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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘A calling card for the things you do as an artist’: Pocket-sized zines to be featured at annual Zine Fest at Central Library

The annual Zine Fest is back, and free, at the Central Library on Saturday.  (Wikimedia Commons)
By Azaria Podplesky For The Spokesman-Review For The Spokesman-Review

In more ways than one, a little really does go a long way when it comes to zines.

The pocket-sized works are usually the creation of just one person and often run for just a handful of hand-crafted pages.

When it’s time to circulate the zines, there are no big publishing houses to do the heavy lifting. Instead, zine creators photocopy page after page and staple completed zines together themselves, often producing less than 100 copies at a time and selling them for less than $10.

It’s an act of DIY that comes from necessity, not just the love of the craft.

Most commonly produced by and for members of various subcultures, zines (rhymes with “scenes”) had a dip in popularity with the rise of online journaling, but, like vinyl and low-rise jeans, they’ve had a comeback in the past decade or so.

In 2017, Chelsea Martin and Ian Amberson produced the first Spokane Zine Fest, bringing about 20 vendors together at the Bartlet. The pair arranged Spokane Zine Fest again in 2018 and 2019 before COVID put a pause on the event for a few years.

Martin and Amberson woke Spokane Zine Fest from its hibernation in 2023 and are preparing for the 2025 iteration, set for Saturday at the Central branch of the Spokane Public Library.

When he attended art school in Oakland, California, Amberson lived with musicians and artists and said there would often be zines around the house, even in the bathroom.

He could also find them at a co-op store called Needles and Pens and, generally, when he was out and about in the city.

“I graduated right in the financial crisis period and it was one of those things that you’re like, ‘Oh, people are publishing their own stuff and putting out their own work via an accessible medium,’ ” he said. “It’s always been inspiring.”

Thinking back to when he and Martin launched Spokane Zine Fest with the help of a Spokane Arts Grant Award, Amberson said he had to explain what a zine was to a few people here and there, but for the most part found that people were excited for the chance to celebrate zines and their makers.

“It’s hard to talk about because I always feel like the description of the format undersells the medium,” he said. “But I think generally, surprisingly, you don’t have to tell them about it or what it is. People just love supporting local artists and seeing new things, especially in a midsize city like Spokane.”

At this year’s event, nearly 70 creators will showcase their work. While Amberson hasn’t noticed themes in zine subjects from year to year, save for some artists using their zines to showcase their photography, he said zines are usually made to criticize some element of mainstream society and to give a platform to minority voices and those with experiences or ideas that don’t match much of mainstream society.

Since partnering with Spokane Public Library for the event, Spokane Zine Fest has also featured workshops for attendees.

“There’s so much space and rooms for people to set up in, and it’s a great option for us to expand with that and put a little more meat on the bones of the festival,” Amberson said.

The workshops start at 11:30 a.m. with “Comic Gamez with Spokane Sequential,” hosted by Nanette Cloud and Michael Stearns. Erica Schisler hosts “Zine in a Flash: Create and Share a Zine in an Hour!” at 1 p.m., and Emma Noyes, who participated in the first Spokane Zine Fest, hosts “From Zournal to Zine” at 2:30 p.m.

The Eastern Washington University Design Maker Station will be available for attendees during the entire event. Amberson and Martin worked with EWU design lecturer Sonja Durr and her students to create some of this year’s promotional material.

After this year’s festival, Amberson and Martin are taking a step back from organizing Spokane Zine Fest to dedicate time to other projects. Author Sharma Shields, who Amberson said should be credited as the festival’s third co-creator, will take over the reins next year, though Amberson said he and Martin will likely still be around on a volunteer basis.

Amberson appreciates that, while they can be, zines don’t have to be polished and perfect. They can be personal and expressive, “a calling card for the things you do as an artist or a person.”

But with zines, compared to online forms of expression like social media, that calling card doesn’t have the same reach, which can actually be a positive thing.

“With our oversaturated social media-focused world, and everybody’s chasing clout and followers, or the perception is that you should do that, zines are an option to be like, ‘This is what I’m about, but I’m not going to share it with everybody.’ ”

It’s freedom of expression, perhaps in the truest sense of the phrase.

“It’s a format that still maintains a sort of anti-capitalist sentiment of someone being like, ‘I don’t have to wait for approval from a system. I don’t have to make something that is a product that can be sold in the marketplace for capital. I can just make something that may be sloppy and weird and no one understands it but me,’ ” Amberson said.