In light of the kerfuffle surrounding Amnesty International's draft policy on sex worker's human rights we thought we'd highlight a zine by actual sex workers talking about their expieriences. While we have several zines in the archive talking about sex work, Whorecore is certainly one of our faves. It's unapologetic and intersectional in the way that it discusses the issues faced by the folks who made it.
Today's #QZOTD is Sassyfrass Circus #3. In some ways it's a diary comic, but it's also way more than that. She talks about a trip to Egypt and Israel, writes a brief history of Wimmin's Comix, and generally is an illustrative badass. J.Bee is currently the zinester in residence at QZAP.
Today's QZOTD is a diary zine called Montgomery Clift Was Queer. In it Charlie chronicles some time spent in NYC in 1994, including dumpster diving, musings about Jack Smith, and forrays into record shops to buy jazz records. It's cinematic and staccato in it's rhythm, and a joy to read.
Tomorrow is International Zine Library Day!!! It's one of those made-up but totally special holidays created to celebrate zine in libraries and archives, and also the librarians who work with all this amazing material. You can help us celebrate in a couple of ways:
GMS Headbanger first came to QZAP a few years ago. In a collection filled with odd and fascinating things, this grabbed our attention in a big way because heavy metal and folks who love it are not usually associated with queer lives (with some noteable acceptions.) Headbanger is the newsletter of the Chicago Gay Metal Society. Since we've added this to the collection we've been actively seeking other issues and information about GMS. So far we've come across a flyer, but not a lot more is known to us. If you have info or other issues of Headbanger please get in touch!
We had mentioned in passing that flyers made up part of out collection of ephemera. To be more accurate, from the founding of QZAP we've had a single-page flyer collection that we view as being zine-like but not zines. In some cases we've got a whole collection of SPFs from a single artist or collective. Such is the case with Queer Action Figures #3. This is the third installment of demanding, in-your-face zinestyle graphics that QAF put out in the mid-1990s. They're fun, funny, and in many ways have timeless messages of queer liberation for all of us.
In among all the zines we've got an odd collection of ephemera at QZAP. Mostly this consists of queer punk patches, flyers for events, a handful of CDs, and then there's the Pansy Division trading cards. Originally these were included in the LP version of their 1996 album Wish I'd Taken Pictures. Since PD just played a show at NYC Pride and got a sweet writeup in Pitchfork it seemed like a good time to show these off again.
It's International ZIne Month!!! If you're not quite sure what that means, Alex over at Stolen Sharpie Revolution has a list of different zine-related activities for each day of the month. Our favorite is International Zine Library Day on 21 July. Speaking of international, here at QZAP we have zines from at least 17 different countries. Today's QZOTD, Freaky Queer, is from Cardiff, Wales. A nice slice of early 90s zinemaking that has an interview with Alice from Chumbawumba, anti-war graphics, zine reviews, and other fun things.
Much has been writen in more mainstream publications of late about the demise of the gay bar. While that may or may not be true, there is a certain importance to preserving and documenting queer spaces. These would be the music and performance venues, the hook-up spots and the assignation destinations for our twilight lives. In WASTED Charolette has created a fanzine and memoir to the lost alternative music spaces for queers in London around the turn of the Millenia.
Though we never wholely forget, we were reminded once again about Queers Read This, the leaflet produced in 1990 anonamously for the NYC Pride March.
This reprint from 2009 had the wonderful forward:
QUEERS READ THIS was distributed as a leaflet at the June 1990 Pride march in New York City. Anonymous queers offer this republication of QUEERS READ THIS as a contribution to the militant queer tendency. We are excited to find a text almost 20 years old that so eloquently expresses the deep anger and the desire lor conNier that we leel every day living in a straight world The authors define straightness as different from heterosexuality. Straightness is a force in the world and inside each of us that we must purge (p2). Straightness is normality. The norm for queer people is to take oppression lying down. These authors urge us to fight back. They ask why, when we are being bashed and killed. we freak out at angry queers who carry banners that say BASH BACK (p15). Of course. we could not agree more. The culrural references in this leaflet are, at times, outdate, but the rage is timeless. – July, 2009
From Sheytls to Yarmulkes is the newest zine to come to the QZAP digital archive. It's a look at the lives of a handful of Conservative and Orthodox transgender Jews and an analysis of the how religion and gender identity do or don't fit together.
