Grand Rapids celebrates 10th annual Grand Rapids Zine Fest

Zines (it rhymes with ‘bean’) are small, often handmade magazines or booklets filled with a wide variety of subject matter, from politics to poetry. Here in Grand Rapids, zine-makers celebrated the 10th Grand Rapids Zine Fest (GRZF) at Fountain Street Church on Saturday, August 17.

Most zines are self-published, meaning there is no press involved in the distribution. The DIY nature of the medium lends itself to easy distribution. They’re also portable; unlike a painting or a sculpture, it’s easy to toss a zine in your bag – some zines are made using only a single sheet of folded paper. 

This year, GRZF hosted 53 artists: nine from out-of-state, 24 from Michigan and 21 from Grand Rapids.

“I’ve known about Grand Rapids Zine Fest for a number of years. For the longest time, it was one of the only zine fests in Michigan,” said Cartoonist Bluraven Houvener, who traveled from Detroit to table at GRZF.

Printmaker and cartoonist Aude Shattuck has been tabling and attending GRZF for a number of years under the moniker Fig and Fable. 

“[GRZF] was my first major event that wasn’t some grandma’s craft show. I put together a bunch of different things. It was an absolutely wild experience seeing folks of all ages and backgrounds that I didn’t encounter at other events and seeing different ideas and types of printing that I had no prior experience with,” Shattuck recalled during this year’s fest.

George Wietor, who runs Issue Press, a risograph press based in Grand Rapids, has attended GRZF since its inaugural event in 2013. 

“I remember the excitement. I’d been making zines and prints on my own for a very long time. There was something very exciting about being in a place with other folks. It was exciting to suddenly have peers. Zine Fest was really the first event that brought all these folks together to do something much bigger and much more fun,” Wietor said.

Risograph printing is a specialized printing method that involves laying down individual layers of colors. This results in highly texturized and pigmented prints, making it a favorite among zine makers.

Detroit-based educator and artist Narciso Espiritu, another zine-maker and risograph printer, also traveled to attend GRZF. 

“I think [risograph] lends itself to zines because it’s a relatively quick way to reproduce things. The color opportunities are unparalleled,” said Espiritu, who teaches illustration at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. 

‘People are really honest in zines’

While many zine-makers find community at events like GRZF, “there’s not a ton of spaces for the zine community [in Grand Rapids],” said GRZF organizer Sara Chittenden.

Chittenden, who has been organizing GRZF since 2013, makes perzines, or personal zines, that chronicle the author's life.

“My first introduction to zines was going to Chicago Zine Fest, and I immediately fell in love,” Chittenden recalled in a Zoom interview. “Finding perzines and seeing these intimate depictions of art blew my mind. It’s what I needed. People are really honest in zines. It’s stuff I wasn’t finding anywhere else — people talking honestly about their experiences.”

The GRZF leadership team started with five to six people, ebbing and flowing as people had other commitments. Austin Knight and Chittenden became the lead organizers of GRZF in 2018. Knight handled the on-the-ground organizing in Grand Rapids, while Chittenden organized the fest from afar while living in Japan from 2016 to 2020. 

“Austin also really helped me develop the vision of the fest to be so positive, diverse, and welcoming, so I want to make sure they get due credit! They still act as a sounding board for me, especially during the uncertainty of the 2021 fest,” said Chittenden.

GRZF did not occur in 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; in 2021, GRZF operated at half capacity. In 2022, Chittenden became the lead fest organizer. 

“It’s definitely gotten so much more organized over the years. Sara’s really figured out how to do everything and do everything well. I can’t get over the fact that one person is putting this all together. It’s truly stunning. Operationally, each year, it gets better and better,” said Wietor, who prints the GRZF poster each year with a different artist selected by Chittenden.

This year’s poster designer was local cartoonist Frankie Yoshi, also known as Stolen Chapstick, who has attended GRZF since 2013 and started tabling in 2016.

“I was in high school when GRZF first started. It was extremely inspiring to me to see SO many local artists and various artists from all over Michigan and other states come together to our little town back then,” said Yoshi, who sold out of his stock at GRZF this year.

Fountain Street Church has housed GRZF since 2018, and Chittenden said the church has been a supportive and accessible venue. 

“They totally get the vision of it being an inclusive space,” Chittenden said. 

GRZF operates using a safer spaces policy that states, “We do not support sexism, racism, Zionism, colonialism, anti-LGBTQIA beliefs, ageism, ableism, religious discrimination, classism and so on. This includes zine content, ‘jokes’ and actions.”

“Unofficially, [GRZF] is kind of a queer zine fest, in my opinion,” said Chittenden.

Zines have long been used as a community-building tool and educational resource for grassroots political movements. Zines also play an integral role in anarchist spaces, dating back to the ‘70s and ‘80s. For many, zine-making is a way to practice publishing while circumventing the capitalist structures involved in traditional publishing practices. 

This year at GRZF, many zinesters made zines and prints expressing their support for Palestine. 

“Community building and anarchism go hand-in-hand for me,” said Joelle Hannert, an anarchist zine-maker from Traverse City who wrote an article about anarchist parenting in a zine. “A lot of people who subscribe to my zine aren’t familiar with anarchism and what it stands for. I got a huge response from people connecting with that article. So then I started doing everyday anarchism as a recurring piece.”

Writer and zine-maker Simone Pennock, who started making zines two years ago, uses zines to foster dialogues between punks of color about their experiences in punk spaces. She curates a zine called “Alienated” and creates a series of mini-zines about feminist punk icons called “My Inspirations.”

“There’s not a lot of people of color who make zines in the local scene. I want people to be able to get that kind of perspective and share their feelings about being a person of color openly,” Pennock said. 

Community is one of the most appealing aspects of zine-making. For many, zines are a labor of love, produced by small favors, like borrowing staples from one person or sneaking off to print at another person’s day job. This spirit of togetherness and mutual aid permeates every aspect of zine culture. 

“I feel like [GZRF] is one of the few spaces where people feel like they can come and be themselves and not be anxious about it,” Chittenden said. “Zines are about the community. It’s a medium where marginalized voices don’t have to soften any edges. Especially in Grand Rapids, I think that’s important. We need that. People are happy. It doesn’t feel like a competitive art market. It feels like a day where people are sharing their work and catching up with each other.”

GRZF always welcomes new attendees, many of whom have never heard of zines. Sophia Pham decided to attend her first GRZF with her sister this year.

“Honestly, it was a little overwhelming when I walked in because I had no idea what it was. But as I walked around, I loved collecting the teeny books. I love to collect small items. I thought it was super cute,” Pham said.

Tree Geeting attended Zine Fest for the first time this year with their fiance and zine-maker Ty Dykema, who writes and edits “Skitchin’” music zine. 

With GRZF officially turning double digits and more zine fests popping up across Michigan, it’s clear that zines have a staying power that defies our overly saturated digital media landscape. 

“Across cultures, zines pop up, again and again — especially for queer folks, especially for people who trying to communicate about things that might not be in traditional publishing,” said Chittenden. “Or people who want to be creative and don’t have the access or desire to go through traditional publishing methods.”