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Melvis is feminist, and you can too

We hold these truths to be self evident: Everybody looks good in an Elvis wig, and even better in a Freddy Mercury mustache, and nobody isn’t fucking hot in glitter underwear. Well, Melvis the drag king wears them all, and he wants you to join him in undermining the patriarchy through explosive, performative masculinity.
Melvis is Feminist is a one-off experiential zine about the origin and exploits of its titular character. It includes a D.I.Y guide to male-drag on a budget, which covers everything from chest binding to bulge packing to hair-attachment. The central message of Melvis is how empowering it can be for women, especially queer women, to adopt the male role and experience some of the privilege men live with every day. “All the misogynist, sexist rhetoric, fried in my brain… all the fucking bullshit you’re supposed to eat with a smile. I become that sleazy sexist pig and barf it all back!” Take a look through this raunchy, no-hold-barred exposé on the masculine mystique, and who knows… maybe you’ll find yourself up on a stage somewhere making all the ladies cream, just like Melvis.
Dac Cederberg is a summer intern here at QZAP. He’ll be reading and reviewing zines on the blog through August.
Dac recently graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. He’s a cisgender gay man, he/him pronouns, from Missoula Montana. His alter ego is drag-queen bombshell Lady Dee. He doesn’t quite know what he wants to do with his life yet, but he loves reading, writing, TV, pop culture, and all things queer. He’s a Gemini and his favorite color is purple. Feel free to contact Dac through QZAP with any questions or comments.

 

Pure Evil!

What better way to start your summer than with a little Evil? This punchy drag zine catches the eye with a well composed photo of Lipsinka on the cover. The issue is dedicated to wigs, “the art of illusion through the power of fake hair.”

The first section includes reviews, of film, theatre, literature, and food, which are so conversational and frank they feel more like chatting with a friend. Next is an interview with Bobcat Goldthwait, stand up comedian and “Police Academy 2” star, promoting his film Shakes.

Centrally this zine is an ecstatic homage to the wig, with interviews from Charles Busch, Lady Bunny (creator of Wigstock, the original drag convention), Julie Halston, and Lypsinka, each explaining how fake hair has made a difference in their lives. This zine also includes a comic hand drawn by Hedda Lettuce, entitled “How to Pick Up Straight Boyz” which really speaks for itself. If you’re looking for a snapshot of the drag scene in New York in 1992, (and who isn’t?) look no further.

Dac Cederberg is a summer intern here at QZAP. He’ll be reading and reviewing zines on the blog through August.
Dac recently graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. He’s a cisgender gay man, he/him pronouns, from Missoula Montana. His alter ego is drag-queen bombshell Lady Dee. He doesn’t quite know what he wants to do with his life yet, but he loves reading, writing, TV, pop culture, and all things queer. He’s a Gemini and his favorite color is purple. Feel free to contact Dac through QZAP with any questions or comments.

 

Erotica

Erotica.  Sometimes that word feels super loaded.  Like it thinks it’s BETTER than pornography.  But it’s not, really.  And it doesn’t think that.  It’s just different.  Maybe a little more ‘arty.’  Possibly less visual, though not necessarily.  Here at QZAP we’ve got a good mix of both porn zines and erotica zines.  While it’s sometimes hard to know the difference, we think that these two zines lean more toward erotica.

First, there’s IQ: The Sex-zine for Girls who like Girls who wear Glasses.  It’s more of a traditional zine of it’s era in that aesthetically it’s of a cut-and-paste / clip art / rando shit visual style.  The content is sexy and funny and as the title suggests, aimed at a certain demographic.

The next zine that we added this week is Inciting Desire #2.  This is further along on the artsy-fartsy erotica spectrum. The production values are much higher with some slick 1992-era desktop publishing layouts, deliberate typography, and artful black and white photos.

Finally, we also added Gawk #6 from the good folks who brought us Diseased Pariah News.  This is NOT erotica, but it is the comics issue.  There’s a delightful multi-page spread of Gay World: 3025, the continuing adventures of Captain Condom, and as with the other two, a page of zine reviews amongst other great comics panels.

On a completely different topic, we’ve been playing around with Instagram, so if that’s your jam you can follow us at @queerzines.  We’ve got it set up to post to our Facebook page and Twitter feed, too.  Isn’t technology neat?

Dykes and Bykes

Spring is here!!!!  Well, almost.  It’s still in the 40s here at QZAP HQ, but the daffodils have come up, the lilacs are starting to bud, and us pansies have started to ride our bykes on the regular.  Speaking of bykes, we’ve got a number of zines in the archive that are about queers and their bicycles.  Here are some to get started…

Finally, our newest addition to the archive is Raw Vulva #2.  It’s a fantastic snapshot of queer lady bike culture in San Francisco from 1993.

 

 

Pussy Grazer

We’re still well ensconsed in Larry-Bob’s collection and making out way through it.  We’ve recently added two issues of Pussy Grazer, both from the early 1990s.  As was popular at the time there are lots or scene reports, zine reviews, and tons of cut-and-paste delights.  Make sure to check out the critiques of Out Magazine, the gay and lesbian glossy made for straigh folks 😉

500 Zines and Counting

Archive.qzap.org has 500 zines and bits of ephemera in it.  Our 500th record is a zine out of Boston called Rock Against Sexism.  This it the 4th issue, from 1992.  It’s got a ton of interviews, a discussion about Political Correctness (funny, we’re having similar discussions almost 25 years later), zine reviews, and a report back from an ACT UP/Boston fundraiser

Mousie

We have been slowly but surely been working on cataloging a collection of zines donated to QZAP by Larry-bob, creator of Holy Titclamps and Queer Zine Explosion.  Among the most recent that we’ve processed is a run of Mousie by Anna Rampage.  Some of the reoccuring themes that come up in these are about bisexuality and biphobia, discussions of racisim from an Asian POC perspective, and a visiting and revisiting (across several issues) of a book called The Total Woman by Marabel Morgan from the early 1970s.  There is also the usual assortment of zine and book reviews, fantastic cut-up art and xerography, and comics from multiple contributors.

Support our Strange Sisters

Early last week, our sister zine library, the Papercut Zine Library, got flooded and hundreds of zines got water damaged.  They’re trying to raise the funds to get them moved to the proper facilities.  Needless to say that this is a nightmare, especially for smaller “barefoot” and independant zine libraries like QZAP and Papercut.  We hate to ask, and we pretty much suck at doing fundraising for ourselves, but if you can please support Papercut through this YouCaring link.
https://www.youcaring.com/papercut-zine-library-526013

 

Thanks.

Going Homo

{queerzine n. a sexy, subversive and explicit publication devoted to enlarging and examining our culture assumptions}

There’s something about zines from the 1990s… they’ve often got common elements that make them instantly recognizeable as being from their time.  It’s an aesthetic, and a way of writing.  There’s a call to arms, a calling out of cops and governments and the military and anti-gay bigots.  There’s a calling in of other queers and zinesters. a “hey, find me, I’m stuck in this shite town and need to connect” vibe… (though this is not at all limited to time – it’s kind of part of zinester DNA.)  There are zine reviews, and lists without being listicles, bands listened to, and shows attended.  Pop culture drips from the pages, fuelled by cut-and-paste in a pre-WWW, pre-Photoshop world.
Lately we’ve been scanning a bunch of zines from the Emma Center collection which have this vibe.  They’re very much of their time, and also rediculously fun and important.  Going Homo #2 is a fine example.  It’s got all of the above and more.

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