of zines in my time, too many, really. Blogging has really cut into the quality and quantity of the more verbal zines, so a lot of what's left is more art-object oriented. But even in the heyday, there was very little like THWIP! If you're not into the nomenclature of comics sound effects, THWIP! is the classic Spider-Man web-shooter noise.
THWIP! is all about the state of Spider-Man today. Each and every Spider-title is reviewed, along with classic issues, and related media. Often there will be a reprint of some send-away book ("send 5 wrappers and postage to" deals) that you have no shot at finding or knowing about, even. It was hard to shake off the realization that there was a Planned Parenthood Spider-Man gimme comic; reading it created a little fold in my brain that may be alzheimer's-proof.
Ivan puts this out religiously. There's always another THWIP! How many zines make it to ten regular issues? Twenty? THWIP! passed 100 issues recently. But here's my point about THWIP! and other zines: THWIP! is the truest zine I've ever encountered. It has a singular mission (never deviating), it comes out regularly, and shows no signs of a flagging purpose.
I was at a zine conference in Iowa City a few years ago and was amazed at how little output makes a zine mogul anymore. Some zines required a staff of people to make; that one got me. I'll take the purity of something like THWIP! over the sweary rambling manifestos I see anymore.
There are exceptions on the manifesto front, though; at the conference I traded a MAN IS VOX: Barracudae to Virginia Visker for three issues of her zine--Virginia makes a great crazy zine. During the panels at the zine conference, she rose to make a few points and the much younger crowd took her as ridiculous. Virignia always knows the score. "I'm not stupid," she told them "I'm an alcoholic." They didn't get it. At ground level, Virginia's done more for the art scene in this town than anyone will ever know. It occurred to me in that moment that zines had become what its most feverent 90s practitioners feared: a clique that chose deliberate primitivism to thin the competition for Big Dog in the pack. I was pretty depressed about it. But then I bought an odd zine called CLIMAX, a diary of orgasms had by a fellow over a few week period. It was fun, because it was about more than that. So, hope returned.
Ivan likes Spider-Man; read THWIP! and find out how much.
Whenever I think about the I-Con, I think about THWIP!, a zine put out by Ivan Martin, one of the organizers of the I-Con. I've read a lot of zines in my time, too many, really. Blogging has really cut into the quality and quantity of the more verbal zines, so a lot of what's left is more art-object oriented. But even in the heyday, there was very little like THWIP! If you're not into the nomenclature of comics sound effects, THWIP! is the classic Spider-Man web-shooter noise.
THWIP! is all about the state of Spider-Man today. Each and every Spider-title is reviewed, along with classic issues, and related media. Often there will be a reprint of some send-away book ("send 5 wrappers and postage to" deals) that you have no shot at finding or knowing about, even. It was hard to shake off the realization that there was a Planned Parenthood Spider-Man gimme comic; reading it created a little fold in my brain that may be alzheimer's-proof.
Ivan puts this out religiously. There's always another THWIP! How many zines make it to ten regular issues? Twenty? THWIP! passed 100 issues recently. But here's my point about THWIP! and other zines: THWIP! is the truest zine I've ever encountered. It has a singular mission (never deviating), it comes out regularly, and shows no signs of a flagging purpose.
I was at a zine conference in Iowa City a few years ago and was amazed at how little output makes a zine mogul anymore. Some zines required a staff of people to make; that one got me. I'll take the purity of something like THWIP! over the sweary rambling manifestos I see anymore.
There are exceptions on the manifesto front, though; at the conference I traded a MAN IS VOX: Barracudae to Virginia Visker for three issues of her zine--Virginia makes a great crazy zine. During the panels at the zine conference, she rose to make a few points and the much younger crowd took her as ridiculous. Virignia always knows the score. "I'm not stupid," she told them "I'm an alcoholic." They didn't get it. At ground level, Virginia's done more for the art scene in this town than anyone will ever know. It occurred to me in that moment that zines had become what its most feverent 90s practitioners feared: a clique that chose deliberate primitivism to thin the competition for Big Dog in the pack. I was pretty depressed about it. But then I bought an odd zine called CLIMAX, a diary of orgasms had by a fellow over a few week period. It was fun, because it was about more than that. So, hope returned.
Ivan likes Spider-Man; read THWIP! and find out how much.
posted by John Ira Thomas at 6:14 AM
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