Zinefest Berlin  

What’s the name of your zine/ distro?
Heavymental Zine Distro

Where are you from?
Berlin

What are you bringing to this year’s zinefest?
A bunch of personal zines and comix, mainly related to queer, feminist
topics. we will bring some new zines aswell: the Universal vs Specific,
Fix my Head #3: PUNX OF COLOUR, Wigged: ein zine rund um’s Thema
Haarausfall, it’s down to this, philly dudes collective

What are your influences?
Well, we think that feminist, queer critiques are portraying lots of
problems within our circles (subculture/academics/general society…) and
therefore need to be named. But they also show possibilities how to create
responsibility within communities.

Why zines?
Because in zines people can tell all kinds of stories – there is no one
who judges if your work is worth to be published or not. This might not
always be a good thing, but it definately means there are not as many
obstacles to overcome as in other forms of publishing. Zines are a
possibbility to get off of your individualized problems and make them
visible and speechable as a structural one. This is probably why personal
zines became so popular and there are a lot of excellent zines containing
politics and everydaylife aspects, which in our view make up one of the
greatest strenght of the medium. There is definately a different
interaction between reader and writer. It is like in general that good
literature can be educational but zines are appearing even less like an
authority or objectivity than books do. You read a zine and you think:
This is my life! Or you can read about really radical ideas and start
thinking about it without feeling directly confronted, due to it’s
subjective nature.

What are your expectations of the zinefest?
New Zines, amazing people and a relaxed atmosphere.

Website: www.heavymentaldistro.org

Discover and meet Heavymental Zine Distro at Zinefest Berlin 2012, 3-4 November @ SFE – Gneisenaustrasse 2a 10961 Berlin Kreuzberg.

Wie heisst dein Zine?
Mein neuestes Mini-Comic ist „Mein freier Tag“, bzw. „My day off“.

Wo kommst du her?
Berlin

Was bringst du zum Zinefest?
Außer „Mein freier Tag“ noch 3 Tijuana Bibles. Die neueste heißt „Bible #3“ und handelt von 2 Kunststudentinnen. Ich bringe die letzten Exemplare von „Masturbation“ mit, ein experimentelles Comicheft, in dem es um Einsamkeit geht und das „comic-sport“-Buch, in dem die Ergüsse des ersten halben Jahrs meines, mittlerweile so gut wie stillgelegten, Blogs comic-sport.blogspot.com versammelt sind. Da ich den Stand von „Renate“ mache, werdet Ihr noch viele andere Zines und Anthologien dort finden, in denen ich teilweise auch vertreten bin.

Warum Zines?
Meine Zwillingsschwester Ulla und ich waren schon als Kinder fasziniert von Manufakturen, von der Idee, etwas alleine per Hand zu vervielfältigen. Das liebe ich noch immer: diese Freiheit, unabhängig von Verlegern oder Geldgebern, Kunst zu produzieren. Mensch kann das Heft in jeder Phase des Produktionsprozesses selbst gestalten. Außerdem finde ich Handarbeit entspannend.

Was sind deine Erwartungen für das zinefest?
Leute treffen, neue Zines kennenlernen und vielleicht, wenn die Zeit es zulässt, an einem Vortrag oder Workshop teilnehmen.

Discover and meet Mein freier Tag at Zinefest Berlin 2012, 3-4 November @ SFE – Gneisenaustrasse 2a 10961 Berlin Kreuzberg.

What’s the name of your zine?
El Ojo n° 1 1/2

Where are you from?
Venezuela

What are you bringing to this year’s zinefest?
“El Ojo” 1 and 11/2, minicomics, and a collaborative zine with
drawings and illustration called “Plomo”.

What are your influences?
Underground Comics, music, life and my girlfriend.

Why zines?
Because I like the format and the scene.

What are your expectations of the zinefest?
Meet people, see new zines and comics, and show my stuffs.

Website

Discover and meet El Ojo at Zinefest Berlin 2012, 3-4 November @ SFE – Gneisenaustrasse 2a 10961 Berlin Kreuzberg.

Wie heisst euer Zine?
Renate

Wo kommst ihr her?
Berlin

Was bringst ihr zum Zinefest?
Renates komplettes Leben. Unsere 21ste Ausgabe begleitet Renate von der Geburt bis zum Tod. Und so ganz nebenbei beantworten wir auch noch die Frage nach dem Sinn des Lebens. Gern geschehen, eine unserer leichtesten Übungen …

Warum Zines?
Diese sprichwörtliche Geduld des Papiers ist schon beeindruckend; Du kannst ihm deine ganze Lebensgeschichte erzählen und es mault nicht rum. Das tun wir mittlerweile seit mehr als 20 Jahren. Also erzählen jetze, nich rummaulen.

Was sind deine Erwartungen für das Zinefest?
Alle unsere Freunde treffen und vielleicht auch ein oder zwei neue machen, bzw. zeichnen. Bis zum Hals inspiriert werden. Das ganze danach in Comics ausscheiden.

Website

Discover and meet Renate at Zinefest Berlin 2012, 3-4 November @ SFE – Gneisenaustrasse 2a 10961 Berlin Kreuzberg.

Wie heisst euer Zine/Distro?
Microsleep DIY Label/Distro

Wo kommst ihr her?
Berlin

Was bringst ihr zum Zinefest?
ZINES ZINES ZINES Licht und Patches u.a. das Erstlingswerk “du wirst deinen lebensabend in Gemütlichkeit und materiellem Wohlstand verbringen”, sowie Zines von Menschen, die wir mögen oder von Menschen, deren Zines wir nur mögen. Beispielsweise “Kalter Kaffee 1 und 2” und andere “EgoZines”

Warum Zines?
Sie sind handlich und schnell zu tauschen. In ihnen schlummern Ideen und Überzeugungen. Und hast du schon mal eine Bibliothek mit Büchern auf Klo gesehen?

Was sind deine Erwartungen für das Zinefest?
Viele begeisterungsfähige Menschen, die sich vielleicht ermutigt fühlen selbst mal was zu veröffentlichen nächstes Jahr am Zinefest teil zunehmen oder selber eins in einer anderen Stadt zu veröffentlichen.

Website

Discover and meet Microsleep DIY Label/Distro at Zinefest Berlin 2012, 3-4 November @ SFE – Gneisenaustrasse 2a 10961 Berlin Kreuzberg.

What’s the name of your zine
Foxitalic / Nulltausendnull/ Renate (me / comic artist collective / comic zine)

Where are you from?
Berlin

What are you bringing to this year’s zinefest?
“Perfect teeth”, a collection of illustrated notes about LSD and other dental treatments. My second new zine, “i died drawing” is a … errrm collection of illustrated notes about my desire for new problems and how mice creep me out.

What are your influences?
Al Burian (partially I write this because it’s true. but primarily my aim is to embarrass him)

Why zines?
Why self publish? Because i’m too impatient to wait til someone else does it for me.
Why on paper? Because i enjoy the look and feel of it and i want to make love to it. (paper pr0n is in the works, btw.)
Why in pages? Because i value the art of composition.

What are your expectations of the Zinefest?
Amazing art and beautiful people. Too little time/too much work to meet them all. I also expect a week long post-zinefest depression afterwards. Had that last year.

Website

Discover Perfect teeth and meet Foxitalic at Zinefest Berlin 2012, 3-4 November @ SFE – Gneisenaustrasse 2a 10961 Berlin Kreuzberg.

What’s the name of your zine/ distro?
I’m Halley, I write “Infecticitis” zine, and I run Raumschiff Distro.

Where are you from?
I’m from Boston, MA, though living in Berlin for over 3 years.

What are you bringing to this year’s zinefest?
my whole life’s being… of course I’m bringing the zine distro and all my other zine projects, and hopefully the #12 issue of Infecticitis. Also “Sound Record #1” hot of the press from the States. An avocado tree, 3 typewritters for the DIY room, and maybe a sock monkey with no arms. I’m bringing a lot of excited giddy zine-nerd energy.

What are your influences?
Typewritters, tempelhofer feld, black and white photos, cut and paste, knives. The idea of Do-It-Yourself, that I can create my own world and build it myself from scratch, in my own vision. I’m inspired by our zinefest meetings because we get together and organize, then immediately take action and we go and do it. It makes me want to do more. I’m also totally influenced and inspired by lateral-thinking solutions for how to fix things.

Why zines?
When I started making zines 10 years ago I said, “I’m going to make zines until I die,” and if I ever stopped then I would know I sold out completely. Why ZINES! You have a chance to present something to an audience, it’s a way to organize your thoughts, it’s a time capsule of the moment, it’s your own personal therapist, you can share a part of yourself. You can share a part of yourself and then realize how not-alone you are, because people write back to you or tell you “wow, I feel the same way.” Or people open up conversations with me they never would have. Also I love how zines reject the big empire of capitalism and are so individual and lovely and personal, made by a human with a heart. Small-scale connections can have a huge impact.

What are your expectations of the zinefest?
lots of chaos and trying to fit in last-minute table applications that I forgot about… but really, I’m hoping for connections. We have an inbox filled with emails and projects and people from all over, doing really cool shit, that I’ve only been looking at on a spreadsheet. So the weekend of the zinefest will be all these things in HUMAN FORM and talking to each other and trading zines, trading information, trading news of where they’re from, ect. I hope people join forces and start projects! I want to be invited to a new zine fest being organized. I also want to pick up a shit-ton of zines. and I want to swim in a swimming pool of zines-  yeah, maybe next year!

Website: www.raumschiffdistro.wordpress.com

Discover Infecticitis and meet Halley at Zinefest Berlin 2012, 3-4 November @ SFE – Gneisenaustrasse 2a 10961 Berlin Kreuzberg.