The first time I saw a zine was in the late 1980's at Tower Records Bookstore in New York City. It was made of simple, white printer paper by a fan of Kate Bush. It had black and white pictures of Kate that were photocopied and stapled into the magazine. Although not as popular as they once were, DIY zines are still around, and this summer, I stumbled upon a bunch of them at the East Village Zine Fair on St. Mark's Place in NYC. As I checked out the many tables, my eyes caught sight of a particular table run by Quimby's Bookstore in Brooklyn. It had DIY zines that were reminiscent of the zines I used to love to buy so many years ago. Among the teeny-tiny mini zines, I saw a bunch of regular-sized zines by an artist named Jolie Ruin who I recognized because she sells artwork on Etsy. I even had one of her art collages in my Etsy favorites which was a small, art canvas decorated with colorful beads and a quote from a Juliana Hatfield song. I didn't even know she was a zinester and that she published Riot Grrrl-inspired zines!
The simplicity of zines reminds me of my Berklee College of Music days when we all made homemade cassette tapes of our original songs and played them for each other. Sometimes, someone would comment that the recordings of the vocals and instruments should be more slickly produced. I often disagreed. I'd say I rather listen to a guy strumming a guitar and singing lyrics that moved me than a demo of overproduced songs that say nothing and provide nothing original. The passion of three-chord grunge songs of the early 1990's touched so many people, and even today, as soon as you hear the first chords of a Nirvana song, you immediately know it's them.
The SlutCake zines include not only Jolie Ruin's writing and art but also from a variety of contributors. My story about my childhood crush on Barry Williams (Greg Brady of the TV show "The Brady Bunch"), and how I met him years later as an adult, is featured in SlutCake #18 - the Love and Crushes IssueI've grown tired of reading traditional literary journals because so often the stories have shock value themes and an unusual number of tragic endings. I remember one short story - a contest winner - entitled, "Ice Cream for Breakfast." The title made it sound like it was a pleasant, let's throw caution to the wind, story but instead it was about the mom regretting she hadn't permitted her little boy to have ice cream for breakfast because she was too busy searching for a cure while he was dying of a disease. What this story did for me was made me never want to read a story like that ever again. I believe that we readers can be inspired by stories with everyday, relatable, topics and don't need to have our worlds annihilated in order to be moved by a piece of writing!
Discovering Jolie Ruin's zines and art collages have added new excitement to my writing life. When my first order of zines from Etsy came in, I spent one Saturday afternoon on my bed drinking tea and reading Jolie's "The Escapist Artist" zines from cover to cover. I was intrigued by her journal entries from the early 2000's printed in the zines. She told honest, entertaining, and personal stories from when she was in her early twenties, and they took me back to my own early twenties and to those moments when I too saw indie bands perform at rock clubs and had those same feelings of excitement while watching live music and drinking beer with people my own age.
My very own Art Collage handmade by Jolie Ruin that I bought from her Ebay store. Some of Jolie Ruin's art collages are featured in the Netflix movie "Moxie!"
https://www.ebay.com/usr/jolieruin
https://www.etsy.com/shop/JolieRuin
