Milwaukee Zine Fest Celebrates DIY Publishing

As the voices of vendors and alt-literature fans reverberated throughout Milwaukee’s Central Library, a din of conversation filled a space typically reserved for quiet study. The building’s ornate, neoclassical style contrasted with the DIY charm of homemade zines scattered across rows of tables.

Author Luke Geddes is a longtime fan of underground and self-published comics. He finds that making zines allows him to engage in a visual medium despite a lack of conventional artistic skills.

“A lot of it’s hard to explain,” said Geddes, standing behind an eclectic assortment of pamphlets for sale.

His offerings included a tribute to Velvet Underground member Doug Yule, a reprinted elementary school newspaper from the ‘90s and “TV GRIME,” a serialized work that combines cultural criticism with personal anecdotes about TV shows.

Geddes joined over 100 other vendors for this year’s Milwaukee Zine Fest, a celebration of independent literature, DIY publishing and zine culture put on by Milwaukee Public Library and The Bindery, a Bay View-based “book factory” and event space that helps produce Zine Fest every year.

“We’re an actual book bindery,” said owner Zachary Lifton. “We help people make books and zines, and people can come in and use our equipment to make their own stuff.”

Although some have traced the origins of zines to the American Revolution, with Thomas Paine’s 1775 pamphlet “Common Sense,” the contemporary zine has its roots in late 1970s punk subculture. The term “zine” usually describes fiction, poetry, collage or other works presented in a self-published, miniature magazine format.

“The only rule is that there are no rules,” Lifton said, offering advice for aspiring zine-makers.

A certain punk ethos animates the work of Sarah Muehlbauer and Travis Hildebrandt, a married couple who have been tabling together at Zine Fest for the past two years.

“That’s what’s great about zines,” said Hildebrandt. “They don’t have to fit into pre-established genres and formats, so if she wants to make a coloring book/essay/meditation, she can.”

Muehlbauer’s “Freedom and Possession” brings together disparate elements to make a cohesive work that transcends classification. She describes her work as “interdisciplinary,” drawing from Jungian archetypes and dream analysis, as well as her experience of disability.

For Lifton, zines provide an opportunity to magnify voices that might not otherwise be heard from major publishing houses.

“What I think makes zines really special actually has nothing to do with the form or the printing or anything like that,” he said. “It has to do with the ability to express oneself, especially for marginalized communities – people of color, queer people, trans people, women, etc.”

UW-Milwaukee graphic design student Lua Lian discovered his passion for the medium while taking a creative non-fiction zine class last year. “Onion Layers” explores the trans experience while drawing inspiration from an unlikely source.

“It opens up with the Shrek quote about how ogres have layers and I kind of compare being trans to being an onion with layers,” said Lian, a junior. “It’s kind of indirectly comparing trans people to ogres, but I feel like it’s okay because I’m trans, and everyone laughs.”

When guests finished meandering their way through rows of vendors on the main level, a trip up Central Library’s grand staircase revealed an additional floor with even more to peruse – and not just items for sale. The library also curated two special collections of vintage zines from the archives, mostly labor-related pamphlets from Milwaukee’s early 1900s “sewer socialist” days.

Set up near the top of the stairs, Zack Lifton spent much of the day working The Bindery’s table as people circulated through the fest.

“There’s hundreds of people here, all interested in print media and hundreds of people who are producing print media still,” he said. “I feel very strongly that it’s still alive.”

Luke Geddes’ novel “Heart of Junk”was published by Simon & Schuster in 2020, according to his website. Although the novel received glowing reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and NPR Weekend Edition, Geddes had little to say about it.

He had far more to say about Milwaukee Zine Fest.

“Because of the flattening of culture, including the original promise of an open internet, this is one of the last bastions of truly independent culture and art.”