Last week I was invited to Cardiff to facilitate a workshop on zine-making. I thought I’d get meta and make a zine for the workshop about zine-making. I figured it’d be a nice thing for people to take away, as well as giving an opportunity for anyone who couldn’t make the workshop to work/play through it in their own time.

What’s in the zine

The Zine-Maker zine introduces you to the idea of zines and where they come from. It helps you to figure out whether zine-making might be for you and – if so – what kinds of zines, or – if not – what alternative kinds of creativity might be a better fit. Then it takes you through a couple of quick warm-ups for your word-making and image-making (as well as a bunch of alternatives if these things aren’t for you). Finally, it gives you practices for making three zines/zine fragments/zine plans.

You can take a few hours alone – or with friends – to work/play through the zine as a workshop. Or you can just read it through, or dip into it, whatever works for you.

Who inspired the zine

In preparing this zine I read more of Lea Cooper’s wonderful series about zines, In the Zine House (and Carmen Maria Machado’s amazing book In the Dream House, which inspired Lea’s title). Lea’s words particularly helped me to understand the mad, crip, queer potential of zining.

I also read Stephen Duncombe’s excellent analysis of zines and art activism, Notes from Underground. I was fascinated to find out more about the roots of zine-making in both sci-fi fandom (which resonates hard as I’m currently watching everything Star Trek) and in the punk scene.

As well as embracing the DIY ethos of zine-making, both fandom and punk encourage their audiences to break down the hierarchies between creators and audiences by writing their own stories and/or making their own music.

Personally, slashers and other fan-fic authors take mainstream media into their own hands, often making fiction that is queerer that mainstream media is able to produce. Punk and Riot Grrrl resist the capitalist music industry by insisting that everyone can make their own music.

Politically, sci-fi and punk also both challenge the normative status quo, imagining futures where things are done radically differently, particularly in terms of the hierarchies that a drawn between what/who is considered valuable and what/who is not.

In the Zine-Maker zine, I bring Natalie Goldberg and Lynda Barry into dialogue with zines. Both authors present a radical alternative to conventional advice about words (Natalie) and images (Lynda). They suggest that we should dismantle normative ideas about what makes good, successful writing or pictures, and instead return to our ‘beginner’s mind’ or the child parts of us who knew/know how to play with words and images.

Finally, I love these words from Yarrow Magdalena which I include at the end of the zine.

I love thinking of zines as spells that can travel throughout the world to tell stories and share skills and knowledge … You can hide inside them when things get tough and you can experience another person’s world intimately or escape into some place brighter than your own. Zines give us a chance to shift the narratives we’re exposing ourselves to and to water the kinds of creative eco systems that are more aligned with our values than mainstream media. – Rituals, Yarrow Magdalena

The gift of zine

If you’d like to give the gift of zine, or of zine-making, feel free to download and share the Zine-Maker zine here.

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In the interview we explore the myths and misconceptions about sex and sexuality which we wanted to confront in the book, the problems with the idea of sexual ‘dysfunction’, and what Jules and I are hoping to achieve with our contributions to Icon’s graphic guide series.

You can find the full interview here.

Between the Pages: ‘Sexuality: A Graphic Guide’

Author Meg-John Barker explains why the comic book medium is perfect for exploring sex.

Written by

David Hopper

From the creators of graphic books, “Queer: A Graphic History” and “Gender: A Graphic Guide” comes “Sexuality: A Graphic Guide.” Published in 2021 by Icon Books, the 176-page comic book offers an informative and inclusive look at sexuality.

Writer Meg-John Barker and artist Jules Scheele, who both use they/them pronouns, take the reader on a Scooby-Doo, gang-like journey as the book’s four main characters encounter monsters like patriarchy, heteronormativity, ableism and white supremacy. The book is packed with quotes from (and illustrations of) leading sex researchers and theorists, helping make academic topics more accessible and fun.

Barker is the author of various+ books on sex, gender and relationships, including “Life Isn’t Binary,” “How to Understand Your Gender,” “Enjoy Sex (How, When and IF You Want To)” and “Rewriting the Rules.” You can read their blog at www.rewriting-the-rules.com.

In this exclusive interview with Giddy, Barker discusses the common sexuality myths they wanted to dispel, why a focus on sexual “dysfunction” is problematic, Scheele’s eye-catching illustrations and more.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What would you say is the purpose of the book as well as the intended audience?

Barker: Our aim was to provide a friendly, accessible guide to the various ways of understanding sexuality that are out there. Particularly, we wanted to highlight how the normative ways of understanding it in our culture at the moment are only one possibility, and often a not particularly helpful or accurate one. Read more…

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I haven’t blogged as much this year as I have in the past. This is partly because it’s been a year of huge change and upheaval for me, so my writing has been focused inwards more than outwards. It’s also because the things that have been going on in the wider world – particularly #metoo and the trans moral panic – have echoed through my communities, families, close relationships, and internal world in ways that have made it difficult – often impossible – to write and speak publicly about them, even though I still have much to say on the topics of consent and gender.

What have I been up to?

I have been podcasting with the fabulous Justin Hancock all year though, so feel free to check our collaborative project out at megjohnandjustin.com, including our holiday special on giving and receiving coming out over the holidays.

I’ve also finished a couple of books that’ll be out next year: Life Isn’t Binary with Alex Iantaffi, and Gender: A Graphic Guide with Julia Scheele (our follow-up to Queer). This year The Psychology of Sex came out which I’m really pleased with, as well as Mediated Intimacy – an academic book about sex advice with Rosalind Gill and Laura Harvey. It felt wonderful to publish a book based on my research before I leave academia next summer to focus on writing full time.

The comic

For the holidays I want to share with you a comic that comes out of the more internal work that I’ve been doing. Last year for the holidays I shared my Plural Selves Zine – about how we can see ourselves as multiple rather than singular, and learn to communicate better across all of our selves. This is something I’ve been delving deeper into during the year – in my journaling and creative writing, as well as in my relationships. The comic is one thing that has come out of that work. I hope you enjoy it. You can check out more of my resources on plurality here.

You can either download the pdf of the comic below, or read it through the pics that follow…

ChalkBoard Comic

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