As the school year starts to flare up, so do the student organizations, Zine Club being a torch among the candles with their recent induction into the Student Media Board. This step forward has been in the workings for the past year and the club has been ecstatic about this advancement. Being in the Student Media Board alongside Organizations like the Fulcrum and the Oracle, Zine Club adds a humble and casual touch that blends in perfectly alongside its colleagues.
“What we hope to do through being enrolled in the SMB [Student Media Board] is to be able to fund people’s individual projects,” senior Zine Club steward Max Ridenour said. “ If a member has an idea for a zine that they want to publish, I want it to be so that they have the resources to do a limited run of like 5 or 10 copies through us. And then we can distribute those and get their work out there into the world.”
Zine Club prioritizes connection among its members and community, believing that zines, as an art form, are a key resource in bringing groups together.
“It sounds kind of silly to call them revolutionary, but very historically zines have been [a sort of] way to challenge the status quo from underneath, a way for people to get their voices heard in ways that [aren’t as] sanctioned by public opinion or the higher-ups,” senior Zine Club steward Lydia Meier said.
The new assets granted to Zine club through their induction has the group thrilled for what is to come, plans already buzzing around in their heads.
“One of our ideas was after we have some of our zines printed out, to put them in Little Free Libraries around the neighborhood,” Meier said. “I have this idea of a zine that I want to do by the end of the year. I’m gonna create a little, first-year guide to Midway zine that we can print and use for tabling in the future years. Just a lot of my favorite little old haunts in the neighborhood and stuff. I encourage people to get off campus.”
Zines prove themselves to be a unique and open-ended way to explore oneself and share information. “What I like about Zine Club specifically is that it lets people enter into art even if they don’t otherwise believe themselves to be an artist,” Ridenour said. He encourages anyone and everyone to try and make a zine. “You can be yourself in your art, and it doesn’t have to be good because art isn’t just good or bad. You’re applying morality to a thing that exists as something so much bigger than good or bad,” Meier said.
Creating zines can be a fulfilling and empowering experience, and they recommend everyone to come and check it out. Zine Club prides itself on being a safe and welcoming space for everybody, regardless of if one pursues a career in art or if one just wants to relax for a while.
Zine Club meets on Thursday evenings from 4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. in Studio C. For more information about events and themes, check out the club’s Instagram account, @hamline_zines. Come and put a match to Zine Club.