The Zinester’s Work: Earlier this month, I came across an amusing blog post by Nicki Yowell over at Chicago-based webzine Gapers Block. Called “The Zinester’s Dilemma,” the piece was a wry primer on what zines are and how to explain the concept to parents, suspicious friends, etc. The second part of this post explains how to talk about zines to your prospective/current employer and how the skills accrued from zine-making are, in fact, highly valuable. As Yowell explains it, zine-making turns you into a Photoshop wizard, teaches you how to write press releases and organize events, manage contributors and develop many other skills. She also points out the importance of standing behind your work and being proud of it. Nice, affirmative read.
Writers Behaving Badly: There’s no easy path to being a great writer. Most other writers will tell you to just knuckle down and do it. There are certain earmarks, however, of being a bad writer – lacking humility, over-promoting yourself, being overly negative and instigating fights with other writers/critics (especially over Twitter.) This article, written by novelist Chuck Wendig, bluntly and hilariously outlines how to avoid the trappings of being a “bad” writer, and how avoiding this behaviour will help you move forward in your work, not backwards.
Zines on Film: This is technically a “call for submissions” kinda post, I think, but whatever – filmmaker/zinemaker Joe Wallace is making a documentary about zine culture and is looking for zine publishers and distro owners to interview on-camera. The doc is in pre-production and he plans to support it through crowdfunding. He is primarily looking for folks located in and around Chicago, but is willing to travel (and I bet with enough Toronto/Montreal nudgings, he could be convinced to make his way down here….) You can learn more about what he’s doing here.
From The Totally Indulgent and Not-Entirely Zine-Related Post Department: This article has nothing to do with zines or indie stuff, but it does have a lot to do with art – specifically, one of the works of Hollywood’s greatest artists, Mr. David Lynch. On the 20th anniversary of Lynch’s great-but-critically-panned Twin Peaks follow-up, Fire Walk With Me, Grantland writer Alex Pappademas dissects the film in an exhaustive article laden with images and video. What can we take away from this piece, friends? I find a lot of Lynch’s work inspiring and confounding in equal measure, and the article really highlights that he is a rogue director who creates work on his own terms, regardless of how the rest of the world feels about it. Also, it’s fascinating as shit.
Related/unrelated bonus: Take a look at the upcoming Twin Peaks zine, “Damn Fine Coffee.”
Bic Lady-Pens Unleash Torrent of Online Vitriol: So Bic is marketing a new type of pen aimed specifically at women. The campaign is ridiculously antiquated (“It has a thin barrel to fit a woman’s hand!” reads one product descriptor) and has caught the ire of Amazon.uk users, whose comments on the product page are unexpectedly hilarious and brutally sarcastic. “Ask your husband for extra pocket money so you can buy one today!” quips one commenter. Another commenter complains that the pens tend to dot all her “i”s with “tiny hearts.” It’s a pretty funny example of an online culture jam that looks refreshingly at notions of “femininity” and marketing.