Unity
Zine, Volume 1 Zine, Unity Zine, 39pgs, [email protected]
Unity Zine does exactly what it’s title says: it unifies, in more ways than one.
Unity is a youth-driven, non-for-profit zine collective which regularly donates all of its zine funds to women’s shelters and other areas of need in the community, which happens to be Winnipeg, Manitoba. Unity is a mixture of images, playlists, poems, interviews, recipes, and comics. The last six pages of the zine have numerous helpline numbers, places with neutral washrooms, youth shelters, and safe spaces which can be accessible for all those seeking help in the area. That is pretty damn rad!
One negative aspect of Unity is that not all of the pages have the same quality of images, some are very pixelated. These pages stick out like sore thumbs. Other pages are very clear, and some consistency in image quality and print would elevate the zine even further. For being the first volume of the collective, it’s understandable that kinks will get worked out.
LGBTQ+ friendly, youth-driven Canadian community zines like this one are necessities in our world. Creating safe for people, allowing your art to be showcased, and sharing your thoughts in a paper form is daring and although it’s not modern per say, it’s DIY at it’s finest. I will admit I’m impressed more from the background and roots of Unity than I am in the zine itself. This publication is climbing the ladder to be bigger and better, and I hope their momentum never stops. (KK Taylor)