Comic culture alive for Zinefest
Zinefest co-founder Bryce Galloway says zines are bursting with personality and the odd spelling mistake.
The quirks of the independent and self-published magazines and comics will be celebrated with their own festival, in Hamilton next week.
Hamilton’s Zinefest is the first on the yearly calendar, followed by festivals in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington.
The event centres around a market day for the public, and includes teaser zine-making workshops, presentations by various luminaries, a best-of-fest competition and an after-party with live music.
‘‘Hamilton stands out as having a slightly stronger comics voice than other New Zealand zinefests,’’ Galloway said.
‘‘Partly due to the reputation of committee member and comics artist Aaron Christiansen.’’
Christiansen will be running the festival, and Hamilton comic book artist Dean Ballinger will be one of the guest speakers.
He is the editor of Hamiltron: City of the Future, which is fitting, as Ballinger was one of the men who gave the city the nickname The Tron.
It is a favourite theme of Ballinger’s, and he said Hamilton needs help being mythologised.
‘‘There’s other places that are interesting because people have made art out of them.
‘‘No one does it in Hamilton much and then everyone just moans about how stink it is. You’ve got to do the work to make it interesting and making creative stuff that reflects where you live is part of that process.’’
Ballinger has also written Shelf Life, a comic that observes the quirky characters he met while working on and off at Browsers Bookstore.
Despite the strong peoplefocus, Ballinger admitted he wasn’t much of a spectator.
‘‘That would probably be the only comic I’ve done like that. I actually found it quite hard to do for that reason.’’
Ballinger said Zinefest seemed to have a crossover with hipster culture and crafts.
Comics used to be cheap and readily available. Now they’re more expensive and more of a specialty item, he said.
‘‘A lot of people are getting in to their homemade stuff again. It’s almost like a reaction to excessive digitalisation.’’ Hamilton Zinefest, Creative Waikato, 131 Alexander St, Saturday, May 13 from 10am3pm. Free entry.