Eric Bartholomew on Zines!
Bottlecap Table, from Junk Drawer's Find of the Week online
The stacks at the Chicago Underground Library house a wide variety of small press and independent publications, among which is an ever-growing collection of zines. Zine writer and CUL volunteer Eric Bartholomew recently shared some thoughts on zine culture with Diatribe Media:
“I thought about the whole purpose of zines when I first began writing them. It was at that time when the internet was really taking off, and blogs were born. It seemed that everyone doing zines would leave their printed materials behind and convert to cyber zinesters. That did happen somewhat, but zines still survived and new ones appeared. The reasons for having something printed rather than just online probably varies with each writer or each zine. I made one zine based on some funny things a coworker said, and I made it originally just for her and a few others in the office. It was great to have it in a little book form, because people could pass it around and read it at their desks. It was like passing a secret note around at school, and suddenly we were like third graders, laughing behind the teacher’s back. It was a nice break from looking at the computer screen for most people, too.
I started doing a zine called Junk Drawer, and at the end of the first issue I wrote about the zine itself. The focus was secondhand things, like stuff you find at garage sales, or stuff that gets passed down to you. I realized that the zine itself could become one of those secondhand things. And that made me happy, that I could make something that could be around, and maybe get passed on to someone else. Even if you just leave the zine on a bus, it’s out there, and there’s the chance that someone cunderground-library.orgeone who may have never seen it otherwise, even online, could discover it. That is partly what inspired me to continue doing that zine and zines in general. And I hope to keep doing them as long as I’m inspired.”
In addition to writing Junk Drawer and volunteering here at the CUL, Eric Bartholomew is a photographer and somewhat of a Master Swami of amazing found items, which you can (and SHOULD) check out at Junk Drawer’s website. You can also peruse Junk Drawer (and many, many, many other zines) during CUL’s open hours, Saturdays from 1-5pm. Or, if you’re reeeeally lucky, you might find one on the bus.
-Meredith
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Tags: Eric Bartholomew, zines
