This is a follow up to Part One.
Strangely enough, this past Sunday was probably my best experience of Canzine yet. I had a good day, I did not freak out, I talked to all sorts of wonderful folks, and I sold a lotta zines. I am, however, still critical of Broken Pencil and Canzine. As I’ve mentioned, every year I say I’m going to quit, and every year, I go back. I am not entirely opposed to tabling again next year. The thing is, I think that if if rad folks and zinesters and suchnot and whatforth quit going, we will only remain un/der-represented, and what good does that do? I think it would be more useful and constructive for us to continue showing up, continue our criticisms and conversations, support one another in the processes, and figure out ways to change things. I’d like to see more affordable zines, queer zines, feminist zines, perzines…
I do have some suggestions. One, I think Canzine needs to be an accessible event every year. I think Canzine needs to be held in a space with access for folks with physical disabilities, and I also think they need to put some gaps in their rows of tables so we don’t all become trapped. Many of us have been telling the folks at Broken Pencil for years now that we want the space to be accessible. Toronto is a big city. These spaces exist. Tabling at Canzine is difficult because the tables are always way too close together, meaning I’ve got some dude bumping into me from behind every time he scrapes his chair across the floor to get up, and I have to crawl under the tables to get out. This year, some dude actually lifted my chair while I was sitting on it to get out. It was disgusting. Ramps and elevators are obvious, but we also need wider aisles and more space for tablers to do their thing in relative comfort. Canzine gave a little lip service to accessibility this year, advertising the event as accessible, then backing out and letting us know it wasn’t after all. In an email to vendors, they claimed that accessibility is a priority. But Canzine has not been an accessible event in the six years that I’ve been tabling, so I call bullshit.
I also think Canzine tablers must be required to have the majority of stuff on their table actually be zines. When you advertise your event as a zine fair, you are you going to attract zinesters, and some of us just plain don’t care about your cupcakes and your screenprinted t-shirts. They are always overpriced anyway. Um, a lot of us are broke, and when you charge a lot of money for your “art”, you have chosen to make your creations inaccessible to many of us. The lack of zines at Canzine is disappointing. It sucks to write your heart out as a means of survival, then get stuck at these events filled with bougie hipster pretension. Speaking of, the food at Canzine this year was embarrassing. Five nachos delicately arranged on a tiny plate? Tiny hamburgers with toothpicks in them? What the fuck? We had to leave the event to get food we could actually afford, food that would fill us up. Serve cheap food with veggie and vegan options, and maybe we’ll hang around. I want cheap(er) tables, cheap(er) cover, and relevant workshops. Accessibility also means affordability. By selling expensive items and charging so much for food, the organizers of Canzine need to think about who they are excluding.
And on a related note, I would totally love to have an apology from Broken Pencil for choosing to fuck up my pronouns after I explained the situation, and then acting like it wasn’t a big deal. It was. And I don’t want a “Sorry you were hurt” faux-apology; I want a “Sorry we fucked up” apology.
Broken Pencil and Canzine hold too much power in Canadian zine communities, which is why it is difficult to just give up and walk away. I feel like every time I mention them, I hear yet another shitty story, yet here they are, throwing what is supposed to be the biggest “zine fair” in the country, and we keep going and keep complaining. So now I have some questions for you. Yeah, you!
For those of you who are local(ish), why do you go to Canzine, or why don’t you go to Canzine? How do you feel about Canzine in general? What would you like to change about the zine fair, and what would you like to stay the same? How do you feel about Broken Pencil? What do you wish you were seeing in that magazine? Whose voices would you like to be hearing?
WHAT DOES YOUR IDEAL ZINE FAIR LOOK LIKE?
I am very interested in having conversations about this, not just complaining, but thinking about and discussing solutions as well.
Canzinally Yours,
P.S.: I say “fuck” a lot.
Canzine really does need to have more actual zines. Or, they should just take zine out of the title and just call the thing an arts and crafts fair because, let’s be honest, that’s what it is.
Like, this year I was stuck between two vendors selling video game fan art prints. Not to say that these people aren’t welcome, but it’s hardly representational of the zine or underground culture that Broken Pencil advertises the festival to be. These people would fit in much better at, say, Fan Expo which is exactly where they come from. So, perhaps Broken Pencil should consider curating Canzine? At least to the degree that you need to actually have zines to table? That would be a nice change of pace.
Yeah, that’s the thing. I feel like there are so many other events catered towards different arts & crafts, like City of Craft, Fan Expo, etc., that I’m kinda like, ‘Why not back off and let us have this one big zine fair where we can find actual zines?!’ I’m not actually anti-craft, I make crafts, too, but it is totally not what I’m looking for at a zine fair.
As a Portland Zine Symposium organizer who had heard about CanZine for years, I was really shocked at how few zines there actually were when I attended a few years ago. There was lots of crafts, music, and even book author focused stuff, but very little zines. At the Portland Zine Symposium we require that at least 51% of tabled items need to be published titles and we outright deny tables to people who have no zines or books at all. I have spoken to several zine fest organizers and a lot of us feel the same way about keeping our events zine focused. Not that we don’t like crafts, many of us also make them, but they have their own shows, let us have ours.
I think Portland and Chicago are good examples of how to do a zine fair and do it right. I’m crafty, too, but when I go to a zine fair, I’m looking for zines.
montreal’s big zine fair, expozine, gives this caveat on their website:
“NOTE: Expozine is a SMALL PRESS FAIR and registration is strictly limited to publishers and producers of printed publications; vendors of visual art, clothing, T-shirts, arts and crafts, music etc. cannot reserve tables at Expozine. However, there are many great arts and craft fairs that take place in Montreal.”
(from http://www.expozine.ca/en/ )
while published material does encompass a broad variety of things, it at least redirects the vendors selling clothes or crafts to other venues.
I love that they have this description, and I wish Canzine would do the same. I’m tabling at Expozine this year, and I imagine I’ll be seeing waaay more printed materials than I have at any Canzine event.
I’ve never been to Canzine, but I just tabled at zine fair as a part of the Halifax Pop Explosion. While I had a great time, I’ve got to say I was pretty disappointed at the lack of actual zines at the fair. Even though organizers sent out e-mails several months ago saying that they’ve had too many people just selling crafts in the past, I could probably count on one hand the number of tables that had actual, photocopied zines (and that’s including our own distro!).
It’s not that I don’t love prints and t-shirts and comics, but it was weird to feel so out of place at an event that was supposed to be for folks like me. Even though I spent night after night typing and cutting and gluing and photocopying and folding and stapling, once I got to the fair I felt like I was out of my league.
Props, however, to the organizers for offering cheap vegan food, cheap tables, and an accessible venue.
I hear good things about Halifax zine fairs and need to go sometime. It is disheartening, though, to go to a zine fair and hardly be able to find any zines. I like crafts and stuff, too, but I feel like there are so many other venues for those things, whereas there aren’t a ton of venues for zines. I think that, like Expozine in Montreal, and the Portland Zine Symposium, zine fairs should have a requirement that you must be tabling with printed/paper materials, or x % of your table must be devoted to zines.
I’ve never been to Canzine (wrong side o’t Big Pond) but the tables all crowded together would really put me off. I hate crowds anyway, and feeling hemmed in would have me screaming for the nearest door out of there!
That doesn’t seem logical, that a zine fair would not have zines. Very strange! If they want to have a craft fair, why not hold a craft fair?
Two things that would automatically crop out people.
1) price cap! If a single item is more than _____ dollars, it cannot be sold
2) if is not made of paper with words on them and folded… it is not welcome
Price caps make me happy.
I think you should organize your own zine fair. All your suggestions are basic common sense and it feels like Canzine seems to be less and less about the community than their own organization.
I’ve always hated the “sorry you were hurt” faux-apology. It implies it’s the wronged party’s fault for being so sensitive and that the one who actually wrong regrets nothing. I respect whoever uses that conditional apology a little bit less when they do.
Unfortunately, I do not actually have the time and resources to organize my own zine fair, which is why I’m on relying on others to make their zine fairs more accessible and more zine-focused. We are already under/misrepresented at Canzine, and I don’t think that simply quitting is a real solution.
As I said in your previous post, Canzine both alienates me and makes me uncomfortable, for all the reasons you mentioned. Ugh. It calls to mind the only time I ever went to Canzine (Which was what, 2007? Aeons ago!). I was totally disappointed by the lack of accessibility and zines… and yes, that general aura of hipsturness that seemed to permeate the air. Oh, and the lack of people of colour.
I’m not a Canadian but I go to a couple of zine events in the UK yearly. Simply put, I want zines at zine fairs. Nothing makes me angrier than stupid crafty things (plushies – ew) made by the rich art students who go to the local university. I understand that the organisers encourage them to come along because they want the event to be as busy as possible. I feel increasingly like the products at zine events are more style over substance.
I’m sure that the price of tables & travelling is what puts most perzinesters off coming, so I guess that’s why the people who do attend are charging more. I don’t blame them, I just can’t afford it.
If you think art students are ‘rich’, Nina, I suggest you check yourself… sure, some art students are funded by trust funds, but that’s the minority. Most folks I know at art school are self-funded, either through work or student loans or both, and are getting themselves into debt in order to spend more time doing what they love. Just because certain craft items don’t belong at a zine fair doesn’t make them “stupid.” It just means they don’t belong at a zine fair.
I totally agree with you. When I go to a zine fair… I want to see zines – and unfortunately this isn’t always the case. I have also been really disappointed with the prices of zines, lately. Recently I purchased two black and white zines – one was a comic style zine, and one had no text at all – and both were over $12 each! And neither of them were over 15 pages, either. I couldn’t believe it.
As a regular zine-fair goer, I really appreciate when lovely zinesters clearly label their zines with prices (or at least a general price range) – so that I don’t accidentally spend all of my money at one table. As a bit of a shy person, it feels weird to ask for prices – especially because you know that as a customer you can never truly subsidize the effort that went into the work.
you raise really important points, and i hope canzine and other zine festivals take these things into consideration as they grow and evolve. thanks for articulating them and starting a great conversation!