A zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very small group, and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation. A fanzine is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and popularized within science fiction fandom, entering the Oxford English Dictionary in 1949.
Siue Moffat is a Canadian vegan chocolatier, cookbook author, filmmaker, zine maker, video activist and film archivist. She began writing zines in the late 1980s. Her two-page zine, "Roy Spim", was cited as life changing, blunt, and fearless by an author of a reflection at Broken Pencil.
Michelle Tea is an American author, poet, and literary arts organizer whose autobiographical works explore queer culture, feminism, race, class, sex work, and other topics. She is originally from Chelsea, Massachusetts and has identified with the San Francisco, California literary and arts community for many years. She currently lives in Los Angeles. Her books, mostly memoirs, are known for their exposition of the queercore community.
Joyce Brabner was an American writer of political comics and the widow of Harvey Pekar.
Ariel Gore is a journalist, memoirist, novelist, nonfiction author, and teacher. Gore has authored more than ten books. Gore's fiction and nonfiction work also explores creativity, spirituality, queer culture, and positive psychology. She is the founding editor/publisher of Hip Mama, an Alternative Press Award-winning publication covering the culture and politics of motherhood. Through her work on Hip Mama, Gore is widely credited with launching maternal feminism and the contemporary mothers' movement.
Ali Liebegott is an American writer, actor, and comedian. She is best known for her work as a novelist and a writer/producer on the Amazon original series Transparent. Liebegott has taught creative writing at University of California, San Diego and Mills College. She is a recipient of a Poetry Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is the author of The Beautifully Worthless; The IHOP Papers; and Cha-Ching!. Liebegott resides in Los Angeles and recently finished her fourth book, The Summer of Dead Birds.
Mary Wings was an American cartoonist, writer, and artist. She was known for highlighting lesbian themes in her work. In 1973, she made history by releasing Come Out Comix, the first lesbian comic book. She also wrote a series of detective novels featuring lesbian heroine Emma Victor. Divine Victim, Wings' only Gothic novel, won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Mystery in 1994.
Jennifer Camper is a cartoonist and graphic artist whose work is inspired by her own experiences as a Lebanese-American lesbian. Her work has been included in various outlets such as newspapers and magazines since the 1980s, as well as in exhibits in Europe and the United States. Furthermore, Camper is the creator and founding director of the biennial Queers and Comics conference.
Niki Smith is an American author and cartoon artist.
Jillian Tamaki is a Canadian American illustrator and comic artist known for her work in The New York Times and The New Yorker in addition to the graphic novels Boundless, as well as Skim, This One Summer and Roaming written by her cousin Mariko Tamaki.
Mariko Tamaki is a Canadian artist and writer. She is known for her graphic novels Skim, Emiko Superstar, and This One Summer, and for several prose works of fiction and non-fiction. In 2016 she began writing for both Marvel and DC Comics. She has twice been named a runner-up for the Michael L. Printz Award.
Paige Braddock is an American cartoonist best known for her Eisner-nominated comic strip, Jane's World, the first gay-themed comic work to receive online distribution by a national media syndicate in the U.S. Braddock concluded the comic strip after completing its 20-year run in 2018.
Cristina Carrera, otherwise known as Cristy C. Road is a Cuban-American illustrator, graphic novelist, and punk rock musician whose posters, music, and autobiographical works explore themes of feminism, queer culture, and social justice. She primarily works as an illustrator and graphic novelist, but also published a long-running zine about punk music and her life as a queer Latina. She performed on the Sister Spit roadshow in 2007, 2009, and 2013 and was the lead vocalist and guitarist for the queercore/pop-punk band, The Homewreckers. She currently sings vocals and plays guitar in Choked Up. She has published three books and one collection of postcards, as well as numerous concert posters, protest flyers, book covers, and logos. Road has worked as a professor at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.
Sarah Shay Mirk (she/they) is an author, zinester, and journalist based in Portland, Oregon, in the United States.
Nia King is a mixed-race woman of Black/Lebanese/Hungarian descent, queer, art activist, multimedia journalist, podcaster, public speaker, and zine maker. She lives in Oakland, California. Within her podcast, "We Want the Airwaves," Nia interviews queer and trans artists about their lives and about their work. The title of her podcast was inspired from a Ramones song and played as a demand for media access and an insistence on the right for marginalized people to take up space.
Rachael House is a British multi-disciplinary artist, based in London and Whitstable.
Laura Wright is a professor of English at Western Carolina University. Wright proposed vegan studies as a new academic field, and her 2015 book The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror served as the foundational text of the discipline. As of 2021 she had edited two collections of articles about vegan studies.
Lawrence Lindell is an American cartoonist, speaker, and musician. He has written autobiographical comics including From Truth With Truth and Couldn’t Afford Therapy, So I Made This. His work covers mental health issues, blackness, and queerness. He lives in the Bay Area, California. Lindell is open about living with bipolar depression and PTSD; two of the main themes of his work. He has a forthcoming middle-grade graphic novel called Buckle Up due out in August 2024 with Random House Graphic. His 2023 graphic novel Blackward, with Drawn and Quarterly, was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Graphic Novel and nominated for the 2024 Eisner Awards for Best Publication for Teens.
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me is a graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Rosemary Valero-O'Connell. It follows Frederica "Freddy" Riley throughout her struggles with her on-again, off-again relationship with the eponymous Laura Dean. The novel was first published by First Second Books on May 7, 2019. A young adult and lesbian teen novel, Laura Dean includes themes about teenage lesbian and queer sexuality.
Michelle Rau is an American cartoonist, writer, and artist known for publishing her cartoon zine, Lana's World. She was an active contributor in the alternative publishing, queer zine, and comics landscape of the 1980s and 1990s.
