Leeds Zine Fair

This summer a friend of mine (Lottie Pencheon) invited me to table with her at Leeds Zine Fair. I agreed to go despite only having a couple of weeks to prepare and only one zine already (and not printed)!

I brought this zine I made for PPP with me. Due to summer studio restrictions I couldn't print on the paper I wanted so the copies didn't 'feel' as nice in the hand but as I had to hand stitch them (no stapler) this provided a nicer touch.

With only a few weeks to go I rushed to get a set of zines made and printed. There wasn't a lot of planning involved and I panicked to make more quantity over quality, which I regret. The zines had little thought content and the visuals themselves weren't great either.

Bitter Boy was an attempt at making a comic/ narrative with no preplanning in one night. I thought this could lead to something visually and ideally interesting but just didn't make sense. " It doesn't make much sense but the pictures are nice". This isn't something I aim for!

Diner was just a collection of images with a very loose theme of America. I didn't think it would be popular but it sold the most. I do wonder if this was because it was the cheapest zine!

Hotdog Hotdog was a hotdog bound collection of dog images. Content wise it makes the most sense, even though it is a simple idea. Someone said they would have bought it if it was about cats, maybe I need to know my audience better!

… and following that I don't think I knew the audience for this fair very well, at all. The zine fair was focussed more on zines with political content and there was definitely a low ratio of illustrators. Still, it was my first time selling at such an event and I managed to make some money! What I learned most about was 

• knowing my audience
• planning
• quality over quantity (I almost didn't have enough space anyway)

Thinking it would be more like an illustration fair I made other non-zine goods, which didn't sell at all. However I have sold some of these, and the zines that did not sell on an online shop, which I advertised through social media.

As mentioned before in PPP I like to see my illustration in a physical format. But I did find making badges and tote bags less enjoyable than drawn illustrations, which may suggest I'm better/ enjoy print format more. Even though I don't think these were the best things I've produced (far from it) it did teach me something about production.

quotes/ motifs/ characters/ locations/ author information

quotes:

• "all I could think about when writing fiction in my youth was how to run as far away as I could from the japanese condition. I wanted to distance myself  as much as possible from the curse of japanese"
• "I think of myself as an asset and  that's why I want to be private"
• "in 1995 I was 46 years old and I felt some kind of responsibility as a writer. Before that, I was a simple person. I was like I'll write for myself, that's all I wanted, all I have to do, but after that I felt a responsibility as a japanese author... after the earthquake and the sarin gas attack I just wanted to do something for my people. I feared for the people of Japan"
• "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper. The fire isn't thinking 'Oh, this is Kant,' or 'Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,' or 'Nice tits,' while it burns. To the fire, they're nothing but scraps of paper. It's the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there's no distinction--they're all just fuel."
• “Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.” 

motifs:

• (jazz/ classical) records
• dreams
• mysterious women
• disappearances
• parallel worlds
• loneliness

characters:

• Tsukuru Tazaki (Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage)
• Naoko (Norwegian Wood)
• Reiko Ishida (Norwegian Wood)
• Shimamoto (South of the Border, West of the Sun)
• Miu (Sputnik Sweetheart)
• As a whole, in most of the Murakami books I've read the male narrators are fairly interchangeable. Maybe the male narrator Murakami trope can be counted as one character.

locations:

• train stations
• (jazz) bars
• Tokyo
• Greece
• mountain asylum (Norwegian Wood)

author information:

• heavily influenced by western culture, to the point of being criticised of not being "Japanese enough". I noticed a few western pop culture references in his work
• worked at a record shop and studied Drama, like Toru in Norwegian Wood, and went on to own a jazz bar like Hajime in South of the Border. I wonder how much of his characters are based on his own experiences, particularly considering how many of his protagonists are so similar.
• not technically trained in writing, and only began writing at the age of 29 after being "inspired by a baseball game"
• writes non-fiction and essays as well as fiction
• he has received many awards and praise in his time. Norwegian Wood was incredibly well received, particularly among younger crowds, and propelled Murakami to almost superstar status, which he didn't seem to enjoy (he left the country shortly after). He donated 80,000 euros prize money to those who suffered in the 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster of Fukushima, and is openly anti-nuclear (energy or weapons)

author research

Susan Sontag

Sontag began writing in fiction, but garnered more attention once she began writing essays. She wrote a lot about art and culture, and was a notable activist too. She was criticised for her writings on race, in which she criticised western white civilisation. She appears to have been a fierce and uncompromising woman, quite admirable.

I like this quote and writing (I found on her wikipedia page)

"In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notion of what is worth looking at and what we have the right to observe" and has changed our "viewing ethics". Photographs have increased our access to knowledge and experiences of history and faraway places, but the images may replace direct experience and limit reality. She also states that photography desensitizes its audience to horrific human experiences, and children are exposed to experiences before they are ready for them."

Oliver Sacks

Sacks was a neurologist and author, and wrote books based on his experiences as a doctor and more importantly, the experiences of his patients. My first thought when reading this was wondering how he could do this under patient-doctor confidentialities (although it's obvious he must have some permissions) and how he would avoid exploiting patients and being too anecdotal through this kind of writing. Some have criticised him for exploitation, and without reading any of his work my first impression of anyone doing that would be so, but he has mostly been described as "compassionate" which I would like to believe, and the mass praise of his life in light of his death would also suggest that.

Haruki Murakami

Murakami is a Japanese contemporary writer, writing fiction and non-fiction. His stories are based in the 'real world' but with surreal touches, sometimes with themes of parallel worlds. His work can often be melancholic, and he cites western culture, particularly in literary circles as inspiration, and has been criticised as not being "japanese enough"

I have chosen to work with Murakami's work. I like the idea of surreal worlds not wholly dissimilar to real life- I have little interest in fantasy and typical sci-fi but am interested in the rich imagery of Murakami's work, whether it be 'real' or metaphorical.

I am interested in reading Oliver Sacks work in trepidation of how he deals with his real life subjects, but not for this project.