A blank sheet of paper. The feat will be to fill it. About what? The photographs, the words, the collages, the illustrations, the glued dried flowers or the typed letters will be the unique expression of a script that comes out at the call of the most intimate creation. On the other side, trying to combat this endless possibilities with hands and teeth, is Faith Rubio Wenk. He threads, staples, glues, prints and distributes the publications, while Toni Lemus last the preparations for a meeting that in its last seven editions has brought together a diverse communitysingular and open in COOKED. The meeting point: zines.
The story travels through time until landing in the Canary Islands. Once the printing press was invented, the reproduction of texts multiplied its possibilities to infinity and, in addition to massively distributing publications and expropriating the monopoly of knowledge from the hands of the erudite elite, it created a system that also contained formulas of escapism. Already in the 19th century cheap pamphlets arose, with concise messages from unions and opposition to power, but it was not until the 20th century that the word (fanadmirer, and zinesfrom magazine) in which the followers of science fiction found in comet an adventure journal Later, the movement would become popular in the 1970s and 1980s in the United States within the scene undergroundas a communicative vehicle of the circle punk either glam in which the established was violated.
Beyond the networks, these are fast, effective and subversive messages in which unfinished sketches are experimented with. Suddenly, it hits the 21st century, when technological tools are so sophisticated that what emerges from any author is uniquely beautiful. Fede Rubio discovered the fanzine in the third year of the degree in Design, although he had already dabbled in the world before, and the same teacher who opened his eyes in relation to his artistic potential, was the one who tutored her during the Final Degree Project at the University of La Laguna and prompted her to go a step further: create Tofu. “As a vegetarian, I know how to cook and handle tofu, and it’s still a food that absorbs what you put in it. That was the idea I wanted to convey with the name of the publisher: whatever you put in it can transmit it”says its founder after a year on the journey.
Tofu, an inclusive editorial
As a non-binary person, the first fanzine edited was On my way, which was focused on the issue of gender sharing the emotions, doubts and reflections that have been found along the way. “I looked for references and graphic representations, or in series, books, that would make me better understand what was happening to me. Despite the academic publications, at an informative level there was hardly anything, and in any case, from English or American people. So my idea was to make a fanzine not to answer questions, but to make people feel like there is a comfortable place where they know those doubts exist“, explains the designer from Tenerife.
For reasons of destiny, she moved to La Gomera with her partner and, from there, she receives messages with proposals through her social networks, collaborates with friends and, so far, has given birth to six titles: Bolshevik, Dark Blue Almost Black Y A Gray Desertby Mental Soup I am a lesbian, not a woman.of her and Raquel Glz, Between sleeves and papayasby Aura Salada, and A trip to Barcelona by Lucas Velasco. They all agree on the unique imagination of each creator and, above all, the lack of limits: “It’s not that something is right or wrong. Actually, it’s stopping to think about what needs each story has and how to convey them so that it is visually interesting. From making an introduction, as happened to me with Raquel in our fanzine, to creating letteringmixing clippings, writings and thoughts that will later be distributed so that there are no heavier areas of reading or images”, he comments.
He adds that there are no time limits, “we want to have a good time, and then the money is there to print and print something else later: everyone who makes a fanzine knows that they are not going to get money out of it.” He would like to live from his own productions, but he knows that the scene works outside of economic benefits, unless the great mass of followers supports the initiative. But she doesn’t worry about it, right now, she just wants to move forward with this passion that helps her better understand herself and those around her.
zine territory
He shares this hobby with hundreds of people who have their big events on the peninsula such as the Gutter Fest, in Barcelona, the Galician Grapa Grapa or, one of the longest-running in Italy, Crack! But the Canary Islands are not far behind. The Archipelago has been echoing for some time with publications such as Noise. Independent fanzine from La Palmain the first decade of the 2000s, or with fairs in the style of Tenerife foldswhere authors such as La Raya, between London and the Islands, Le Toxi, the micro-editorial Bombas para Desayunaror Gran Canaria COOKEDcaptained by Toni Lemus.
For more than twenty years he has been passionate about the publications of this culture open to freedom: “You fold those four papers, scan them and start making as many copies as you want, in which you express love, anger, joy, photography, erotic, illustration, collage, text, everything, whatever you want. There are no guidelines. Unless it is from a group, you always see the person behind it, “says Lemus. Forerunner of the publishing house Cero Fanzine and of the creative proposal SacoRoto, he began to collect all kinds of formats, themes and treatment within the genre. What gives 800 fanzine today, a large library full of curiosities and geographies that those who visit coZidos on the weekend of October 29 and 30 can delve into. Full of workshops, talks and tables, the initiative was born with modesty, “but everything always goes to more”. Now, they come from everywhere, but desperation always meets the meticulous organization of their creator.
“It is a pleasure to see something that you produce with successes, failures and virtues. It also shows that we were not so wrong in questioning that well-being within the bubble. Moreover, the future is promising and we need more facilitators of public spaces, for example , that the fanzines enter the libraries”, he indicates. Lemus, who has traveled and found on the scene queer Y underground people he admires in his day-to-day life, he fears that, suddenly, this too will be caught up in the mainstream, that is, precisely from what the independent character of authors originally fled from. “I am afraid that the economic system will take over… Although it is also part of the process. However, the fanzine is going to stay in this environment because it is still violent, both visually and conceptually speaking, to that major art that some consider. Those wondering, how can they do this without permissions?”
“There are very sensitive people here, which means that they can do wonderful things, even if the world hurts so much.“, says Lemus. He and Fede Rubio share a trip in which they squander the best of themselves. fanzine They are just witnesses to it.
