More Chicago Photos by Michelle Alba (who you should hire to photograph your next event, by the way, because she's really good). o |
Cleveland, OH Cleve-land was an important place to stop, since it's where Ladyfriend got started in the first place. Not surprisingly, it's also home to tons of awesome contributors - so many that we couldn't possibly cram them all into one night of zine fun! It was a great time: mother and son Liz & Gabe Bly re-interviewed each other with questions from the Age issue a few years back, Connie Hosvicka made everybody laugh with the story of her butt-kickin' boots, Leslie Nichol read her "top 10 reasons waiting 'til I was 40 to have a baby worked for me" piece, with pink handouts and the daughter who inspired it in tow, and a teenage zine queen named Kathee, who I'd only met via e-mail a few days before, appropriately read from my friend Julie's "Girl Genius" piece. Afterward I discovered that Kathee writes her own rather amazing zine, "A Million Birthdays," and also runs Sew True Zine Distro, which everybody should go check out. Yes, you can buy Ladyfriend there now, along with loads of other cool zines. Overall, it was a rather inspiring and amazing evening, and thanks to my friend Andy we got it on video! |
More Philly Pictures courtesy of Robin Arutt: |
The Summer 2004 Ladyfriend/Free Advice Interactive Zine Tour! |
Columbus, OH The first-ever stop on the tour was definitely a learning experience. One of the things to be learned was that no matter how many people you might know in a city, you still have to remind them a bunch of times or they'll forget to come. The other thing was to get out the camera! A lot of the initial kinks got worked out in this show, and there were some really great people there, including my friend Xan and Ladyfest Ohio divas Oliviera and Daina, but I was so busy getting things set up that I forgot to take photos. Oops! |
Philadelphia, PA Having never been to Philly before, I was excited. And I got lost. Like really lost. Four or five times (once ending up in New Jersey.) So when I finally got into town, it was such a relief to see my friend Robin and eat some F-ing good food at the cool Silk City diner. I also took a day to go check out the creepy Mutter Museum and shop for comics. Space 1026, the venue that hosted the zine show that night, is a very cool place: it's an artist-run gallery / studio space / silkscreening collective with great vintage couches and nice, nice people. Robin and her 16-year old friend Annie did tremendous readings, and even the strangers we pulled in off the street seemed to have a good time! |
More Philly Pictures courtesy of Robin Arutt: |
Boston, MA Somehow I managed to find my way to Colleen and Saskia's place in Jamaica Plains, where there was some hot homemade soup simmering away when I arrived. Yummm. We got all dolled up and went to the Milky Way, which is this hip intergalactic bowling lounge a few blocks from their apartment. What a crazy place to do zine readings. Due to the amount of people bowling, talking, eating, drinkin', etc. we actually needed the full sound system and colored lights they had set up for us. It was like being in a band, but maybe a little wierder. Anyway, the show went great: a small boy came up to play our board game and won everyone over, Colleen gave everyone home-grown carrots from her CSA, I collected a lot of great Free Advice for my new zine project, the Milky Way gave us free food & drinks after the show, and the owner bought a bunch of zines for his girlfriend. Ladyfriend loves the Milky Way! |
Saskia tears it up at the Milky Way |
Several of the coolest fillies (and fellas) in Philly |
New York, NY New York was particularly exciting for a number of reasons. The first being that I'd finally meet several Ladyfriend contributors and interviewees for the first time, including writer Lora Grillo and P Power Performance Project founder Jessica Dellecave (who put me up for the night). Another reason was that it was my first time driving a car in NYC, and I was supposed to get to my art gallery in Chelsea by 11am (from Boston) to be interviewed for a Japanese TV show! Astonishingly enough, I was only about half an hour late for that, and somehow made it back to the East Village with fifteen minutes left to grab a snack and get my butt over to Bluestockings Bookstore in time to get set up. Oy. The third surprise came when I arrived: in other cities, I'd had to start things up fairly late so that enough people could sift in off the street. But when I got to Bluestockings, all the seats were full and people just kept coming! Eventually someone had to call the manager at home so she could come set up a microphone, because nobody in the back could hear us. Who knew there were so many Ladyfriend friends in NYC? Not me, that's for sure. It was a great show, with John Chaich reading his "Wonder Woman" story complete with soundtrack and golden lasso, Jessica's own brand of supershero wackiness, and Lora's terrific reading about her feisty aunt Nancy. Good times. |
Lora and Jessica do their thang |
Lyz and Gabe's live interview at Mac's Backs |
Cleveland, OH Cleve-land was an important place to stop, since it's where Ladyfriend got started in the first place. Not surprisingly, it's also home to tons of awesome contributors - so many that we couldn't possibly cram them all into one night of zine fun! It was a great time: mother and son Liz & Gabe Bly re-interviewed each other with questions from the Age issue a few years back, Connie Hosvicka made everybody laugh with the story of her butt-kickin' boots, Leslie Nichol read her "top 10 reasons waiting 'til I was 40 to have a baby worked for me" piece, with pink handouts and the daughter who inspired it in tow, and a teenage zine queen named Kathee, who I'd only met via e-mail a few days before, appropriately read from my friend Julie's "Girl Genius" piece. Afterward I discovered that Kathee writes her own rather amazing zine, "A Million Birthdays," and also runs Sew True Zine Distro, which everybody should go check out. Yes, you can buy Ladyfriend there now, along with loads of other cool zines. Overall, it was a rather inspiring and amazing evening, and thanks to my friend Andy we got it on video! |
Fort Wayne, IN So Fort Wayne's not exactly a hotbed of zine culture, but it is the town where I grew up, and where I led a whole week's worth of zine workshops for teenagers at various library branches over the summer. Unbeknownst to me, my parents had done some impromptu advertising and carpool coordinating, so the crowd included my childhood babysitter, a friend from high school, a whole slew of former neighbors, my sister (who drove two hours to see the show), and a bunch of lady clients from my dad's work who he'd persuaded to come. The only place that would host the show there was Borders, and it felt totally crazy to have this sort of family reunion version of the show in a major bookstore chain, but whatever. It was great. Ian, the world's coolest librarian, did an amazing and hilarious reading from the Shoe issue, and my Mom surprised even me by whipping out an apron and doing the most moving, funny, fantastic reading of Lora Grillo's "Saucy" story from the Food issue. Everybody bought lots of zines and I went home to have dinner with the folks afterwards. |
Christa's mom and Ian the librarian prove that Fort Wayne's home to some very cool people. |
The party gets started at Quimby's |
More Chicago Photos by Michelle Alba (who you should hire to photograph your next event, by the way, because she's really good). o |
Back in Chicago, Gooseberry and Grape welcome a Ladyfriend home! |
Chicago, IL As the new headquarters of Ladyfriend and Free Advice zines, Chicago was the ideal place to wrap things up. It also doesn't hurt that it's home to Quimby's bookstore, one of the best zine / comix / book shops in the world (that's no exaggeration). Things started off a little bumpy when we couldn't get filmmaker Maria Gigante's video to play, but it wasn't long before we persuaded technology to join our side, and things went smoothly from there. There were some very special guest readers, including Steph Levi, who's contributed to every issue of Ladyfriend since the zine got started, longtime friend Misty Funk (yes, that is her real name), as well as new ladyfriends and UIC grad school colleagues Jennifer Justice and Lauren Portada. It was a lot of fun, and when I got home, tired and happy, I found two NEW stuffed friends waiting by my mailbox. My friend Jaime in Cleveland, who'd illustrated these wierd fuzzy fruits for the Cute issue's coloring page, had tried to send them in time for them to accompany me on my travels. Well, too late for that, but they do go shockingly well with my blanketry (and another bed buddy handmade by my friend Betony in NY). Now back to work on the Health issue. And the next zine tour (oh yeah, and grad school). Look out, West Coast, we're coming your way this January! -Christa |
