Orlando Zinefest 2024 marks worldwide debut of The Zine Museum.
Early visitors' impressions and reactions to the tiny collection
The tenth annual Orlando Zinefest was held on December 17 in the parking lot of Blackbird Comics in Maitland. Using a table provided by Zinefest, the Zine Museum debuted over fifty Zines gathered from worldwide sources. Response was good from our visitors, and we added several contacts to our database, visitors who requested future updates to the Zine Museum. The debut was judged a success.
The Zine Museum’s mission is to preserve and share examples of zines for the reading public. We currently charge no admission and have a growing collection that includes both historical as well as contemporary publications. The Zine Museum collects independent self-published small edition literature. The collection falls within the loose conceptual framework of counterculture, not by specific visual aesthetic or topic, but rather the spirit of free thought.
The core of our contemporary publications is our local zine authors. These include Psych Cat, Dina Mack, Rachel Simmons and Ashley Taylor, all of whom have contributed to the local, independent thought culture of Central Florida. We'll continue to acquire and preserve zines from these authors for display.
Our contemporary zines also include several African examples. This year, the Zine Museum features a zine from Vienna, Austria. The author is Ugandan artist Louise Deininger with her 2024 "Beneath the Surface - Mapping the Scars of Colonial Power" and is an essay accompanying photographs of her artwork.
Our vintage zines include general literature, with a small section of highly local dictionaries. Vic Weal's "Hillbilly Dictionary" is a 1960 classic, containing speech patterns and words now vanished from the Applachians.
We also have a small selection of the famous "Little Blue Books" published by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Ours were likely printed in the 1930s or 1940s but the content was originally created in the 1920s. Little Blue Books are considered some of the early modern zines by Ralph Plotts, a writer and cultural commentator, who called Haldeman-Julius "The Henry Ford of Literature." They were sold alongside Amazing Stories, Clark's World, and Strange Horizons in dimestores in the midwest.
The evening of December 17 was cool, and with temperatures falling. The condensation in the air made nearly every surface moist.
Fortunately the Zine Museum has put its collection into archival clear acrylic sleeves. Visitors were highly responsive and the museum provided some chairs so that zine fans (we detest the term "zinesters" and would almost rather write "fanzine zinefan" than "zinester") could stop, sit and enjoy a freshly purchased (or made) zine. At the adjacent table one of the zine authors patiently stitched a zine together during the evening, despite the humidity.
If you are in Orlando next December, look for the Orlando Zinefest. It is typically a one-night outdoor event with local artists and authors, and the Zine Museum might be there!
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