SF Zine Fest 2011

I spent Saturday afternoon at the SF Zine Fest in Golden Gate park. It was bigger than last year, with the exhibitors taking up an additional room. Despite a hard sell from the fast-talking Geoff Vasile, I only bought one issue of his Track Rabbit mini-comic, but I'll be back for more. It was fun to encounter mail art maven Jennie Hinchcliff again. She told me the lame postscript to the story of the wedding china sent through the mail. The unreasonably creative Peter S. Conrad fabricated a comic in the form of a scratch-off lottery card. The reader scratches off squares to reveal the story. Hamburger Eyes spread their table with piles of photography zines, & the raw beauty of the covers alone was stunning.

I saw a lot of hand-stitched bindings & multicolored silkscreen covers. Monsters & robots are popular subjects for the illustration art. Ben Catmull's gorgeous prints of monsters imitate Renaissance woodcuts & have embossed backgrounds. My friend pointed out plenty of "owls, mustaches & whales" as well.

At the end of the afternoon I attended a panel on memoir comics. Creators Jason Martin, Joey Alison Sayers, MariNaomi & Rina Ayuyang discussed the risks of personal exposure & the way truth sometimes needs to be manipulated for the sake of story. Mr. Martin is a Gen-Y Harvey Pekar in Papercutter #17, & he amusingly commented on the challenges of drawing his hair. The phenomenal Justin Hall moderated & manged to work in references to porn names & Proust.

§ 10th Annual San Francisco Zine Fest
September 3 + 4, 2011
11am - 6pm
San Francisco County Fair Building
Golden Gate Park