New in the digital archive as of last week is The V Files #20. The V Files was the magazine put out by the amazing folks who used to run Club V in London in the mid to late 90s. The zine itself is focused mostly on music of the indy/alternative/"brit pop"/thank-god-not-fag-disco variety as was the club nights at the time. So strap in and strap on for loads of interviews, name drops, playlists before mp3s and a ton more.
We were going to hold off for another week or so before showcasing this zine, but it sounds like Toronto Pride is once again policing it's own community and forgetting it's roots, so we pushed it up a bit. The Compton Cafeteria and Stonewall were fuckin' riots, Y'all. Never forget that every gain the queer community has made over the past fifty years is because we took to the streets, we fought cops and capitalism, bigotry and greed with bricks and fire and our blood and our lives. When we loose sight of that every 'gain' that we achieve begins to be eroded. As such, it's important to call Shame On Pride to all the corporate Pride™®© events that prioritize money and sponsorship over peoples lives. Shame on you, Toronto Pride. Shame on you, San Francisco Pride, Shame on you, PrideFest, Inc. in Milwaukee.
Speaking of pride (with a little 'P',) QZAP has always been proud of our roots in Queeruption, Gay Shame, Lah-di-dah, and the other anti-assimilationist and queerpunk events and communities. This weekend we're going to have a small presence at Filth Fest in Milwaukee, WI. It's the third year for this queer punk fest, and they're raising money for Project Q, the local LGBTQ+ youth org. Our pals Pansy and Lauryl Sulfate and Her Ladies of Leisure are playing, so it should be pretty cool.
Part of what made/makes ACT UP so effective was that it was a coalition (the "C" in the name) of diverse groups that were all focused on pieces of the AIDS crisis. One of those groups was YELL, the Youth Education Life Line. YELL was comprised of young folks from middle-school to university age who were concerned with a myriad of issues that affected them. One of their outreach stratagies was making and distributing the YELL zine which had info about safer sex and harm reduction practices, news about zaps and actions that folks did in their schools, and how to be involved in activisim around HIV/AIDS.
June 1 is kinda sorta the official start of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere. With the advent of summer comes all the fun things like days at the beach, drinking orange soda, cruisin' hotties, reading trashy novels and celeb zines, and all the summer jamz. To kick off summer QZAP style, we'd like you to check out Psycho #1 Fan by Seth Bogart. Yeah, that Seth… from Gravy Train!!!!! and Hunx and his Punx. He's so dreamy!
Milo woke up this moring thinking about zir pals who used to be in the Pirate Cheerleaders. They were a local-to-Milwaukee troupe of radical queer and less-queer women who would perform around the city. They were angry and funny and feminist and kicked serious ass. They were also part of a larger movement of radcal cheerleaders at the turn of the millenia. Lucky for QZAP that we managed to get a copy of their cheerzine before they disbanded to work on other rad projects.
MINI GAY CHEER:
gay, straight or rainbow clad
sex is sex and none of it's bad
get god outta my pants
hey jesus, lay off this!
No Apology #1 is very much a slice of it's time. It's a zine that's also a record label catalog. It's angry and self-righteous and a little smug in equal amounts. We're not really too sure what to say about it, other than it's new to the digital archive as of this week.
Here's this nice guy. He likes to wear skirts and dresses and women's clothes. It's not kinky for him… not really. He identifies as a transvestite, one of least talked about *** when we talk about Trans* folk. In his zine Blue Floral Gusset he talks about it. About wearing skirts full time, and how the world reacts. Also, this guy… he like heavy metal, and Doctor Who and hanging with his housemates, as you shall see if you read through…
Sometimes Monday is nice and easy, and sometimes it's rough and tumble. This particular Monday is more the latter. It calls for an extra shot of espresso, some queercore turned up real loud to drown out the traffic, and maybe that special scent of permanent markers tagging the bathroom stall, telling the world that indeed, we are 2QT2BSTR8. As a distraction, and following with the theme of the day, let's all share in the delight that is 1991's QT#1 by the QT Collective.
I'm here drinking my morning coffee and an article pops up in my news feed about another trans kid who was bullied to death. This needs to stop. Seriously, adults in these kids lives, if you can't protect them, if you can't keep them safe then at the very least you're negligent and in all probability you're responsible for their murder. I'm not the first to say it, either. Here's this… it came to QZAP as a flyer, but is probably from an uncredited zine*. Please print this and share it like crazy. We need to stop this epidemic of queer and trans murders, whether by their own hands or someone elses.
* If anyone knows where this originally came from or who the creator is, please let us know so we can credit it properly and update the archive record.
This week/end is pretty busy for us at QZAP. Chris is currently in NYC at the Queers and Comics conference, hobnobbing with queer zine comics bigwigs like Rachael House (Red Hanky Panky), Anonymous Boy (Anonymous Boy), and Elvis Bakaitis (Homos In Herstory) among others. The four of them will be on a panel on Friday talking about QZAP and our residency project. Meanwhile, back in the midwest Milo and Shannon will be in Chicago at the Chicago Zine Fest on Saturday, selling zines and t-shirts and generally being adorkable. If you're in or near Chicago stop by and say "Hello"
Because of Chris' participation at Queers and Comics our zine of the day (#QZOTD – let's make this happen) is Milky Boots #9. It's a sweet and amusing diary comic. While we've got a number of comics, comix, and illustrated zines in the archive, there's something about a diary comic that's endearing. See, we're not always punk rawk and safety pins through the nipples. We have a sensitive side, too… Anyway, on with the #QZOTD:
