On Thursday night there was a whole host of cultural events going on in Birmingham. The one that I spent most of my time at was the All You Can Eat Zine event at the Sunflower Lounge hosted by Gallery Of Owls.
Since last year they’ve been regularly making atheir own zine, the GZEAN. Soon after An Endless Supply appeared and from the amount of zines available last night it seems like there is a small, but dedicated zine culture in Birmingham, which is definitely inspiring and reassuring for people looking to start their own.
The general price range was about £2 for a zine, which seems fair. Taking a flick through you could take a guess at how some were produced. For example, you could see that An Endless supply is made on computer with desktop publishing software (and possibly the a.a.s Group zine) whilst ATTA girl and GZEAN are clearly put together by hand. In a way it’s reflective of how times have changed and access to tools increases and learning curves to use software decreases.
There were also a few performances. First up was Richard Peel who did an adaptation of Dracular in about 10 minutes. The two actors mimed to the vocal track which really did make it funnier!
The next that I saw before I had to leave was Pez on drums. He had ambient music going throughout the speakers which he drummed along to. In a rather experimental twist he’d sometimes hit his guitar with his drum stick which worked quite well. Have a look and listen for yourself.
(The sound didn’t come out as expected, but I like it more for that reason)
Going to this event really inspired me to start up a zine again. Midge was right in saying that you can sometimes overthink yourself out of doing a zine and part of it is just getting up and doing it.
Watch this space!