Local zines will be celebrated at two LR events
Little Rock becomes a sort of Zine Ground Zero today as not one but two events are planned to celebrate the scrappy, handmade publications.
The Central Arkansas Library System’s Lavender Lounge: Zine Xchange runs from 6-7:30 p.m. in the alley outside Ron Robinson Theater, Library Square, 100 River Market Ave. The event is part of the library’s celebration of LGBTQ+ History Month and will give zine fans the chance to check out queer zines, swap copies or contribute zines to the library’s permanent collection (which was written about by the Democrat-Gazette’s Daniel McFadin last month). There will also be music courtesy of local punk rockers Benadriil.
Zine Night and Gear Exchange, presented by Art Outfitters and the Little Rock Arts District, gets underway at 7:30 p.m. in the parking lot between Art Outfitters and Vino’s Brew Pub on West Seventh Street. Local zine creators Sulac, SLUGKNIVES, Oatmeal Goth, Oddcreature, Allen-Michael, Brian Wolf, Kai Denton and Jordan Wolf, just to name a few, will be there sharing their work.
Along with zines, members of Central Arkansas Gear Exchange will be there with musical equipment for sale or trade. Vintage clothing shop Poppychild and Little Rox Jewelry will sell their wares during the event, local band Fig Ment will play and Hasta Hands Bakery will have baked goods for sale.
Jet Butler oversees the LGBTQ+ programming at CALS. Tonight’s Zine Xchange “is going to kick off our new series of adult programming focusing on queer and trans adults,” he says.
Butler, 29, is the creator of
the standalone “The Jordan Rules” zine. It’s “like an introduction of myself as a person and a poet. My poems are about the queer experience, the trans experience and being in Arkansas,” he says.
Butler has also collaborated with X Freelon on “Lavender,” a zine created to coincide with the Studio Theater’s “The Color Purple” production, which was directed by Freelon.
Little Rock artist Matthew Castellano is organizing Zine Night and Gear Exchange.
“Zine Night is like a DIY book fair,” he says on a sunny Thursday morning earlier this month in the lot between Vino’s and Art Outfitters, where he has worked off and on since coming to Little Rock more than a decade ago. “I want people to realize, oh, you can do this? And that there is a community here for creatives and we’re having it between two of the most creative spaces in town.”
Castellano, a native of south Florida, is a longtime zine maker, often creating small, matchbook-sized zines like “The Outpost” that feature his drawings. He used his zine “Get Bent,” which he made while working the night shift at a Days Inn in Harrison, as a way to meet people when he moved to Little Rock.
“The first thing I did when I got here was pass out my zine,” the 38-yearold says. “People thought it was weird, but also awesome and I decided that I’m going to keep doing this.”
Zine subjects are as varied as their creators, encompassing literature, visual art, music, essays and more.
“It’s almost like a newspaper about a subject you didn’t know you needed,” says Castellano, who has about 3,000 zines in his collection.
When he discovered that the CALS event was set for tonight, he just set the Zine Night start time for when Zine Xchange ended.
“They are going to do their thing and we don’t want to take away from that, so just come on down after,” he says.
Nonbinary artist and zine maker Henry Rhodes will be there dressed as a clown.
“I do clown stuff on the side and it’s super fun,” Rhodes, 20, says during an interview last week.
Rhodes has contributed to the adult-themed “Little Rocked Zine” and created their own hand-drawn “My [expletive] Favorite Curse Words,” “Star Cat” (about a Robin Hood-type cat who is also an astronaut) and “Comix Red Edition,” among others.
“I enjoy zine making because it’s very do-it-yourself,” Rhodes says. “I’ve always been part of the DIY scene here in Little Rock. Learning about zines, I was like, I can do this myself and it doesn’t have to be a super-complicated process. That’s been encouraging to me. I get to make whatever I really want and put it on paper.”
Rhodes has also repurposed two newspaper/magazine distribution boxes where people can pick up zines for free. One is located on the back patio at Vino’s and the other is at River City Coffee, 2913 Kavanaugh Blvd. Check instagram.com/lrzine.distro/ for more details.
Rhodes will have a booth at Zine Night with copies of zines and will accept donations to help keep the distribution boxes going.
“All of the stuff I do for the zine boxes comes out of pocket, so if you donate I’ll make you a balloon animal.”