Partyka is a collective of five cartoonists/illustrators based in Philadelphia and New York: Sean McCarthy, Sally Madden, Matt Wiegle, John Mejias, and Shawn Cheng. They self-publish comics and prints that have been featured in Best American Comics 2007, 2008, & 2011; Fredericks Freiser Gallery; and the 2011 Desert Island Whitney Zine Party. In keeping with their collaborative spirit, each member of Partyka tackled a different question in this lively Q&A.

Partyka regularly features a guest artist who joins the club for a month.  How does this revolving spot in the roster change the group as a whole?

Matt: Guest artists have been a good way to keep in touch with fellow artists and to see them make things that we might not normally see them make, like Joey Weiser's Gamera-as-Snoopy drawing, or Sally Madden's drawing of a bunch of cats eating me for dinner. That one went over so well that she joined Partyka and she and I got married.

What is the best part of working with the other artists in the Partyka collective?

Sally: The other members of the collective are some of the most dependable people I get to work with—we can count on one another for an honest (but so very polite) critique to improve our various projects. The diversity of our individual styles provides enough illusion of a lack of competition but with a similar enough sensibility that we can enjoy each other's work without secret evil thoughts. I'm by far the least worldly member of the collective, but the best thing about being the only woman is that you don't need to be the cleverest, just the prettiest.

With members in both cities, how do you settle the inevitable "Philadelphia vs. New York" arguments?

Sean: I grew up in Texas, so the New York/Philly rivalry has always seemed about as absurd to me as the Harvard/Yale rivalry—aren't we talking about basically the same kind of people in both places? That said, I choose to live in New York, but I respect Philly for inspiring Eraserhead, hosting the Peter Saul retrospective when New York failed to rise to the occasion, and being home to Jack's Delicatessen.

What new zines will Partyka have on hand at the Brooklyn Zine Fest?

Shawn: We'll have a few new zines at the fest, including an assortment of hand-printed woodcut zines from John and possibly a 2nd issue of Filebox from Sean and Let's All Go to the Pants Farm from Matt.

Partyka recently tabled at the Desert Island Zine Party in the Whitney Museum [organized by Desert Island, the Williamsburg comic shop / BZF 2012 tabler].  What other museum/cultural institution/public space would you like to take over?

John: Partyka will attend any and all good places that will have us. From a Museum to your Aunt Helen's kitchen we will set up a table of books with a fantastic tablecloth. No venue is too big or too small to exchange art and ideas.

"Meet Your Zine Maker:" Q&A segments with Brooklyn Zine Fest 2012 exhibitors.

At the Brooklyn Zine Fest, not only will you be able to pick up amazing zines from their creators, you'll also have the chance to win some truly awesome prizes in the BZF Raffle!  We've already got an extensive list of prizes, and it's getting more impressive every day.

Things like: two complete pairs of glasses from a local maker. Signed books from comedian Kristen Schaal, BZF tabler Ayun Halliday, and the writers of The Daily Show. Art prints, totes, and shirts. Coffee. Movie tickets. Organic, small-batch skin care. Subscriptions to comedy and film magazines. And of course, tons of zines from Brooklyn and beyond.

Raffle ticket prices will be posted once finalized. You can see the most up-to-date list of items up for grabs here or via the RAFFLE PRIZES tab at the top of the Brooklyn Zine Fest site. And check back often -- more prizes are being added all the time!

Miniature Garden is a small publishing project focusing on collaboration. nowork publishes anonymous work related to New York City.

BLOTTER, nowork. 

Tell us about the zines and art books published by Miniature Garden. 

MG: The name Miniature Garden was inspired by an image found in an old book about houseplants from the 1970s:  A grid of instructional photographs shows a pair of hands ---- the hands selecting a container, gathering soil, handling tools, placing the plants into dirt and carefully watering them. Being small and independently contained, the miniature garden is similar to a book where ideas and collaborations can grow. MG publications are about that experience.

Book of Books, Miniature Garden.

Both MG's and nowork's publications often present art without any kind of commentary.  Do you ever feel the urge to explain/contextualize, or are you generally comfortable letting the work speak for itself? 

MG: With some projects the absence of explanation makes sense because it invites the viewer/reader to make their own associations with the work. It is an extension of collaboration. 

nowork: we are generally comfortable letting the work speak for itself.  All of nowork's work is published anonymously.

Is there an artistic reason behind this decision, or is nowork just a mysterious, unidentifiable force? 

nowork: the reasons are several. among them:     

• too often artists' projects are credited to a single name, even if said projects involve the labor of many.    
• nowork is not interested in perpetuating the myth of the lone artist-creator. we produce collaboratively, our sources are the world around us.    
• we don't feel that attaching our names would add significance to the work.    
• there is freedom in anonymity.

Would Miniature Garden or nowork be able to function in any city other than New York?  If so, where would you plunk down?

MG: “Because of the versatility and mobility of a miniature garden, it need not be limited to a certain location.” (from: Terrariums & Miniature Gardens; A Sunset Book. Edited by Kathyrn Arthurs. Lane Books, Menlo Park, California. 1973, “Finding a location,” p.30)

nowork: nowork publications are based on our experience of the city we live in, in the present time. if we lived somewhere else, we'd probably be making different work - but it's best not to speculate.

Why make zines? 

nowork: our aim isn't to make zines, per se. we make publications based on the means at our disposal, and what we feel best suits the work. the zine format lends itself to getting things out the door quickly, cheaply, and with a minimum of fuss, and that is probably its main advantage. 

MG: Small publications allow for a connection that is intimate and immediate. The simplicity of the format can bring someone into a shared moment or thought without much pressure.

Jeremy Jusay’s foray into zines in the mid-1990s led to his first kiss, a nervous breakdown, and a radical career change.  His poetry/comics anthology zine Karass (inspired by the works of Kurt Vonnegut) featured illustrated stories about young people living in New York City, and brought him to the attention of Augenblick Studios, where he has been working ever since.

Jeremy’s background designs and storyboards have been used in shows such as MTV's Wonder Showzen, Adult Swim's Superjail, and Comedy Central's Ugly Americans, and his illustrations have been featured in the Criterion-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties Film Festival as well as several issues of the film zine I Love Bad Movies. His comics can be found in anthologies such as Number Foundation, Royal Flush, and Bloody Pulp Magazine.

Your ongoing publication Karass was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut (the title comes from his novel Cat's Cradle). Issue #6 includes the letter Vonnegut himself sent to you in response to the zine. He wrote: "I am tickled pink that there is now, thanks to you, a humane and lively publication named Karass." Can you tell us more about this exchange?

This all happened around 1994. I think it was in response to sending him a copy of Karass by mail. He actually sent me two identical letters (I assumed he had forgotten he had already written me), which is like winning the lotto twice for a Vonnegut fan.

The first thing I noticed when I retrieved the first letter from my mailbox was that the return address was nothing but a huge asterisk drawn in sharpie. Of course, I tore into the envelope excitedly and after reading it felt a tremendous sense of pride and satisfaction that one of my biggest literary heroes appreciated my zine. For many years after I would write letters to people only in sharpie.

Read anything great recently?

I'm reading the Vonnegut biography So It Goes by Charles J. Shields, and it's bringing back a lot of memories of reading his books. I also learned that he was a failed engineer, as I was, and that has strengthened my adoration for the man.

You've been making zines since 1994. What changes have you noticed in the zine scene and why have you stuck with it through the years?

Well, zines were really hot until about 1996-97 when the Internet came onto the scene. That closely coincides with my zine output, as I had put out 8 issues from 1994-95, then only 1 in 1996, then the last one in 2006. I stopped churning them out mainly due to going to art school, then working a full-time job, then being in a relationship. By the time #10 came out after a decade-long gap, the zine community I remembered was no longer around.

Blogs were big at that point and seen as an electronic alternative to paper zines, but they just didn't have the same charm in my opinion. Meeting Kseniya Yarosh, who was putting out good old-fashioned xeroxed zines after having been essentially raised on the Internet, was immensely refreshing. A few years later things seemed to be picking up as zine festivals started to pop up around Brooklyn, and I am pleased to finally be a part of one with this festival.

Tell us about the inspiration for your other collaborative project, Bloody Pulp Magazine.

Bloody Pulp Magazine was a collaborative anthology between myself and two guys I went to art school with, Leigh Walls and Glenn Urieta. It was something we had always talked about doing, and was inspired by EC Comics from the 50s such as Tales From the Crypt and Frontline Combat (which I had been exposed to while working on the MTV2 show Wonder Showzen for Augenblick Studios) and the recent Tarantino/Rodriguez flick Grindhouse.

For me, it was a huge departure from my normal comics work which tended to be more personal and autobiographical. It was liberating to do a WWII comic with action and guns and little to no twee sensibility. It was also nice to finally see something published by Leigh and Glenn as they were possibly the most talented cartoonists at SVA who ended up never working in comics.

Despite your long history of zine-making, this is your first time tabling at a zine event. What's taken you so long?

Well, I did co-table with Kseniya Yarosh of I Love Bad Movies in 2009, but I guess that doesn't count as I didn't sell any of my own zines. In the ’90s it was enough for me to spread the word about Karass through advertising and reviews in punk and riot grrl zines, flooding NYC with xeroxed flyers, and selling to bookstores and comic shops by consignment.

But now it seems to me the most effective way to get to an audience is to sell directly to them, as opposed to making little promo cards and dropping them off at cafes hoping that someone would write for a copy. Plus, I need to unload all these unsold zines that are just taking up space in my apartment.

“Meet Your Zine Maker:” Q&A with Brooklyn Zine Fest 2012 exhibitors.

Attention west coast zinesters: Check out the L.A. Zine Fest on Sunday, Feb. 19th from 11am to 5pm, upstairs from The Last Bookstore (453 S. Spring Street, Downtown Los Angeles).

In many ways, we consider the LAZF to be our sister fest.  Like us, this is the first year that Team False Start has taken the reigns to create their city's zine fest, and they've done an amazing job so far.  We've been inspired and encouraged by each other, and are glad to put to bed the terrible bi-coastal zine rivalry which has plagued our weary nation for so long.

Brooklyn Zine Fest co-organizers Matt and Kseniya will be at the L.A. Zine Fest selling their own zines, promoting the BZF, and trying to arm wrestle Henry Rollins.  Stop by and say hello!

Oilcan Press publishes handmade books of art, words & noise with hand printed covers.  This includes two continuing zines: Eye Socket and The Book of Broken Pages, featuring a broad swath of art, poetry, letters, collage, recipes, floor plans, prose, lyrics, and photos.

Do you have a favorite bookstore in New York?

I am an admirer of the folks who sell books on the street, sometimes out of their car with a shot suspension because it's always filled with books. Those folks really live on books. [Editor's note: check out  Book Thug Nation in Williamsburg, a used bookstore and community space created by four people who went from selling books on the street to running their own brick-and-mortar.]

Also, Unnameable Books on Vanderbilt Ave. in Brooklyn, and Mercer Street Books in Manhattan.

Tell us about a few new releases that will be available at the Brooklyn Zine Fest.

The Brooklyn Public Library by Edgar Oliver is our thickest thing yet. It's packed with prose, poems & art by the author, with several additional drawings by his sister Helen & a bevy of other artists. Most of the poems are the original typewritten pages.

Beats a Blank by Laki Vazakas is a book of video stills of beat & underground artists, musicians & writers over the last twenty-odd years.

The Epistles of Amerigo Mackarel is the first volume of a continuing art words noise project by Aaron Howard. This 9 x 12 chapbook comes with a CD of Amerigo Mackarel & The Octave Doktors performing the text of the book.

If you could convince any person (alive or dead) to publish a zine with Oilcan, who would it be?

I recently stumbled across Karl Blau's music & self publishing work. There is sooooo much of it and the Kelp Lunacy Advanced Plagiarism Society bears a character of blissful productivity worth striving toward.  He is the list.

What was the first zine published by Oilcan Press?

A Portrait of New York by a Wanderer There by Edgar Oliver, 2007.  It is now in its third printing, and its sales dwarf those of all other books & zines made by Oilcan Press

Oilcan publishes "art, words & noise."  What are the challenges of working in multiple media?

Multimedia is necessary in this time.  A book should not be only words, but images also.  These images & words should perhaps be accompanied by sounds.  These combinations bring each medium a little further along & entwine them.  All those published by Oilcan Press are artists of multiple media.

The biggest challenge is forming a team who can be trusted to work together smoothly.  Then all that's left is actually doing the work.

"Meet Your Zine Maker:" Q&A segments with Brooklyn Zine Fest 2012 exhibitors.

The Birdsong Collective and Micropress were founded in April 2008 with four goals in mind: to foster artistic collaboration in the form of an ongoing workshop; continually encourage each other to produce creative work; host free, public events where members can showcase works in progress; and circulate members’ creative endeavors in a low-cost, easy to reproduce, and high-frequency format.

Birdsong members share commitments to social movements of feminism, anti-racism, queer positivity, class-consciousness, and DIY cultural production. These commitments inform their creative work in many ways, ranging from the concrete to the theoretical to the experimental.

How did Birdsong Micropress come together, and what does it strive to accomplish?

The urge to actually start Birdsong was in part because of a really deflating breakup. I was searching for a way to offset that abject post-relationship malaise, and was really inspired by my friend Max Steele's insightful, energetic zine series SCORCHER. I didn't intend to make it a series, to have readings or shows or anything like that. It just started with the impulse to make things.

Zines are great in that respect because doing one is such an attainable goal, and the flood of success you feel is in making the thing, not its reception. In leaving it places, not who's picking it up. My friend Chantal is the one who started calling us a collective, and we grew from there. It's always done just what I wanted it to, which is showcase the creative talent of my best friends.

Tell us about a few of Birdsong's offerings.

Our collaborative flagship zine birdsong, which is art, photography, writing and interviews; the broadsheet BRD SNG which is a double-sided, amended version of the larger zine with one piece of art, a short story, a poem (or series of short poems), and one interview; Max Steele's psychedelic porno poetry zine SCORCHER; Daniel Portland's zine Oh, Renoir; plus a reading series, musical performances, prints, and more.

Of all your creations [zines or otherwise], what is your favorite?

Favorite I don't know, but I can say that I'm most excited about this video zine idea I'm crafting with a few friends. We're storyboarding and stuff, but I like it because in the time that Birdsong has existed so many core members have moved out of the city, and while the zine is of course a way for us to keep writing together, I've been wondering about ways to keep us performing together.  

Read anything great recently?

I read this absolutely halting poem that my roommate sent me via Tumblr a couple weeks ago (a great resource, btw-- I deleted my Facebook and am all about Tumblr) called "Whale Watch" by Dean Young. Every line is a revelation, including maybe my favorite line of all time, "There is so much to say and shut up about."

The Brooklyn Zine Fest 2012 will be held at Public Assembly in Williamsburg, which also happens to be your neighborhood.  Where are your favorite local places to eat, drink, and spend time?

I love writing at Blue Bottle because they have big tables and I like elbow room, also great coffee. Urban Rustic is great for the same reason, and also because the sandwiches are smackingly good and they have these multi-flavored, perennially appropriate candy cane-type treats. Blue Stove has the best pie in America.

Bar-wise of course Metropolitan is a gay baseline, but there's also this great place called the Post Office.  It’s on Havemeyer down by the S. 4^th Street post office, and it has really thoughtful cocktails and a binder of whiskeys. Food-wise I love Lodge and if I have a falafel from Oasis and an episode of Roseanne or Living Single I just purr.

Gabriel Kendra is a photographer in Richmond, Virginia.

He documents life, the universe, and everything.

On a trip to Ireland, you photographed an anti-British protest.  What was it like to capture such a kinetic moment?

The Queen was visiting Dublin and there were several smallish protests throughout the city. I had flown in that day and had no idea that this was going on. It was by chance that I ended up witnessing a small clash between protesters and Garda (Irish police). It was a very exciting time and place to be a photographer, I felt like every moment was an opportunity to make an interesting picture. However this led to the worry that if I spent too much time photographing one thing, something more exciting would be happening elsewhere.  

 Your photographs alternate between portraiture and shots of quiet, empty places.  What attracts you to each?

I have lately been influenced by film noir, ho rror movies, and anything else with a similar vibe. This has led me to shooting almost exclusively at night, and seeking out places which will allow me to recreate that same feeling; empty parking lots, gas stations, motels, etc. Most of my portraiture serves as more of a visual diary. I try to document the places I go and the people I meet. People are an infinite source of photographic material.

What is your (most recent) favorite zine? 

I’ve had badzine7 by Tim Lamb sitting in my house for a while and I’ve just gotten around to reading it. It’s a balanced blend of photography, doodles and writing, which is a combination that I’ve come to understand is very difficult to get right. Also I like informational zines. I love to learn.

What do you like about the art community in Richmond?

Richmond is home to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and a ton of galleries, so it definitely has the fine art scene covered, but it also has a large diy/punk/indie/whatever scene. There’s really something for everyone. Additionally, as an art student at VCU I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of talented people, and use a lot of expensive equipment which I wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise.

Is there anything you’re planning/hoping to do while in Brooklyn?

Eat food, acquire zines, take pictures. I’ve only ever been to New York on family vacations when I was younger, and I’d like to explore the city a little.

Squibly Art  is the home of mini comics and zines by Eric Gordon and Sara Shahlamian, based in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Their zine Vinyl Vagabonds is about records; hunting, reviewing, sharing, praising, criticizing, etc.

Vinyl Vagabonds is about your never-ending quest to find great (or entertainingly terrible) records.  What have been some of your favorite/most surprising discoveries?

Fat Boys for fifteen cents.  It doesn't get much better than that.  The cover looks like it was carried through a nuclear blast, but the inside is close to pristine.  It also had a twelve inch single squished in there with the LP.  We’ve also found a few records with handmade artwork to replace a destroyed cover.  That’s devotion.

Has anyone had an especially memorable reaction to one of your zines?

Readers have spotted a few oddball album reviews from our zine that they used to listen to years ago and get nostalgic – regardless of how good or bad the album (or our review) actually is.

VV began as a blog, which you continue to update regularly.  How/why did you make the leap to zines, and how are the two experiences the same or different?

I had been doing mini comics for a long time and while checking out last year’s Small Press Expo (SPX) in Maryland I was invited to the Richmond Zine Fest.  I had made some poetry type zines in the past, but I felt there was a more universal quality to what Sara and I have been doing in the Vinyl Vagabonds blog that would translate well to book form.

There are very different audiences with a blog and a zine.  Anybody universally can search/view/contribute/comment on the blog, which is nice.  The zine on the other hand often ends up with people who are into books and the DIY scene, which has its own virtues.  Frankly, the physical nature of vinyl records seems to habituate much better with a tangible zine whereas digital music fits better in a digital forum.

What do you like about the zine community in D.C. and Virginia?

So far people have just been really down to earth.  Minimal snobbery, ton of variety, and it all seems very natural.   Richmond is blessed with a great art-friendly scene, and D.C. is lucky to have SPX, which is just an amazing yearly event.

What do you do when you're not writing/drawing/creating?

I'm a social worker and Sara does paralegal work.  Spare time is spent watching the action in the fish tank, checking out good music, knitting, biking, cooking, making Godzilla Halloween costumes.  Typical stuff.

"Meet Your Zine Maker:" Q&A segments with Brooklyn Zine Fest 2012 exhibitors. 

Jenny Gonzalez-Blitz is the art-damaged virago behind a variety of comix and artworks, including Too Negative (an experiment in coping with mental illness using humor and Hell) and now the more candid Living In La-La Land (an autobiographical journal strip about the travails of living in an art collective under siege.)

Tell us about your comics.

Too Negative is a long running mini comic series about the denizens of a Halfway House in Hell. Its existence is a combination of coping with mental illness through humor, and poking fun at society’s idea of devilry—basically everything it wants to Other, alienate, and suppress. So I embrace my devilishness!

Living In La-La Land will debut in print form at the Brooklyn Zine Fest. It’s a journal strip that I started kind of jokingly, though the incident I first drew about did actually happen—but from there it actually became a sort of real time recording of how the city will attempt to break up alternative communities, how they’ll destroy themselves, stuff like that. My mom used to say I was “living in La-La Land” all the time, so I made that the title.

You live in an art collective in Brooklyn.  How does/did that arrangement affect your time and ability to create?

The collective where I live defected from an earlier one where certain controlling personalities were hell-bent on sucking the energy out of anyone truly trying to be creative (in the case of a few with health issues, very literally!). I’d be lying if I didn’t say some deadlines of things I wanted to participate in got by me while dealing with this stuff. But this fuels me in my sick twisted, semi-masochistic way to be creative and make art IN SPITE of what they or the city do!

We’ve re-named ourselves “The Coffin Factory” because the building was once literally a coffin factory, and because these ideas of creation being born of destruction appeal to me. I’d actually like to start a Coffin Factory publication –an art and literary journal of sorts - with the work of the house members and associates. I’d also love to debut that at the Fest, but we’ll see since I just got the idea yesterday at lunchtime.

What do you get out of making zines?

I love the whole creative process. I don’t want to get into a print-vs.-web thing because they both have their merits, but I like the mobility of zines – you can just toss some zines/comics into a backpack for the subway or whatever (no I don’t own a Kindle), and there’s just something about the look and feel of something very hand assembled, the rugged look of Xeroxed images and such, that’s very appealing to me. They’re like little pieces of someone’s heart that they just felt so moved to share, even without fancy printing or wide distribution.

A friend of mine speculated that depending on what happens with this SOPA/net neutrality stuff, there could be a wider revival of the printed zine. I’d hate to see that kind of censorship online, but there would still be that expression in the underground.

Tell us a little bit about your band Doll Hospital, and how it complements your visual art.

Doll Hospital is still sort of forming what it is, or maybe that will just always be in flux… my husband Eric does percussion and I do vocalizations, and we have other musicians who join us at different times. It started out of Urchestra, a project Eric participates in (and I’ve recently joined) that does interpretations of the Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters, which was a Dadaist poem using all German phonetic sounds, but no actual words. Doll Hospital just sort of came to be when we were doing a free-form session after a show in Rochester. We’ve performed in art spaces/galleries, at an Occupy art event, and in a cemetery after dark for Jack Kerouac and all other energies present… in 2012 I’d like to get some stuff recorded.

Of all your creations, what is your favorite?

I’m almost sort of afraid to answer that, like if I were to pick one thing it would be locked down. For a long time I was pretty focused on my comics and punk band I used to be in, but lately I’ve just wanted to look at new and different ways to be creative.

"Meet Your Zine Maker:" Q&A segments with Brooklyn Zine Fest 2012 exhibitors.