Danny

On Saturday I grabbed my boy and his mate and made one of our very infrequent trips to the city. The reason: THE FESTIVAL OF THE PHOTOCOPIER ZINE FAIR & FESTIVAL LAUNCH.
I didn’t hang around for the Festival launch, my eyes were only for the zines. I must admit I’m a zine fan from the old days, I mean the punk- new wave scene Melbourne 1979 onwards and have even dabbled in one or two myself.

The Fair was held in the Campbell Subway Arcade which runs under Flinders St.
A fantastic little venue with it’s own special charm and fantastic advertising boxes to showcase pieces from the Photocopy Exhibition.

We ventured down the steps just after Noon where a good sized crowd had already gathered and who is the first person we bump into?
No other than Red Bubbles very own Glen Smith of No Frills Art.

Actually it wasn’t such a big surprise as Glen promoted the fair in his journal but his exhibition stall was a treasure trove of wonderful zines, buttons, art kits and stickers.
Glen was there with David Dellafiora also a teacher who specialises in Mail and correspondence art.
The ideas and packaging these guys had displayed were wonderful example of bringing artist together and low cost promotion gear.
Glen also had works sponsored by the GAA to buy and promote.
I spent a bit of time talking to Glen and Dave while the boy’s ran rampant up and down the stalls seeking out buttons and freebies. As I moved along each table had a new theme or interest. From pure photocopied photo fan zines and topic zines to full production mags , books and comics.
All up it was an worthwhile visit just to see such a vibrant scene and being genuinely excited at seeing such great ideas in a well established but evolving format.
Not to forget to mention how friendly everybody was.
If all art circles were as welcoming and accommodating as this crowd, the art scene would never get a reputation as being snotty and stuck up.

This is Glen (NoFrills Art) and Dave with their table of many wonders
Behind them is a display of Street posters and signs from all over the place and by the look of them from different eras.
You can find out more about Dave’s projects by sending a quick note to PO Box 1838 Geelong 3220 Victoria Austrlia.
Also visit the Geelong Arts Alliance Inc on www.geelongartsalliance.org

A Picture of Glen flogging some hacks work.

A collective of artworks complied on toilet paper, sounds a bit dodgy but inside was a plethora of brilliant ideas.

More of the GAA collective works, utilizing pill boxes and folded card envelopes.

Money well spent – mind you the freebies were plentiful

Comic artist Daniel Reed shows of his 1st Edition of “The CRUMPLTON Experiments” he is currently up to issue 7 and for more info contact Daniel at Nautilus Illustrations PO Box 1546 Preston South 3072 Victoria Aust.

The guy had heaps of zines of his writing but the boys fell in love with his buttons, if I hear “Can I have another dollar Dad” I’ll scream.

Oh course my boy went for the robot.


These guys are from The Breakdown Pressand they had the best collection of parody Brand Name stickers I had ever seen.

This table were a collective under the banner Utlaw and had a table bursting with free zines, primarily about the Anarchist movement and so interesting writings about the G20 arrests.

This couple are from the ACT and work under the name the The Contextual Villians
I fell in live with one of their works entitled The Present Years, a beautifully presented hard cover artistic interpretation of the settlement of Australia through collage. For $20 it was a steal, and I got a CD with it.
For more info visit www.thecontextualvillians.org

This gentleman here is Pat. Pat’s little zine there in front of him was probably the find of the show. Pat’s cartoons are hilarious and well drawn.

He offered it too us for nothing but we paid full fair because we loved it so much, plus we think he needed the cash (see sign)

For more information on Pat and his cartoons, contact him on butteredmidgets@yahoo.com

Papercuts were a novel little zine presented in a wallet type format

This lovely lady was a Scrabble Freak and so was the name of her self published Mag. She being interviewed by the amazing John Safron in a couple of weeks.

These two ladies were representing voiceworks. An initiative through Express Media that promotes young and emerging writers. The magazine takes up most of their funding but is a well presented and attractive magazine to draw in the punters.
For more info go to www.expressmedia.org.au/voiceworks.php

The boys bought this and thought the concept hilarious.
It’s by a guy who goes by the name “Posters You Could Easily Do Yourself Inc.”
This one’s about Ninjas.

All up it was an enjoyable couple of hours in the city and well worth the train ride,
The boys couldn’t stop talking about how easy it would be to do and got all busy thinking up designs, believe me I will be abusing copier privileges at work on Monday.
For more information on the Festival of the Photocopier go to
www.stickyinstitute.com

February 2008