On Saturday, the third annual Tampa Zine Fest took place at the Ybor Daily Market. While local pop musician Jeremy Gloff performed music from his upcoming album, attendees meandered between the different tables that featured zines from local zine-makers.
The zines varied between light-heartedly quirky and serious activism.
Spooky Steve, a Tampa-based visual and musical artist who describes his work as “horror comedy”, presided over a table with his artwork and a zine called Too Dang Cute Kitties: A Pictorial of the World’s Most Impossibly Cute Kitties — it was a collection of pictures of dead cats with cartoonish eyes.
“It’s a cool thing to see — it’s awesome,” he said about coming to the zine fest for the first time. “I love to see people’s live reactions to my work.”
A few feet away, the Rev. Bruce Wright and Rev. Dennis Segall managed a table with their zine called Crysis — a zine with the poetry, artwork and literature of young people who are in prison.
“We try to work with kids who have been given unfair or ridiculous sentences,” Wright said. “It’s important, because it’s the only way for people in the outside world to have an idea of what goes on behind bars. And it’s not easy, because a lot of the material submitted gets censored.”
Both Wright and Segall have attended the zine fests in St. Pete — which takes place every year in January — and in Tampa.
“It’s important for marginalized people’s work to be shown,” Segall said.
Next to their table, the clicking of typewriters could be heard. About 10 typewriters, provided by Tampa Type, were available for people to type on.
Behind the typewriters stood Dezeray Lyn behind her table of zines called The Concrete Rose Collective. It’s a collection of prose and poetry that Lyn says combines art and activism. Lyn has been to both St. Pete and Tampa Zine Fests.
The Collective is also partnered with Tampa’s chapter of Food Not Bombs — a grassroots group that gives food that would’ve otherwise been wasted to people in need of food. On Lyn’s table was a Community Resource Guide for people who are in search of food and shelter.
Philip Bloom, a librarian, helped organize all three zine fests. He said the idea came to him five years ago, after interviewing for a librarian position in Olympia, Wash. The library had a section specifically for zines.
“I didn’t get the job, but I was inspired to get people interested in zines here,” he said.
Then, three years ago, Tampa’s Zine Fest was held — only a few months after St. Pete’s first zine fest.
It was great to see — there’s no competition between us and St. Pete — it’s a flourishing of zine fests and like-minds,” Bloom said. He said that zines aren’t like blogs — they’re something you make by hand and give to someone in their hand, he said. “This is an exercise in community building.”