Book / Zine Spotlight - Year of Zines
Today's spotlight is a hybrid of two things that I've been continuing to dive deeper into lately. It's part-book, and also part-zine, or MANY zines, to be more precise!
Year of Zines (2020) by Sarah Mirk is a compilation of zines from when Mirk made a zine every day for an entire year, published as a book. The primary method of Mirk's zine-making utilizes one of the most classic zine formats of all, pen-and-paper illustrated zines that are folded and assembled from a single sheet of standard size copy paper. The book collects 100 out of the 365 daily zines Mirk made over the course of 2019, and includes a short introductory essay, light commentary throughout, and additional zine-making insights, resources, and recommendations. It's exactly what it says on the tin, and that tin is bursting with creativity and the insightful magic of everyday observations!
I've been reading through the book in a linear fashion, but it would be just as fun to flip open to any random page and see what the zine topic of the day was for Mirk. It could be silly (yet accurate) declarations about why cats are anarchist creatures. It might be reflections about why it's so hard to ask for help, or a political education zine focused on sharing information to support immigrant bail funds. The range of topics is reassuringly vast. Other topics might be pondering what lessons can be learned from jealousy, reflections on white privilege, a checklist of questions for musing on whether you should date a person or not, or a list of things that are difficult to draw. But witnessing the huge range of topics and approaches to how Mirk makes zines is creatively encouraging, and really helps you feel like, "ah, it might not be too hard!" or not too out of the question to try making one yourself. Overall, the book is a very breezy read, with the accessible simplicity of the zine format making it so easy to keep flipping through multiple at a time. Zine culture is well and alive, and it's exciting to see more of it in books like this!