With a cover so striking and in-your-face, Hello Pussy! #1 hides nothing from the reader. It is a compilation art zine written by drag artist Mimi, which they created while studying abroad in Amsterdam. The zine is an exploration of themes regarding gender, sex, sexuality, and activism with influences from the riot grrl movement. The text in the book is both a combination of Mimi’s own writing and from excerpts that they found from other sources. Nearly all pages of the zine are artistic collages of text and images, and despite having been made over twenty years ago, it is by far one of the most topical zines I have read from the archives. It feels as if every corner of the globe has been going backwards on ‘progressive’ ideas and policies, plunging us back into the dark. In times like this it is more important than ever to form an environment that you can feel safe in, even if it starts with a couple of your friends in a messaging group. It’s also just as important to use your voice when you can to stand up yourself and others while giving a nice ‘up-yours’ to those who look down on you.
After the introductory page is a collage about the art of drag, featuring an image macro of “Transgender Barbie” and a person in a princess dress. The images are overlaid with a poem about the art of drag, which opens with the line,
“There is nothing in the concept of drag-queen that requires a penis”
The poem goes into how drag is about performance of exaggerated gender roles and it’s over-exaggerated portrayals of stereotypical depictions of femininity and masculinity. The poem also mentions several absurd methods of self-defense as an allusion to how drag performers are often considered to be some of the strongest members of the wider queer community, since they are so overt about their presentation. Drag has always been so alluring to me, and now more than ever each performance feels like an act of resistance. The thought of doing drag has crossed my mind for a while, and I how I’d look as a frat boy or dressing myself up in an elaborate ball gown for the fun of it.
Another page features an image of two walruses resting next to each other above an excerpt of Dutch text, with an English translation below it. The passage in question admonishes laziness, specifically lazy women, as it open with:
“Even worse is the lazy woman who does not care about anything.”
It goes on to talk about how laziness is an evil vice that should be gotten rid of as soon as possible, and that it can only be cured through hard work. It then goes back to targeting these ‘lazy’ women who supposedly choose to be this way and take advantage of their husband’s hard work. Although the page itself does not add anything else to the passage, within the context of the rest of the zine, it is clearly critical of the passage and forces the reader to challenge it.
The zine also makes several references to Hello Kitty, the namesake of its title. One page features an illustration of the titular cat with a myriad of text overlaid on top of it, regarding her lack of a mouth. Such statements written include:
“Hello Kitty has no mouth, but she must scream. That is why her head is so big.
Hello Kitty has no mouth, yet she speaks the truth.
Hello Kitty has no mouth, so where has all the porridge gone?”
The way the collage is arranged to avoid going over her eyes, giving them the impression of looking directly at the reader, possibly as a cry for help. While the page is fairly humorous, this little detail is, in an odd way, relatable to me. I sometimes find myself unable to fully describe how I feel to others, especially when I’m highly distressed. Those small, beady eyes are the same as in every other drawing of Hello Kitty, but here, they feel more desperate. I feel your existentialism, Kitty!
The following page features several illustrations of Hello Kitty doing things that she would not often be associated with, such as smoking weed, wearing “alt” clothing and being a dominatrix, all surrounding an expert of text. The section, titled “Femininity”, is about Mimi recalling an experience with an online quiz on a Hello Kitty website. The quiz was about how passionate the user is, and the result that they got said that they are not ‘feminine’ and are always hanging out with men. The website attempts to reaffirm them by saying that, at the very least, some men would find them attractive. While the result only frustrated them for a day, they said:
If I would have gotten his answer when I was in puberty, I would have killed myself.
Having expectations like these hang around my head while growing up, I relate heavily to Mimi’s comment. Right now, I only feel somewhat frustrated reading that, but if twelve year old me took that quiz? It would’ve ruined my day.
Several of the pages are written in German, written in the Fraktur typeface. Fraktur has become synonymous with Germany, having been developed there. It is now mostly used as a decorative font due to it becoming harder for most people to read the script. Two of these pages feature back-to-back descriptions on fetishism, intersexuality and homosexuality. The excerpts are accompanied with various illustrations, such as a dominatrix near ‘fetishism’ and two naked Barbie dolls on top of one another near ‘homosexuality’.
Based on the terms used and ways they are worded, these excerpts appear to be from older written sources, likely from Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (The Institute for Sexual Science), a sexology research institution that had its archive destroyed by the Nazi government. This is likely the reason why the Fraktur typeface was chosen, as aside from it’s association with Germany, it was banned by the Nazi government.
By far one of the most intriguing sections of the zine is that of a questionnaire regarding the reader’s genitals. Lined with a border of flowers, the page is filled with questions, asking how the reader’s genitals look, if they’ve changed appearance, how they relate to their gender, and how they effect masturbation/sex. On the side is a small textbox with German text, which when translated reads:
“Fantasy: Explain to the group the advantages of being a woman versus being a man”
At the bottom of the page is a link that leads to the website the text was sources from. The page is titled The GenderQueer Monologues, and was created by a person named Toby Davis. Clicking on the (now broken) image leads to an about page for the project, revealing that it was written in response to Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, a play that intended to remove the stigma from the word ‘vagina’. Davis felt it correlated having a vagina being the sole thing that made someone a woman and made the page to challenge that view.
This zine encompasses nearly everything this archive is about: Being queer, sex-positive, radical while challenging conformity along the way. All it’s missing is a soup recipe! It’s also quickly become one of my favorite zines I’ve ever read anywhere. On one of the last pages of the zine is an introduction to Radical Cheerleading, an act of performance and resistance in the style of typical cheers. As a sendoff, I present a cheer from the zine:
“1-2-3-4 We want freedom! Stop the war!
5-6-7-8 Fuck the state! Masturbate!”
Erica (she/they) is a QZAP intern working virtually for the blog. She is in her fourth year of school and second year at SUNY Purchase, studying New Media. They are queer in gender and sexuality. She enjoys photography, playing video games and working on her website.
