Category Archives: Zines

All Ladies Say “Yeeeeeaaaah” at Drink and Draw Like A Lady 2013!

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Drink and Draw Like A Lady

Flyer by Alisa Harris

You haven’t had a chance to meet up with other female comics enthusiasts in a while?  Tonight is the night!  Pre-MoCCA Fest (The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art’s Festival) party Drink and Draw Like a Lady will be held in midtown Manhattan tonight!  This will be the fifth year this event is held and it is organized my New York cartoonist Lucy Knisley.  This year it is held a bigger venue called The Productive, when previously it was held at 192 Books a bookstore in Chelsea.  So come out, meet other women who are really in comics and trade some mini comics and business cards!  Here is the address:

THE PRODUCTIVE
40 W. 38th Street, 5th Floor
New York NY 10018

Starts at 7:30 pm.

I had such a good time at this event in the past.  I had been to it the last two years it has been held.  One time, my friends and I were the featured participates on Lucy’s blog.

drink and draw

I’m also going to try to make it to the Hic & Hoc + Revival House Press + Space Face Books pre-MoCCA party in Park Slope tonight, too.

-XOXO Dre

Happy Full Moon: February 25th 2013!

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Happy full moon, everyone!  As synchronicity would have it, I have been working on a full moon illustration for an upcoming cover for a Dee’s Dream zine.  I created a few different colored themes.  I’m wondering which one I like the best…  If you want to share your thoughts about which combination of color is best, please message me at your earliest convenience.

-XOXO Dre

 

The Way the Lights Went Out: A Hurricane Sandy Zine Benefit

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There are many people out there who still have not recovered from the tremendous chaos that was brought to the East Coast by Hurricane Sandy.  To lend a hand, two of New York’s favorite zinesters—Kate Angell and Katie Wadkins—organized a benefit at the Bluestocking Bookstore and activist center.

 

During this event, there will be zinemakers reading from their work, and plenty of zines have been donated to raise funds for hurricane relief. 100% of the proceeds will go to The Ali Forney Center, a Manhattan-based organization which provides housing to homeless LGBT youth.  The readers include Kate Angell (My Feminist Friends, A Thousand Times Yes), Jamie Varriale (Vélez Sinvergüenza), Jenna Freedman (Lower East Side Librarian, (Barnard Zine Library curator), James Aviaz (Everything is Fucked, Everything is OK), and Dre Grigoropol (Dee’s Dream).

 

Many popular zines will be represented.  Some titles include Homos in Herstory, Tazewell’s Favorite Eccentric, Bangarang This, Black Lesbians in the 70s Zine, Adventures in Menstruating, and many more. The event starts at 7:00pm at Blue Stockings which is located at 172 Allen St. New York, NY 10002.  Hope to see you there, and brings brings some zines if you would like to donate.  They have all the information you need on the invitation.

I <3 Zines: Visiting the Barnard Zine Library

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One of the best places to review uncensored feminist resources is the Barnard Zine Library.  This library is a part of the Barnard College which is a school of Columbia University. This institution thinks, “that zines are important cultural artifacts and research materials, as well as being a pleasure to read.” “What is a zine?”, some readers might ask.  The word “zine” stems from the word magazine or fanzine. A zine is a DIY publication. The collection includes around 4,000 zines with topics ranging from activism, anarchism, body image, third wave feminism, gender, parenting, queer community, riot grrrl, sexual assault, transgender experience, and more.

 

 

Visiting the Barnard Zine Library is recommended to anyone interested in zines about feminism and femme identity. The Barnard Zine Library is maintained and curated by Jenna Freedman, a research librarian, activist, archivist, and zinester.  The library attempt to acquire two copies of each zine.  One copy gets placed on the shelves of the library stacks and is available to anyone to read.  The other copy gets archived in a temperature controlled room and acid-free environment.  Those zines will be preserved for future generations.  They even have issues of BUST, which twenty years ago started as a zine. Plan out your visit, the library’s information can be found on their site zines.barnard.edu.

Happy 2013, My Peeps! Here Is My Past Year In Comics.

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I’m doing the bloggy thing to do, which is to write a year review.  Here is my year in comics in 2012!

Dee's Dream: The Cosmic Wombat House

Dee’s Dream: The Cosmic Wombat House

Dee's Dream: The Patriot Parlor
Dee’s Dream: The Patriot Parlor

In 2012 started coming out with zines my series Dee’s Dream.  Dee’s Dream: The Cosmic Wombat House debuted at MoCCA Fest in April.  The second issue Dee’s Dream: The Patriot Parlor debuted at SPX in September.  Dee’s Dream is about poetic bohemian Dee Fynch and her underdog garage band, which is also called Dee’s Dream.  Both zines are over 16 pages.

House of Frame
House of Frame

 My comics were in woman’s anthology Dirty Diamonds 2 and 3, The Work Issue and Travel Issue.  For the work issue, which came out in April, I did a four page comic called House of Frame. The comic is about a young woman working in frame shop, who encounters a very difficult customer, who happens to be another young woman.

Lupa Cachula's Life: The Hurricane
Lupa Cachula’s Life: The Hurricane

In comic I have in the Dirty Diamonds: Travel Issue, which was launched in December, I had another four page story called Lupa Cachula’s Life: The Hurricane.  I came up with a new character Lupa Cachula who is a weird witchy outsider. Read it here. I’ll probably make more comics about her in the future.

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From Suspect Device #2

 In April, when Josh Bayer’s Suspect Device #2 came out, I had a one page comic in there.  My strip is about issues with self image.

Dre's Questions

When one of the organizers of the Philly Feminist Zine Fest asked me to create the flyer for the event, I could not be happier! Also, I illustrated the cover image for the zine Dangerous Damsels which is an anthology about feminists fairy tales, and it is edited by zinester and festival organizer Sarah Rose.

Asbury Park FlyerFlyer by Bryan G. Brown and me.

My fellow cartoonist friend Bryan G Brown and I collaborated on a illustration for a flyer for the Asbury Park Comic Con 2.  We tabled together at the show, and had a wonderful time.

Comix Gone RoguePart of my illustration of Lois Lane.

I illustrated and covered a vintage comic cover for a non profit project called Comix Gone Rogue.

BUST

BUST Blog

I ended up writing some articles that recieved major attention on the BUST Magazine Blog, and had an article in the very popular comics blog The Beat.  I wrote about different comics shows and events such as: The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, The Asbury Park Comic Con, Locust Moon Comic Con, and The US launch party for Strumpet Issue #2, an international anthology featuring women creators.

Zine Crush #2My Zine Crush

At the very end of 2012 I created a two page comic for Zine Crush #2.

Happy New Year!  2013 should be a great year! 13 is a actually a very lucky number!  I hope I’ll make way more comics and do more of those things that I love to do.

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival in Brooklyn Again!


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This Saturday is the fourth annual Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. The event is free to the public, and promotes alternative comics artists and publications. It’s a great opportunity to learn more about comics, and pick up some radical zines and prints, directly from the artists or publishers themselves. I have been to the Fest twice and both times were filled really amazing experiences. Continue reading →

Philly Zine Fest 2012 Memories

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I went back to Philly for the tenth annual Philly Zine Fest at the Rotunda. It is hard to imagine that the Zine Fest is that old, but it is. I remember visiting the Zine Fest while I was in college and thinking that it was cool, and something I really wanted to do. After college I began working a lot. Since the Zine Fest is almost always in October, I couldn’t make it because it is a super busy time in my work life. Fortunately for me the 2011 Philly Zine Fest last year was in November and I got a table. There I met one of the organizers, Sarah Rose, whom I had the great pleasure of spending a lot of time with in 2012.

Somehow, I forgot to sign up this year although I remembered to take off from work well in advance. Luckily I managed to get a table once I got there. My table was smooshed up against a bunch of loudspeakers on the stage. People asked me if I minded being right next to the speakers, but I actually liked it. It wasn’t mind-bogglingly loud and I was grooving to the tunes the DJ was playing. I could actually hear the music. If my memory serves correctly, he played a less upbeat selection of music that including The Smiths, M83, Robyn, and Aphex Twin. Plus, the position of my table on stage made me feel like I was a teacher about to give an important lecture, which I liked. Here is my picture at my table.

It truly was a great spot, because I was near by some of my homies like Dan Strauss, Kelly Phillips, and Cyn Why. Therewas lot of people I knew tabling at the Zine Fest including Sarah Rose, Bangarang Photography, 3:00 Comics, Awakening comics, Bianca Alu-Marr, Andria Alefhi, Annie Monk, and the Soapbox collective to name a few.

Continue reading →