Aijung Kim, a BZF 2012 tabler who also creates as Sprouthead and Firefly Blind Press, has a great project in motion.  The Golden Moth Illumination Deck is her version of a tarot deck, but with her own hand-drawn illustrations and the goal of helping people to think about their own creative dreams, the choices they’ve made so far, and how they might accomplish their goals.  A reading with Aijung is like a cross between a pleasant dream analysis and a chat with an old friend.  Now she’s got a Kickstarter to have the Golden Moth Illumination Deck professionally printed, so you can read, play, and discover at home!

We’re very excited for the Brooklyn Zine Fest debut of this new project from Aijung, and we’ll let her tell you all about it!  Here she is:

As an artist and curious-seeker, I have always been interested in Tarot. I love all the symbols and how they express human drama - the story of your life waiting to be told in one pack of cards. I had always wanted to illustrate my own tarot deck as many artists have done in the past, but I found that I wasn't very good at reading tarot. I always had to consult a guide and I never practiced it enough to memorize the card meanings and give them my own personal interpretation. So instead, I decided to make my own deck of cards.

I created the prototype for the deck two and a half years ago. The symbols were inspired by tarot, runes, and I Ching divination systems, as well as my own personal symbolism (some were even inspired by dreams). I tried to make the symbols relevant to me personally as well as universally. I quickly drew the symbols onto small cards that I cut out of cardstock, and took them to a craft fair to try them out. I read fortunes for three people. I was nervous and excited, and I had to trust myself when giving the readings. I looked at the symbols and tried to find connections and read it as if it was a story. I had positive responses from my querents, which made me even more excited to do it again. As I continue to use the deck, I learn more about the dimensions of each symbol.

I feel like I am connecting with strangers in an important way - using the cards as a tool to discover patterns in their lives, reinforcing their own feelings and/or causing them to question their motives and change their attitudes about a situation. I've had people come to me who seemed closed off at first, but started smiling and talking more as we looked at the cards and talked about them, as if a door had opened up inside them. The experience of giving and receiving a reading can be very cathartic - it almost feels like therapy in a way. The neat thing about the cards is that they are a non-threatening way to work through issues, and help provide a visual reference to often intangible emotions and thoughts.

I always wanted to have my deck printed and available for other people to use, but I'm glad it took me some time to develop my relationship with the cards first. I have learned a lot from them, and I think that others can benefit as well. I also think it's versatile enough for people to use who aren't into tarot. It would be a great tool for writers and artists to use for inspiration and story-generating. I can't wait till the deck is distributed and I can hear from people about the creative ways they use their cards.

Along with my zines, I am very excited to bring The Golden Moth Illumination Deck to the Brooklyn Zine Fest. I'll be available to do readings for people as well as selling copies of the deck. See you at the fest!

   -- Aijung Kim

It is said that blood is thicker than water, but what is thicker than blood? What Thicker Than Blood editors Laura Galbraith and Nate Bear are asking is... what is closer than family? What binds us together more than the circumstances of our birth? Collaborating with a collection of artists, Laura and Nate explore the idiom in black and white art.

The content in Thicker Than Blood is "dark and twisted but with a sense of humor."  Tell us about the range of contributions you've published.

Nate: The idea for the zine grew out of The Blood Dumpster collective which already established that sort dark yet not-too-serious theme to its exhibitions and projects. Thicker Than Blood was initially conceived as another venue for the collective's artists, but then we thought it would be more fun to get artists from all over to contribute. The first issue was 50% group members and 50% outside submissions.

We get submissions that range from morbid serious pieces to cartoons and comics that approach the subject more humorously. I love to see how different artists can approach the same topic from completely different angles.

How's Thicker Than Blood #2 coming along?

Nate: We've had had some setbacks, getting sidetracked with other projects. Particularly building EyeHeart.Us, our (mostly) online shop. We did a couple holiday markets so we spent a lot of time preparing for that and creating new products. Now, we're back in zine mode and looking to debut Issue 2 at the Brooklyn Zine Fest. After that we have to figure out the theme for #3 and start the submission process. We're thinking of taking the zine digital so more people have a chance to see it. Because thats what this is all bout, helping people to discover new artists and work they haven't seen before.

Laura, you're currently in the middle of a 30 Day Drawing Challenge.  What inspired you, and what have you gained from it?

Laura: I recently was just feeling a bit down about my work and wanted to find some sort of challenge to keep me inspired... and I came across the 30 Day Drawing Challenge on The Autumn Society's blog and thought it might be something fun to participate in... and it is! It's just nice to have a list of stuff to draw that I normally wouldn't on my own, and get to see the results. I reccomend it to everyone who feels like they need a bit of inspiration! You can see other people's submissions on Twitter by searching for posts tagged #30daydrawingchallenge.

Nate: I was going to start it at the same time as Laura, but then I fell a couple days behind, then five and then... Well, I think I'll start it once she's done so I don't feel like I'm behind.

Some of your work involves drawing dream-like experiences.  Do you ever create art in your dreams?

Laura: I'd say each dream itself is a work of art, especially when you have ones dealing with escaping from pirates on dolphins who sank your cruise ship and are looking for you. Really, I think my work emulates more of the feeling of a dream world, the sensation of dreaming than a literal dream.

What have you read lately?

Laura: I'll leave out the boring marketing books I've been reading lately, and just say my favorite recent read has been The Devil and Sherlock Holmes by David Grann. It's not really about Sherlock Holmes (although one of the stories is about a semi-cult of Sherlock Holmes fans). It's a collection of 12 articles that were published by Grann that are about real life unsolved mysteries. It's a bit creepy to read knowing that things that he covers in it still go on (the history of "sandhogs" being one of my favorites... they're the people who dig the subway tunnels in NYC, get paid a ton, but the death rates are pretty high.)

Lip Service by M.J. Rose was also a good read, more fiction than anything.  It's about a housewife who secretly becomes a phone sex operator, but later uses it as a way of empowerment for her own insecure life. Anyway, both are a good read, if you don't have any good books on your reading list, defiantly make some time to read these two.

Nate: I've been digging this new webcomic by Atlanta-based Illustrator Drew Green, The Super Gay Adventures of Ross Boston. It's drawn in a beautiful cartoon modern style (a
la Powerpuff Girls and Dexter's Lab). It looks like a lot of work goes into every panel, so it's still a work in progress.  We're all still waiting to see how the first issue ends. I also have this huge collection of Milt Gross comics sitting on my night stand.

(Part One here!)  Ayun Halliday is an author of zines, books, and Bust magazine's "Mother Superior" column.  In her first Q&A segment she told us about her work and her influences.  Here's Part Two, in which she discusses how personal and family life inform and enrich the creative process.

You've been writing and publishing new issues of the East Village Inky for almost fifteen years.  Since then you've written several books and are now a columnist for Bust.  Did you view the Inky as a springboard to something bigger, or has it always been a personal project for you?

I viewed it as a life raft, when motherhood threatened to subsume my identity entirely. Interesting, I have never thought of the East Village Inky as a "momzine" (wretched term) or parenting zine.

But it's definitely true that the East Village Inky is responsible for launching my career as a writer.

You moved from the East Village to Brooklyn some years ago in search of more space to raise a family.  What's the biggest thing you miss about the EV, and what do you have in Brooklyn that you could never give up?

Well, now that one of the children is for all practical purposes adult-sized, and the one who wasn't born until issue 9 is pretty damn big too, 780 square feet of Brooklyn feels as cramped as 340 in the East Village did.

I miss our easy proximity to Tompkins Square, the fire escape that overlooked Yaffa Cafe's back garden, and of course, some of our old neighbors, many of whom have decamped since, too.

I feel a deep fondness for my Brooklyn stoop. Technically it belongs to my landlady, but she has graciously allowed us to colonize it, perhaps because we have no yard access, and crave interaction with the public the way some people crave privacy.

For many people, it seems like starting a family means sacrificing some of their personal goals and dreams, but you actually began the East Village Inky when your first child, Inky, was born.  How has motherhood/familyhood been a creative inspiration for you?

Parenthood definitely can put a capper on certain activities, and your own needs often take a backseat, but it also gives you a deep connection to other parents, and not just the ones who look like you, or those who share your education level, background, or beliefs!

And much as I enjoy the company of adults, I do get a bang out of children, particularly the way they interact with each other, the anarchic, often idiosyncratic way they make sense of their world.

This is specific to myself, but a few years ago, I started working at this awesome sleepaway camp in New Hampshire, as a way to send my children there without mortgaging the farm (if I had a farm to mortgage). My connection to the camp has become integral to my identity and has been reported in depth in the East Village Inky. It allows me to have relationships with children that are not predicated on me being someone's mother, and allows me to have peer-type relationships with the counselors, most of whom are a good twenty years younger than me.

While performing with the Neo-Futurists, you met your future husband, Urinetown! writer Greg Kotis.  Do you two still collaborate on creative pursuits?

Not since his play, The Truth About Santa, in which I played Santa's mortal consort, the children played Santa's half-mortal illegitimate offspring, and Greg played their cuckolded non-biological father. We're still recovering from that.

(Part Two here!) The East Village Inky is a handwritten, illustrated, long running, award winning time lapse age progression in an extremely slow motion paper format.  When not slaving away in the zine mines, the Inky's Chief Primatologist, Ayun Halliday, writes books that are published by other people, including No Touch Monkey! and The Zinester's Guide to NYC.

We had so many questions for Ayun, a zine-scene stalwart, that we've split her Q&A into two parts.  Here's the first!

What was your very first zine and when was it made?

I think of the East Village Inky (debuted in October, 1998) as my first zine but before that there was a murkily photocopied poetry chapbook and a zine-like one-shot called Nature (1996), detailing my mostly-freaked-out impressions of a week I spent alone at a mountaintop artist's retreat. The benefactor was out of town, and every day her pet cat would drag in a new dead baby animal for me. I made Nature instead of writing what I was there to write. It helped me cope with my fear!

Tell us about your influences.

Lynda Barry for sure. I loved it when her weekly Ernie Pook's Comeek shifted away from stuff about dating to the more autobiographical stuff about Arna and her cousins Marlys and Maybonne. I love her use of colloquial language, and how the tenderness with which the characters' many flaws are presented.

I also loved Spalding Gray. I'm slowly working my way through his published journals - which makes me appreciate the stuff he made for public consumption much, much more. The humor with which that was presented made it palatable in a way the journals are not.

I love Kurt Vonnegut's acidic, hilarious humanism , and feel - what? Proud? Honored? - that he was a fellow Hoosier. I don't want to read that recently published biography though. It was actually a kind of Sophie's Choice. My mother asked me which one I wanted, and I was like….Spalding! It's not news that he was a neurotic, navel gazer who cheated on the people who loved him… Let me keep my illusions about Kurt, the man who doodled female underpants, asterisk-shaped assholes, and beavers of both varieties.

What expectations do you have for the Brooklyn Zine Fest?

I think I'll probably haul at least twice more than I need to on the subway via granny cart - it is ever thus.

I'll make some connections with people who produce zines with which I was previously unfamiliar , and enjoy jawing with some old comrades.

Someone who spends twenty minutes examining everything at my table will walk away without buying anything. Someone else will make me feel like a rock star .

I'll get in conversations with some socially awkward people who've come by themselves, as well as a couple of straight guys in their early 20s who just wandered into the bar for a drink, have never heard of zines, and express wonderment as to why we wouldn't do a blog instead. Guaranteed one of them will say, "But how much moneyMe can you make doing something like this?"

I'll admire other people's table displays. I'll go home with some great reading material (and at least half the shit I dragged from home). I will most definitely eat a Cubano.

Bred out of sagebrush and broken down casinos, Go For Broke is a Reno-based zine collective promoting zines and independent printing in the "Biggest Little City." Their zines range in subject from skating to personal stories to art. 

You've described Go For Broke as finding its roots in sagebrush and old casinos.  What kinds of inspiration do you draw from your Nevada locale?

It feels like everything we create comes out of the Nevada scenery. So many local artists have the desert just pumping through their veins, pouring out in their art or writing. It's contagious and consuming, those tumbleweeds and old neon. People whiz through this town or this high desert landscape and shrug it off, but living in the thick of it becomes a love affair. It's not cute or hip; it's just ragged and jarringly honest.

Tell us about the zines and projects put out by Go For Broke.

Sarah Geo and I [Sarah Lillegard] started Go For Broke as a way to tie together all of the odd little zine projects we did. From there it sort of took on its own life. We now run some local zine workshops, coordinate an annual indie craft fair and put out Under the Arch: A  DIY Guide to Reno. Most of the zines we carry are from Reno/Reno-connections but it's not a locals-only crew. Mostly we just want to help people keep making and creating here.

What are your favorite zines these days?

I have been on an visual kick, so lots of Hamburger Eyes and these small run zines we had for a bit by Chris Clother.

Coming from Reno, you'll be one of the farthest-traveling exhibitors at the Brooklyn Zine Fest.  What do you plan on doing while you're in town?

Museum of Natural History, American Folk Art Museum, friend visits, city adventures, and visual blow outs.

What do you like about the creative community in Reno?

I love that Reno is small enough that you can make what you want happen (with a fair amount of elbow grease). That's true everywhere, but right now in Reno it feels like there are continually things coming together. Independent businesses popping up; artists cooking up projects; spaces taking shape; people are taking charge of how they want this city to be.

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

For anyone who might be curious about how and where to start making a zine of their own, BZF 2012 exhibitor Tommy Pico of Birdsong Micropress has a tutorial for you.  Part of The L Magazine's "How-to Brooklyn" issue, Tommy's article includes helpful tips on developing content, laying out & printing your zine, and getting people to read it.

Even if you're an experienced zine maker, it's a great reminder that anything you'd like to create is just a few steps away from being accomplished.

Chris Piascik is an independent illustrator that has been posting daily drawings on his website for over 4 years. He's been making zines all along the way. His work covers a diverse range of content heavily relying on hand-lettering. Political issues, music, quotes, complaining, and more!

Your recent Kickstarter campaign to fund a book version of your "1000 Days of Drawing" project was a huge success.  What has been your overall experience so far with crowdsourcing your project funding?

My Kickstarter project kind of blew my mind. To be honest I was very apprehensive to do it at all. I was worried I wouldn't be able to reach my goal and thus shunned from the internet forever. Okay, well maybe that is going a bit too far, but I was definitely nervous.

Overall it was a great experience, it's really a confidence booster to see so many people get behind my project. I've wanted to make a book of my drawing for a long time now and it never seemed feasible—the Kickstarter platform made it a possibility.

The sections in your book include "Random" and "Complaining."  Are you a reincarnation of Andy Rooney?

Do you know what I hate about Twitter...?

You seem to love and appreciate text way more than most illustrators.  What allure does the written word hold for you?

I've always really appreciated letterforms and how they work together. As a kid I would take my parents' record packaging apart and make my own. Drawing the band logos was always my favorite part. I also geeked out over typography while getting my BFA in Graphic Design.

Pretty soon you'll be finishing up work on your "1000 Days..." book.  What's next?

I'm not sure what big project is next, but I'll certainly be continuing my daily drawing project indefinitely. It would be strange to stop after doing 1000.

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

Desert Island is an arty comic book shop and publisher in Brooklyn.  They publish an amazing free tabloid comics anthology called Smoke Signal, and they'll be at the Brooklyn Zine Fest with free copies of the latest issue (and maybe some rare back issues and other stuff).  Owner Gabe Fowler answered our questions about his pioneering store.

Desert Island has an uncannily browsable mix of comics, zines, art books, and published sketchbooks/journals, and we've never left empty-handed.  What are some of the ways that you source new items?

I'm constantly looking for new work, and artists and zinesters are looking for someone like me to present it properly.  So we meet in the middle.

When you opened Desert Island, you modified the storefront's original sign, which now reads, "Sparacino's Bakery: Italian French Sicilian Bread and Comic Booklets."  Have any confused patrons demanded a baguette?

Oh sure.  It's a laff riot.

Smoke Signal is a free quarterly comics anthology that you've published for the last three years.  What's your favorite thing about the project?

There's a lot that I love about publishing Smoke Signal.  It allows me to regularly give free comics to people, which is obviously positive. It also provides a platform for keeping up contact with some of my favorite artists which is nice.  Zines can be great social lubricant, unlike blogs, which are completely socially alienating.   I also love printing cool art on gloriously smudgy oversize newsprint - there's nothing else like it.  I could go on.

Tell us about the offerings you'll have at your Brooklyn Zine Fest table.

I'll probably just bring a pile of Smoke Signal newspapers and give them away for free.  I'm currently working on the next issue, and it will have a unique cover by Tim Lane which can be cut out and assembled into a diorama.  So I will probably assemble the diorama and display it at my table.  I'll also bring a few of the rare early issues to sell.

Aside from affordable space for artists to work, what's one thing you would change about New York?

Ah, it's too easy to complain about New York.  We're all lucky to live here during such a creative and exciting time!

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

Zine topics by Jem Ross (Jemibook) are widely exploratory, or as Jem puts it, "all over the place." Each issue she creates is dedicated to a different subject, including but not limited to: Robert Downey Jr., Pandas, Raw Food, Alternative Date Ideas, and Sexy Times Gone Wrong.

Your zine Pussy Calculator sounds like it could be the title of a Prince song, and in fact the zine was written in his hometown of Minneapolis.  If you could collaborate with Prince on a project, what would it be?

Probably a clothing line. He always has the most amazingly outrageous clothing and it would be mildly humorous and kind of awesome if he made a line and sold it at Macy's or something similar like Madonna does now.

You've covered many zines and makers in your blog's recurring "On the Zine Scene" feature.  What have been some of your favorite surprises?

Interviewing the first zinester who inspired me to make zines in the first place, Lacey Hedtke, was pretty awesome. I remember the first time I found her zine Likes/Dislikes [which I still own and purchased the sequel when it came out a few years ago] I was so fascinated by the fact that someone had made this by hand and it was something that I thought I could do myself. I've also interviewed some other ladies I've come to admire in the zine scene like Amber Forrester and Meredith Wallace who both are doing awesome things to promote zines in their necks of the woods.

What are you obsessed with right now?

The Cosmos, DIY projects planned for spring, learning how to dye clothes, Die Antwoord's latest album, lavender colored everything, Girl-Guts [tumblr], Austin,TX, Ja Rule, and Borscht.

Zines you've made have covered topics such as pandas, "sexy times gone wrong," and Robert Downey, Jr.  Is RDJ possibly the key to making pandas' sexy times go right?

Robert Downey Jr. is the key for everyone's sexy times to go right. Well him and Ryan Gosling -- he is my latest man-crush. You know it's bad when everyone makes a point to post every single Ryan Gosling thing on your facebook page each week. But I'm not complaining -- bring it on!

What exciting stuff will you be rolling out at the Brooklyn Zine Fest?

Finally finished up the zine pak I made to go along with Kiss + Tell which features not only the zine but loads of goodies, including some fabulous NYCondoms, lube, and a sexy-time spinner. Also planning on bringing back I loe you, a zine I only did a limited run of 10 copies of -- primarily because it was incredibly costly and time-consuming -- but this time it will be compiled a bit differently so I can make enough copies to share! I have a few other ideas up my sleeve, but you will have to wait to see them!

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

Dave Gunn (Discomfort) and Kara Comegys (Clumsy) feel like used car salesmen when attempting to explain their zines. They are both straightedge vegan anarchist youths from upstate New York who, when dealt with a city lacking creative outlets outside of drugs and elitist hardcore music, decided to start doing things themselves and making their own dreams come true.

"Discomfort" and "Clumsy" perfectly describe how Dave and Kara feel on this planet and how we behave on it. They make zines that celebrate life for how awful and awesome it is, as well as embracing the many possible escapes it offers.

Well, we were first really surprised to see how many chains are actually using the word "vegan" on their sites nowadays. A lot of places actually had specific sections on their site for vegans, which was something neither of us had seen before. That was a pleasant surprise.

The other ones were pretty stomach-turning and confusing. Whataburger coats the tomatoes on their burgers with beeswax. Hardee's has green beans on the menu, which obviously are a vegetable, but they coat it in a special "vegetable seasoning" which contains not only two forms of dairy, but bacon fat, country ham, "ham base", "ham flavor", and gelatin; it is quite possibly the least vegan green bean you will ever find. Lastly, an esoteric ingredient even a few vegans aren't aware of, l-cysteine, which is derived from animal hair or feathers and is in a lot of commercial bread products is in every single bagel at Dunkin Donuts, we found out. It's a crazy world.

Both of you have made zines solo as well as collaboratively.  What do you like about each experience?

Dave: Kara's my best friend in the whole world and at this point is much like one of my limbs. So it just works naturally. We bounce ideas off of each other really well and are usually on the same page to begin with. When we collaborate, it gets work done faster and we help each other when we're feeling lazy. When I work by myself, it's great for pretty much the same exact reasons. It's like being ambidextrous, really.

Kara: Dave and I do everything else together so it only made sense to create a zine together. It was nice being able to support each other so we (well, I) never got stuck in that "this idea is stupid, no one will be interested, I give up" rut. On the other hand, creating something entirely on my own and knowing that I hit that rut but got myself out of it feels really, really great.

Tell us about why you've chosen to write and communicate through zines.

Dave: I've wanted to be a published writer since early on in high school after I gave up on my dream of being a cartoonist. As an adult, after many years of obsessively blogging and scrawling away in composition notebooks, I started to get more and more into anarchism and DIY culture. My refusal to work mixed with the newfound realization that I could technically do whatever I wanted to do led me to publishing my work myself, thus cutting out a corporate middle man and technically becoming a "published" writer.

I made my own dream come true, as everyone else should. It's been really successful so far and every person who decides my writing is worth $1.50 plus some shipping compels me to continue. Plus, scamming free copies makes it inconsequential to my life financially, while many other writers are racking up college loan debt and paying publishing presses.

Kara: I've never been very good at talking to people or getting rid of things. Making zines has helped me tell the stories I want to tell without getting panicked, mumbling, or shutting down, as well as capture memories, good and bad, in a permanent, tangible way.

You create work under the monikers Discomfort and Clumsy.  Are there times/places where you are comfortable and/or able to dance without stumbling?

No.

 
What new projects will you have at the Brooklyn Zine Fest 2012?

Dave: I will hopefully have finished my new personal zine about running away from home during a nervous breakdown and opting, albeit kind of by accident, to be homeless in New York City. Maybe I'll even have finished my next zine about my hometown of Schenectady, which has been ecomically impoverished since the '70s due to General Electric outsourcing jobs, as well as culturally devoid and run by an infamously corrupt police force.

Kara: I just started working on a new zine about my guts. I'm not sure if it will reach completion, but I hope it does.

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