Photos/thoughts on the 9th Annual Portland Zine Symposium

[Derek Neuland]

I didn't take a lot of photos, just a few for my facebook friends who couldn't make it.

and my score of zines:

This was my first zine fest i had ever been to so it was quite overwhelming at first. I really wish i would have gotten my zine done in time to table or trade, but it really motivated me. The couple workshops i went to ("How to make your zine pop off the shelf" and "how to meet a deadline") were both really well done and super helpful. A lot of the workshops i wanted to go to overlapped so it was hard to decide which to go to.

nevertheless, i am VERY excited about next year's Portland Zine Symposium!

[Amazing Sunflower]

I WILL be there next year! Oh yes! Oh yes!

[Dan 10things]

It looks well attended, yay!

[Ericfishlegs]

I like that Jonathan Dalton has a big banner in front of his table with his name on it. I can't quite articulate why I find it so amusing, but I do. Probably because I've never heard of the guy and yet he's hyping himself like he's King Shit of Fuck Mountain.

Also- a message to the guy with the baseball cap standing to the right of Jonathan Dalton's table- the bill on your baseball cap is meant to be used to shield your eyes from the sun's harmful rays. Therefore wearing it backwards serves no purpose whatsoever. I guess I'll never understand people who wear hats.

[Robin Layne]

Hey, I went to both workshops! I had the overlap problem, too. I was the one in the robin T-shirt. The problem with having a table is that if you want to go to workshops, you spend most of your time away from the table (except on Friday, when there were no workshops, but I spent a good deal of time walking around looking at the other tables). I took pictures, and I'm wondering if it's okay to post all of them on this site, although I only got permission from a few people to provide their pics in some articles.

Just read Ericfishlegs' comment. He wouldn't understand me; I love hats. But I don't wear them much indoors.

[Dan 10things]

Wow, you need your own show on TLC where you can bitch about zinester fashion and style. Think anyone would watch?

Ericfishlegs said:

I like that Jonathan Dalton has a big banner in front of his table with his name on it. I can't quite articulate why I find it so amusing, but I do. Probably because I've never heard of the guy and yet he's hyping himself like he's King Shit of Fuck Mountain.

Also- a message to the guy with the baseball cap standing to the right of Jonathan Dalton's table- the bill on your baseball cap is meant to be used to shield your eyes from the sun's harmful rays. Therefore wearing it backwards serves no purpose whatsoever. I guess I'll never understand people who wear hats.

[NicoleIntrovert]

Not always, sometimes the purpose of the hat is to stop sunburn or your hair from flying all over the place when outside, when worn with sunglasses the bill isn't necessary but the protection of the hat is. :)

Ericfishlegs said:

I like that Jonathan Dalton has a big banner in front of his table with his name on it. I can't quite articulate why I find it so amusing, but I do. Probably because I've never heard of the guy and yet he's hyping himself like he's King Shit of Fuck Mountain.

Also- a message to the guy with the baseball cap standing to the right of Jonathan Dalton's table- the bill on your baseball cap is meant to be used to shield your eyes from the sun's harmful rays. Therefore wearing it backwards serves no purpose whatsoever. I guess I'll never understand people who wear hats.

[lauramarie]

Sometimes a hat hides messy hair or unwashed hair. What else can a hat do? My husband Erik has a lump on his head (we call it a head lump) and he hides it under a hat sometimes.

[lauramarie]

Oops--sorry to hijack your thread, D. I think of the Portland Zine Symp as the mother of all zine symps and hope to make it up there sometime.

lauramarie said:

Sometimes a hat hides messy hair or unwashed hair. What else can a hat do? My husband Erik has a lump on his head (we call it a head lump) and he hides it under a hat sometimes.

[ciaraxyerra]

i tabled friday & saturday, & hung around looking at stuff on sunday. i set up my table friday afternoon, sat down, & watched as folks started to trickle in to take a look around. i turned to the friend tabling right behind me, & without even thinking, i said, "people here are really...alternative."

it was pretty embarrassing because no one has earnestly used the word "alternative" since maybe 1995 or so, but it was the only word that really summed up my impression of every single person at the event (including myself). was there a two-tattoo minimum at the door? i am used to zine fairs being a pretty random mix of punks, clean-cut college-looking types, maybe a few older hippie-ish types, & i mean, i guess the symposium had a lot of different kinds of folks because there were SO MANY PEOPLE there (both tabling, & just looking around). but i was still really taken aback at how...homogenous, i guess, everyone was in their attempts to be different. (again, myself included...i was even feeling pretty smug for a little while because i was listening in on a conversation about how many people at the event had the same name, & i was like, "hahaha, surely i am the only ciara here!" & then a girl came to my table & said, "is your name ciara? my name is ciara too." yes, spelled the same way, even. & we both had knuckle tattoos. that wiped the smirk off my face pretty fast.)

i had a strangely stressful argument with someone over their concept of "community" ( a word that is thrown around all to often to mean about a gazillion different things, never with any kind of clearly understood definition), one guy stopped by my table & seemed to get angry that he didn't automatically know what was inside the zines i was selling just based on their names/covers (???), & i (ironically, after my argument with the "d.i.y. community" girl) attended the "building communities of support" workshop, which was awesome. i hijacked it just a touch in an effort to re-frame the discussion less on "how can i be a good support person" or more on "how can people responsibly ask for support? what do we mean when we say support? how can we support one another without manipulating & stressing each other out?" but it turned out pretty well & i had an awesome chat with one of the facilitators after. i picked up literally at least fifty really good zines...& i am difficult to please. it was way too hot in portland (o hai climate change) & i spent too much time & energy being freaked out by my housing accomodations, but i'd say that the huge quantity of great zines i picked up made up for everything...even my flight being five hours late getting into boston.

[Erin H]

50 really good zines? At a zine fest? Unheard of!

[Dan 10things]

ciaraxyerra said:

it was pretty embarrassing because no one has earnestly used the word "alternative" since maybe 1995 or so...

Ha ha ha! Awesome review of the show. Portland is like that, lotsa punky kids.

[Alex Wrekk]

I am just now crawling out of a hermit hole of exhaustion after symposium organizing. I think this year went pretty well.

Every year at the symposium I take only a few pictures between running around crazy. Every year the pictures all look the same from a distance. I took these pictures this year.
symposium crap. The stuff that takes up a corner of my basement plus the first of the donations that took up a corner of my livingroom.

My friend Dan and A.M.

Rustin showing me his chapbook about staplers

Sign for Cramer Hall with and arrow telling people to cross the sky bridge. That's how you get to the building the workshops are in.

Androo Robinson and Paul with the giant library card from the Multnomah County Library

Me with the giant Library Card