An ASL Deaf Mind on Zines
(Don't miss the big news at the end!)
I have a terrible habit.
I love making things but easily forget about them after they’re done. The nooks and crannies of my studio are stuffed while I wonder if anything much was done in my life so far… until slips of paper fall out while pulling a book off my shelves.
Today I decided to pull out all of the zines I could find in my bookshelves and cabinets. They kept raining down. For those that I didn’t make, I still remember where most of them came from — the fingerprints of friends, the awkward but warm greetings at cons. Familiar strangers spilling their deep feelings out onto paper.
Funny thing about those pieces of paper — especially when they bear my marks — memories come back when they open. Images, feelings, even scents come up while the pages refresh in the mind’s eye. For me every piece of art is a time capsule that holds the the moment that they were created in.
There’s something about zines that is different from bound books. They are personal where books are professional. Their art isn’t in having UV gloss on 100lb cover stock, rather, the more imperfect the zine is, the more they come alive.
Zines are simply a means for human expression. They close the distance between the mind and the page.
For me one of the major reasons for making zines is because they allow one to outrun the inner critic. I am fragile. My mind cracks at the pressure of swinging for the fences of a 200-page book. Filling a single page with joy is enough. After one page, two becomes easier, and then before long it’s 100 pages stuffed in between Deaf Heritage and Drawing the Human Head, waiting to float down at the right time.
You might be asking, “Why now?” For a long time I’ve been thinking about what I missed about running publishing companies. It was very, very difficult to maintain The Tactile Mind Quarterly, Clerc Scar, and other publications before the companies closed. I miss the interaction that we Deaf and signing writers had with each other and on the page. It’s still not the same even with the rise of blogging and social media within the intervening years.
Recently the Sequential Artists Workshop awarded me a fellowship. They gave me an opportunity to revisit the reasons why I started in publishing in the first place — after all, comics are a strong part of zines and vice versa. Through this three-month experience I would like to create something that would make zines more accessible to our ASL Deaf community.
If you’re a Deaf or ASL-speaking writer or artist and would like to participate in the forthcoming zine project, hit reply or email me at adrean at substack.com. Meanwhile, look for updates in future newsletter editions!
*****
TYPING OF ZINES
My new zine, The Way Above, is now available for download at http://ko-fi.com/adrean/shop . If you prefer to hold it in your hands, a limited edition version is available at https://ko-fi.com/s/7479b37e23 . Today (7/15/23) is actually the last day to order it, but I’ll leave it open a wee bit longer in case you read this newsletter afterwards. Once it’s closed, it’s closed though - my ADHD brain is off happily skipping to new projects already! :D