Local “zine” organizations hosted the ninth annual “Zine Fair” last weekend at the Art Institute of Boston on Newbury Street, celebrating independent magazines and comics.
Papercut Zine Library, Black Ocean, Boston comics Roundtable and the AIB sponsored the event.
Zine Fair head organizer and Art Institute of Boston Comics professor Dan Mazur said the event cultivates unique inspiration and is a great opportunity for people to share their work.
“Everybody gets to be creative and have a good time,” he said.
The fair is continually a great opportunity for underground publications to share their work on a one-to-one basis, Mazur said.
Gilsum, N.H., zine enthusiast Lucky Sia said she has been a decade-long fan of zines because of their personal nature.
“They are like biographies but not about famous people,” she said.
Sia said she appreciates the freedom that comes with publishing through independent media.
“If you try regular publishing channels, you probably won’t get published. But with zines, you censor yourself as much as you want,” she said. “No one else censors you.”
Papercut Zine Library volunteer Kimberly Boutin said each zine is unique because there is no particular format for a zine.
“It is whatever you think it is,” she said. “It is the essence of DIY, and you don’t have to be a big important person.”
Boutin said unlike larger American media conglomerates, independent zines put power in the hands of the writer and reader.
“Every other product is out to make more money,” she said. “All the products homogenize the culture.”
Nikolitsa Paranomos, zine writer for The Dishcarge, a political zine that incorporates social justice issues in the writers’ personal stories, said the zine offers readers stories with substance, though that is changing.
“Zines have been turning more comic lately,” she said. “They are becoming a lot more pacified and less engaged with social issues.”
Though the publications displayed at the fair prided themselves on their independence, comic illustrator Braden Lamb acknowledged that financial independence came with some setbacks. The high cost of publication and distribution of comics forced Lamb to put his media on the Internet because it could reach a wider audience without a large cost.
“People still prefer solid comic books, though,” he said.