2011 has been a great year for zines. The year was filled with zinesters all over the world working on the Revenge of Print 2011, and 21 participants successfully completed the 2011 24 Hour Zine Thing by sending in their completed zines, not to mention the many others that completed their zines for local challenges and events.

I already have a feeling 2012 will be just as great. Quimby’s in Chicago is already planning their First 24 Hour Zine Challenge for January 14th through January 15th. July is such a long time away so this is a great opportunity to ring in the new year with some other creative individuals and work on your first zine of 2012.

If you are a zine library, bookstore, distro, etc. and would like to start planning a 2012 24HZT event in your town, please keep in touch! I am more than happy to help in any way possible.

The rest of the pins will be sent out on Monday morning. Hope everyone has a happy holiday season!

Thursday was the deadline to have your zines in for the 2011 24 Hour Zine Thing event, and I have received some beautiful submissions this year! This was the 5th year that I have hosted this event, and it’s amazing to see how different the zines are from year to year. 2011 was all about handmade touches and color copies. Here are the triumphant participants that finished their zine for this year’s challenge!

1. Rachel – Food Issue
2. Kirsty – On A Sugar High 1.5
3. Michelle – Missouri Jam Bomb
4. Brandy – Pixelated 1.5: Attack of the Oil Pastels (Of Doom)
5. Hannah – Undestructable #1
6. Persephone Pomegranate – Reclusive Obscenities
7. Rob – Zero Hour! Printaissance Special Edition
8. Jen – The Power of Craft Compels You!
9. Anonymosity – Green Power [A Guide to Eco-Lifestyle]
10. Deirdree – Elliot Smith Stabbed Himself In The Heart
11. Rory – Posture #2: Create or Perish
12. SBRC – Forget Me Not: A 24 Hour Zine
13. Rick Silva – Caravan #28: Adventures in Geeky Parenting
14. Dennis – Amina
15. Samantha – Unfun (a jawbreaker fanzine)
16. Philip Dearest – Being Brave Is One Thing
17. E*phi – The (almost 6x) 24hrs in Berlin Zine
18. Crystal – Teachers
19. Wes White – Villanelle
20. Jenn – Jacks Heart
21. Alex Wrekk – Brainscan #26.5

If you do not see your zine listed here but have already sent it out, or just completely forgot, send me an email at 24hourzines[at]gmail.com and we will work it out!

Things are beginning to wrap up around here for this year’s event. I have spent the day addressing envelopes, so if your zine is listed here your Participant Pin (pictured above) will be sent out on Tuesday. The sign-up sheet is open, so if you like to be an early bird go ahead and sign up for next year’s event!

Thank you to everyone who signed up, sent in their zine, organized or attended an event, and even the ones who attempted but did not finish. No worries! All that matters is that you helped to keep zines alive and going, which is what this event is all about.

We have a winner! The wonderful pin design featured on our 2011 Participant Pin was created by Katie of Hen House Distro! Katie is extremely active in her town’s zine culture, and successfully hosted an event in her apartment in Birmingham for the 2011 24 Hour Zine Thing Challenge! She was gracious enough to take time out of her busy schedule to answer a few questions for us about her involvement in zines, how to create a zine culture in your hometown, and more! You can read the interview and see pictures of zines completed during the event below the cut.

1. When and how did you become involved with zines? How has your involvement with zines changed since then?

I got interested in zines when I was about 12. My older brother was into them and mail art and I thought they were so cool. I contributed to his first zine that I can’t remember the name of…Armies of Summer? It had an interview with Squeaky Fromme and I just did a little doodle or something. My freshman year in college I started to be really dissatisfied (i.e. jealous) with how the South seemed so barren when compared to places in the Northwest as far as zines went, so I decided to start my own distro that featured southern writers

2. You started Hen House Distro out of your dorm in 2007. How has the distro grown in the past 4 years?

In some ways it’s gotten bigger and in other ways, smaller. In the beginning I was interested in getting the largest variety of stock that I could. But the older I’ve gotten (I was 20 at the time) the more focused I’ve become on using the distro to curate titles I really love, and not just southern titles anymore either. Now I’m much more involved in the community and hosting events. I just published my first zine under the Hen House Imprint called Sing Me Back Home. It was a split with Victimized records. My ex boyfriend Tripp Norris passed away in February and Hen House published his poems and short stories in zine form, and Victimized put out a cassette tape of all of his bands. We worked together with the Spring Street Firehouse (who helped me print the zine) and Wess Gregg from DIY Birmingham to release the split the night of Tripp’s memorial show. So I’ve been getting a lot more involved in the community and working with other people. I’d love to publish more stuff and ultimately, my dream is to have a place like the IPRC in Birmingham.

3. How did you learn about the 24 Hour Zine Thing?

I had heard about it a couple of years ago, from somewhere on the internet. This year I found out about it through the “July is International Zine Month” page that Alex Wrekk set up. I had started working as a contributor for DIY Birmingham and we had just finished setting up this huge event for the website’s birthday. I was riding the waves of that productivity when I saw the link and decided it would be a great thing for Hen House to host.

4.This was your first year signing up for the 24 Hour Zine Thing. How did your 24 hour zine go this year? What challenges did you find along the way and what advice would you give to others who are attempting the challenge?

The event went really well. I just hosted it at my apartment and we made BBQ. I was really surprised and happy about how many people showed up that I didn’t know. I went to the thrift store and got a bunch of National Geographics and weird books for people to cut up for collages, and I had some other supplies like scissors and glue sticks and paper, and I have a desktop printer. In the future I’d like to invest in a commercial Xerox machine so people can make copies. Next year I’m also going to try to host it somewhere bigger since I didn’t think about people bringing laptops and electric typewriters and we had issues with the lack of outlets. My advice to anyone wanting to host an event is don’t drink beer, because you’re just going to get sleepy and want to kick everyone out at like midnight. Also, the next time I do it I’m going to advertise outside of Facebook by printing flyers and passing them out in the university district.

5. What inspired you to create the wonderful pin design for the 2011 Pin Design Contest?

I’ve always been into design, but I just recently started getting into making flyers for shows. The design was basically the flyer that I made for our 24 Hour Zine thing, but set up in button form.

6. You are very active in trying to create a zine culture in Birmingham, where you have said that there doesn’t seem to be much of one. What advice do you have to others who are in a similar situation?

It really just takes time and perseverance and just doing it. When I first started it was like no one at shows even knew what zines were, and they felt awkward about coming over and looking through stuff. Birmingham kind of moves in cycles though, sometimes the older generation doesn’t do so great in passing along positivity and involvement with the scene when cynicism and jadedness start to set in. When I was ignored it made me just want to do it even more. I reached out to friends who let me table at shows for free. This was back when Myspace was the thing, which was a really static way to get information out. Facebook is much more useful in interacting with people. The scene is way better now than in 2007 and I think it comes from allowing people to feel involved, like with the 24 Hour Zine Thing. We have a zine here called The Forge which is about the city and it’s written by the kids who go to shows and put on events and generally make Birmingham worth something. I get really excited about things like that. If you want to make something happen in your city, get involved in what the younger kids are doing. They’re the ones with the energy and the idealism.

The pins have been ordered, so if you have already sent in your zine, you only have a little longer to wait! If you have not yet sent in your zine and would like a nice shiny pin with Katie’s design on it, be sure to get your zine in before September 1st, 2011 to the address below:

Raven / 24 Hour Zine Thing
PO Box 2001
Abingdon, VA 24210
USA

Rick Silva is the creator of the wonderful zine Caravan, and has participated in the event for three years now! Who better to ask about conquering the 24 Hour Zine Thing challenge?

Why did you decide to participate in the 24 Hour Zine Thing challenge?
It’s a great excuse to exercise some creativity. If not for the zine challenge, well, I didn’t HAVE to put a zine together this summer. It’s a great motivator to do something extra.

What type of pre-planning, if any, did you do before starting on your 24 hour zine?
My only pre-planning was to brainstorm a bit for ideas. With any kind of writing, I tend to mull it over in my head for quite a bit before I actually sit down to write it out.

How did you get your idea for the topic of your 24 hour zine?
My inspiration is right there (usually demanding that I play with him or feed him!). My wife did one minicomic about our first summer with our son. I wanted to do my own autobiographical piece. I also thought that I had enough fun material stored up from the past two years or so, that I could really do a fun take on “geeky parenting”.

How did you come to the decision to use the type of binding method and size that you chose?
I wanted to do some cartooning, so I knew I had to go pretty small or else I’d never get the zine done in time. I can’t draw at all, so I was using really crude stick figures, and I didn’t want to agonize over re-drawing them every time, so I knew I’d need to digitally copy/paste. Thus the decision for quarter-sized and to lay the whole thing out in MS Word.

Was completing the challenge harder than you expected?
Definitely harder. It took me longer than I thought it would to come up with dialogue for some of the situations. I also ran into a lot of technical problems with getting the images where I needed them to be. MS Word is NOT designed to be a layout program, but it worked for me because I’m very familiar with its functions, so I knew how to work around its limitations. It wasn’t always easy, though.

What advice would you give to others who are attempting the 24 Hour Zine Thing challenge?
Avoid preconceived notions about what the project needs to be. The really great thing about zines is that they can take any shape/size/form. So stretch the boundaries of your ideas. Don’t feel like your zine needs to look like other zines you’re seen or read. It only needs to look like YOUR zine.

Be sure to check out Rick’s comic company at dandelionstudios.com

Shannon was one of the organizers for the 24 Hour Zine Thing for a few years, and created this amazingly honest 24 hour zine for the 2007 challenge. If you participated in the 2007 24HZT Grab Bag exchange, you were lucky enough to receive a copy of this zine!

Name: Shannon
City: Dieppe, New Brunswick
Zine Goal: Size: I’m predicting quarter size, or tall half size
Personal Challenge: I’d like to make something more artsy as opposed to my typical perzine, or themed issues. But we’ll see when it all happens! My zines are usually only 16 pages, so 24 will be more of a challenge.

For her 24 hour zine, Shannon decided to explore the idea of “dirty little secrets”, noting on her first page that “it depends on the person, to determine how horrible the thing that was done” truly is. She goes on to list her own top ten dirty little secrets, describing her own feelings towards each of the subjects and how she handles these secrets throughout her everyday life. The secrets range from past experiences that she now regrets, her own feelings about herself, as well as recent events that had posed a problem in her life. Probably one of the most personal zines submitted to the 24 Hour Zine Thing project, Shannon’s zine is definitely a must-read.

click to see larger version of image

As of midnight last night, the 2011 24 Hour Zine Thing is officially over! Congratulations to everyone who participated and a special thanks to everyone who hosted a 24HZT event! If you have any pictures from your event you would like to share, please feel free to post them onto the Facebook wall.

Now that the event is over, it is time to reproduce those zines, send a copy in to us here at the 24HZT, and get your zine out into the world! Trade it with others, submit a copy to a zine distro, send extra copies to zine libraries! The possibilities are truly endless.

If you would like to receive a nice shiny 24 Hour Zine Thing Participant Pin, send a copy of your zine, along with your name, mailing address and email address to:

Raven / 24 Hour Zine Thing
PO Box 2001
Abingdon, VA. 24210
USA

Once your zine is received, it will be scanned, reviewed, and posted to the blog for everyone to see!

Be on the lookout later this week to find out who won the 2011 24 Hour Zine Thing Participant Pin Design Contest!

Ivana created a wonderful zine for the 2007 24 Hour Zine Thing Challenge. You can see an inside scan below:

I Love This City by Ivana Stab
Name: Ivana Stab
City: Sydney, Australia
Zine Goal: Small perzine with a cute cover.

Ivana’s zine is a lot like a list received from a friend of all the things to do in their hometown, filled with the insider’s scoop on where to go, what to do and who to talk to while you are there. She presents a disclaimer on the first page, insisting that “if you think I present the wrong image of Sydney please realize I’m not a travel agent, just an 18-year-old student having fun in her hometown…”, and she definitely aims her zine towards the type of audience that is willing to get lost in a new city and explore all the quirky things that make the city interesting. Her zine really could serve as a tiny travel guide, listing various restaurants, museums, and coffee shops pasted on top of black and white photographs with quotes by The Doors sprinkled throughout.

click the image over to see a larger version

The last weekend of July is here, and that means that there are only a few days left to make a 24 hour zine! If you haven’t started yet, here are some great posts from the past week that will help start you off:

Four more brave participants have accomplished their goals and have managed to copy, assemble and send their zines already! Listed below are the latest zines received:

1. Anonymosity – Green Power [a guide to eco-lifestyle]
2. Jen Williams – The Power of Craft Compels You!!
3. Persephone Pomegranate – Reclusive Obscenities
4. Rob Brown – Zero hour! Printaissance Special Edition

Congrats to all nine participants that have sent in their zine so far! If you have already completed your zine, be sure to send it in to this address to get your participant pin:

Raven / 24 Hour Zine Thing
PO Box 2001
Abingdon, VA. 24210
USA

Good luck!

Each year, tons of 24HZT events are hosted all over the world by brave zine-loving individuals, encouraging others to gather together to create a zine within 24 hours. Some events are small gatherings with friends, while others are used as fundraisers for other great zine events. How do they do it?

I have set up a discussion forum on the Facebook page so that we can start to build a resource for those looking to host a 24 Hour Zine Thing event. If you have ever hosted, or organized a 24 Hour Zine Thing event, share your stories and tips on what made that event happen! If you have ever attended a 24HZT event, what was your favorite part? What made that event successful, or not so successful? Head on over there and start posting!

While you’re on the Facebook page, take a second to answer the “Question” on the Wall!