Today we’d like to introduce you to María-Elisa Heg, Anastasia Kirages, Evan McCarley, and Sarah Welch.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
The roots of zine festivals in Houston can traced back to a spontaneous gathering in the Hermann Park picnic area organized by Shane Patrick boyle in May of 1993.The creators of Black Fist, Coffee and Hash Browns, Uh, and Virus Board came together to show off the latest issues of their zines, swap zines and hang out together. Zine Fest Houston as we know it today began in 2004 as The Houston Comix and Zine Festival. The first two festivals were sponsored by the Houston Area Comics Society, but the event became a separate entity and officially broke away from the parent group in 2006.
The name change to Zine Fest Houston came in 2008 to differentiate the event from the traditional idea of a comic convention and to emphasize the focus on DIY and alternative media, and to better reflect the wide variety of subject matter represented by the publications showcased at the event.
The first event was held at Super Happy Fun Land on November 20, 2004. Despite the ambitious program book, it was an intimate gathering of comic and zine creators, similar to the original zine picnic, but indoors. Over the years, the zine festival would slowly grow and so would the local zine scene.
The 2005 festival took place at Southmore House as unofficial extension of the Art Crawl route. This year saw a slightly larger crowd in a smaller venue and featured the addition of music, provided by Organ Failure and Boone Graham.
In the fall of 2006, the Houston Comic and Zine Festival partnered with the Westheimer Block Party for a festival within a festival with more creators and more traffic than in previous years. The Zine Fest crew continued to exhibit at the semi-annual Block Party under the banner of “Comix and Zines and Westheimer,” until the last Block Party in fall of 2009. Though there was no official zine fest in 2007, the comics and zine exhibit on the patio behind Avant Garden during the fall 2007 Block Party was a sort of mini zine festival.
In 2008, the name was officially changed to Zine Fest Houston and the planned date for the event was moved from the fall to late spring. The original plan was for the new Zine Fest Houston to return to Super Happy Fun Land, now at a new location. Unfortunately, the City of Houston had other plans. Super Happy Fun Land was temporarily closed and began a battle with bureaucracy that lasted over a year. Super Happy Fun Land did not reopen until 2009.
The 2008 Zine Fest Houston was canceled, but it didn’t stay canceled. At the last minute, the Secret Saturday Show came to the rescue of the orphaned zine festival and let ZFH set up during their Memorial Day weekend show. The spontaneous event turned out to be the largest zine fest in Houston up to that time! It featured interactive art projects, an auction to benefit Super Happy Fun Land and music provided by the Secret Saturday Show, including a surprise appearance by Butch Klotz of 30 Foot Fall who was also one of the veteran zinesters of the Houston scene in the 90s. What started as a small gathering became a small festival.
Starting in 2011, Zine Fest Houston has held an annual festival. Over the years, Zine Fest Houston has continued its efforts to grow a DIY community, spotlight the diverse talents represented in zines being published today in Houston and elsewhere, and represent some of the hidden history of zines and alternative press in Houston. In 2012 Shane “retired” from his duties as founder and organizer of ZFH, but has always stayed close to the community and never missed an event if he could help it. From Super Happy Fun Land to The Printing Museum and now to the festival’s current home at the Lawndale Art center, Shane’s spirit of community togetherness has always been a guiding star for the organizers.
Tragically, in the spring of 2017 Shane Patrick Boyle passed away suddenly, leaving the zine community in shock. It was hard to imagine moving on without his gentle spirit of encouragement and support, and the wonderful group of people he had brought together over the years. ZFH this year was marked by his conspicuous absence, with many old friends remarking that they expected to see his Cluttered Mind t-shirt walking through the door, bag full of zines as ever.
Although no one can ever replace him, ZFH is committed to carrying on the legacy of Shane Patrick Boyle, who dedicated his life to bringing people together, to lifting up the voices of the unheard, and to celebrate the world of the unique, the weird, and the outsiders. ZFH is his legacy and we hope to inspire more zines, mini-comics, DIY and alternative media for years to come in his honor.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Maria: We certainly struggled to find a venue that would fit the growing crowds. Every year it seemed we had less room to work with, and it was a challenge to balance the number of applicants for tables and the need to make the space accessible for everyone. The Printing Museum was a very fruitful partnership, and we will always be grateful to Keelin Burrows for enthusiastically bringing us into what can only be described as the most fitting partnership possible for a paper-based festival! We loved having access to their wonderful classrooms and their staff were very helpful, but sadly in just three short years we found we could no longer manage to safely fit all the attendees and tablers. We were fortunate to be given the opportunity to present at Lawndale at the same time, and since then we’ve been working to utilize the space there as best as we can. It’s always such a challenge designing the layouts of tables to make sure vendors and attendees alike are comfortable and happy! But I think this year we did a good job. There’s always the lack of time to get everything done that you want; all of us organizers have work and most of us are in school so there are always a million things vying for our attention and time during the year.
Anastasia: It’s been a pretty smooth road, but we’ve definitely had a few struggles along the way. I’d have to say one of the biggest obstacles we’ve experienced has been finding an appropriate venue, as Maria also mentions. Not only do we need a big enough space for the tablers, but other rooms for programming like panels, lectures, screenings and workshops as well. Parking has been an issue along with the venue. Sometimes there is good parking available, but other times it has been difficult for attendees to find parking. However, we always encourage biking, carpooling or public transportation as a solution to that! In addition to finding a venue and parking, I would say that fundraising has been a constant challenge for ZFH. Due to the spirit and nature of zine culture and zine festivals, making money is not exactly why people make zines, but in order to be a sustainable festival and organization we do need a budget of some sort. We recently became fiscally sponsored though (a first time milestone in ZFH’s history), so we can now apply for grants and such!
Zine Fest Houston – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Maria: We’re the oldest self-publishing festival in Houston, and more often than not we’re the only dedicated self-publishing (or “small press”) event in the city. We’re really lucky to have inherited a storied organization with a dedicated group of supporters, but it’s been a real privilege to watch how the community has grown and supported our efforts to keep the festival going. I think we’re experiencing something amazing and based on the feedback from people who come every year, they’re experiencing it too.
Anastasia: Zine Fest Houston is an event dedicated to promoting zines, mini-comics, and other forms of small press, alternative, underground DIY media and art. It is also a grassroots attempt to build the local zine, DIY, and alternative media scenes and form networks with media creators in other areas. Admission is always free and low cost table space is available for zinesters, writers, artists, distros and other individuals and groups involved in the creation, publication, distribution, or promotion of alternative media and DIY. The festival is a new and different experience every time, offering a diverse new crop of zines and other projects every year (including many never before seen anywhere else) and other unique sights (such as a live chicken manning one of the exhibitor tables during the first festival). The goal of the event is for attendees to discover new zines and be inspired to create their own DIY art and media projects. We are a unique event in Houston that focuses solely on DIY publications and other media and since it is only one day out of the year, this is sometimes the only place you can get a certain zine or comic!
Sarah: Because the fest is an annual one-day-only event, we typically have a good crowd. It can feel like an enormous hang-out, there’s a lot of folks I only see once a year at this event, and I love seeing everything they’ve been working on in preparation for the fest.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Anastasia: I was really proud when we were able to donate Shane Patrick Boyle’s zine collection to the University of Houston. In accomplishing that, I feel that we were not only able to preserve his legacy for future generations, but share and celebrate the history of the organization and the zines that have been produced by the artists, creators, and activists of South Texas from the early 1990s through today with the entire Houston community.
Sarah: When Taro [our 2017 featured artist] gave us a bottle of champagne after Zine Fest Houston 2016 like we won a Grammy or something.
Pricing:
- The festival is free and open to the public.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.zinefesthouston.org/
- Email: info@zinefesthouston.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zinefesthouston/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZineFestHouston/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/zinefesthouston
Image Credit:
Os Galindo
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