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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.

Anarchy in the UK

Recently we added four issues of the Lesbian and Gay Freedom Movement newsletter to the archive.  These issues span from 1991-1995 (#5, #6, #8, and #10) and cover a bunch of topics ranging from anarchy to pornography to BDSM and political prisoners.  With the AIDS crisis in full swing, and the closing of the baths and policing of sex happening in lots of places both from outside and from within queer communities, it’s very interesting to read about a push for sexual liberation in it’s various forms.

Everybody is a bit Bowie-sexual

We woke to the news that David Bowie died yesterday.  He has been a favorite at QZAP for seemingly forever.  We honor him for his gender bending, his bisexuality, and his creativity over the years.  He has inspired us in so many ways, and we’re not the only ones.  We knew that on this sad day we just had to share Bowierama and reiterate the obvious:  Everybody is a bit Bowie-sexual.

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