Zine-ingful Connections

Published October 2nd, 2024 at 12:00 am, Last Updated October 2nd, 2024 at 10:47 am

Marya Errin Jones has been involved in Albuquerque’s alt music scene for a while and is an aficionado of the “noise” genre and other forms of music that exist outside of the mainstream. She’s a big fan of old-school recording mediums such as cassette tapes and has a similar love for written forms of expression such as zines — self-published, independent works that cover a wide variety of topics. Although she avoids the label “zine purist” — she sometimes uses technology to lay things out quickly and appreciates the value and usefulness of archives where zines are scanned and uploaded to a server — she admires the tangible quality of the zine medium.

“My favorite part about zines is being able to hold them and flip through them and put them in your pocket and take them around with you, share them, loan them out, whatever,” she says. “I know that the times are always changing but I think of a zine as something tactile, something I can hold.”

Jones is founder and co-producer of ABQ Zine Fest, a gallery that showcases “zinesters” who write outside of the margins, figuratively speaking. She says when she started the event 13 years ago, it was the only zine fest in New Mexico. Now similar showcases can be found in cities such as Santa Fe, Taos and Las Cruces. On Oct. 5, at the Sanitary Tortilla Factory in Downtown Albuquerque, underground media buffs can attend a free event stacked, literally speaking, with their favorite off the grid, printed material.

Jones says zine scenes can get pretty hyper focused.

“There are zine fests that feature ‘perzines’ or personal zines. There are LGBTQ fests, there are anarchist zine fests, there’s all kinds,” she says.

But Jones says her festival does not have a theme as far as content goes and the zines featured could be about anything.

“It really does range the gamut,” she says. “Zines about being a punk from the old days with grown kids and still writing zines. There’s zines about growing up trans and expressing oneself. There’s zinesters who write about their pets. There’s one sister who loves hot dogs and her zines are about hot dogs and drawings of hot dogs.”

In addition to showcasing underground literature, this year’s Zine Fest will have community tables and exhibits including a hands-on screen printing workshop by Pável Acevedo, an artist and educator originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. Those looking to get a fresh design are encouraged to bring their own blank shirt print on. Local artist and musician Stephanie Galloway will host a kid’s craft space in the kitchen of Sanitary Tortilla Factory and there will be desserts from Three Sisters Kitchen, a community-based learning space that also specializes in delicious food. The nonpartisan League of Women Voters will be on site to get folks registered to vote in the upcoming election. The Mobile Abolition Library will be there and Zine Fest is also hosting a table for Off Center Arts, a community art space in downtown Albuquerque. High Desert Debris, a local bootleg T-shirt company who printed the Zine Fest apparel will also be there.

Jones is a zine-writer herself who specializes in historic-type zines, but she says the main focus of the event is showcasing artists other than herself. She says the main criteria for participating in the gallery is that roughly 70% of the contents of exhibitors’ tables has to be zines. Prices vary, but Jones says the majority of what will be sold is fairly affordable.

“When I write them, I usually sell them for 3 to 5 bucks,” she says. “But it’s not necessarily about capitalism.”

The word “comeback” is sometimes associated with zines in the 21st century, but Jones says she’s not sure these underground publications have ever gone out of style and that zines are just as effective and impactful  today as they have ever been.

“Zines have been around for a long time and there are huge collections in libraries and places all over the country,” she says. “I just got back from a conference at Barnard College, and they have a great collection of zines there. University of Iowa has an expansive collection of zines from all eras, from back when they were science fiction stories. So now I feel like zines are used as an alternative education source.”

Jones says she’s proud to be a part of the proliferation of zine fests around New Mexico and beyond and believes that they provide an important space for writers to engage with one another and establish a sense of community. Although the genre itself may be a bit nichey, she says since she founded Zine Fest, the plan was always to try and host the event the first Saturday in October.

“In a way, the point was to go to Balloon Fiesta with your kids and bring your sullen, moody teenagers to see us later, to join in on those cool harvest days that are so cherished around here,” Jones says. “It could be raining, it could be cold, it could be anything, but at least it’s really part of this whole community of events that happen so close to each other.”

Although inclusivity is an important theme and Jones doesn’t want to stifle anyone’s creativity, she avoids promoting homophobic, xenophobic or racist content.

“I really wanted to create a space where I could go and feel comfortable,” she says. “And in my mind if, if that is true for me, it’s true for almost everybody else, unless they really have a hard time with brown, gay people.”

Jones says the most important thing that events such as hers accomplish is the sharing of knowledge.

“We’re trading information with zines. Maybe it’s slow knowledge because it’s printed. It depends on the writer, and if you have to have time and gumption to get the work done,” she says. “I think zines have that power to connect us in a way that our phones and our computers don’t. That’s why I feel zine fests in general are enriching, powerful, and affirming.”