This years Dublin Zine Fair was bigger, better and brighter - with some incredible new finds, and old, to be picked up, thumbed, ogled and collected.
Invited by the Esc team - thanks! - under the promise of great illustrators, interesting conversations and more… so much more. How about some highlights?
I picked up a copy of Vadge at the behest of a friend - and got engrossed in some of the smart and titillating articles. It’s a feminist popculture iconazine that has me hooked.
Nabbed a copy of Patrick Murphy‘s It’s Horrible Havin a Head - a complicated navel gaze into Murphy’s less-than-tender school years in Dublin. Well worth the familiar nostalgic trip!
One of the first people to stop and say hello was Amanda Spitzner - who was laden with her Exploding Comics Magazine, as well as some brilliant (and useful) felt plushies. ECM is quirky short strips with great snapshots of the ordinary, everyday geek-girl… trust me, you want to check out explodingcomics.com
Gareth Gowran and Sadhbh Lawlor’s Splitting Borders was another huge favourite - smart presentation and a brilliant, quiet humour. Go check out their daily updates.
There were so many more - including Sarah Cunningham‘s Maggie and Yuto and the brilliantly funny Sharkzine - I’ll link to a few if they appear. With the launch of Eddie Pie Hand’s Printing (an initiative to give free workshops and advice alongside at-cost printing for zines) the Irish zine scene isn’t going anywhere, and a huge congratulation to Sarah Bracken for bringing everyone together.
AND finally… saving the best till last, SET. It’s a stunning quarterly that explores the between cinema and architecture - it comes with sponsorship from Plus Print, the IFI and the Irish Architecture Foundation and is a gorgeous, refined zine of beauty.
