The Knox Student

Zine Club! threw a fundraising party on Friday to raise money to show a documentary and buy supplies for zine-making workshops.

Zine Club!, with senior founders Kaley Morlock and Klayr Valentine-Fossum as co-presidents and sophomore Annie Zak as Vice President, is a recently formed organization serving as a resource for students to learn about zines — noncommercial homemade magazines — and distribute them on campus. The origin of Zine Club! stemmed from the discovery of a zine collection in a box in the Ecohouse. The founders of the club decided to catalog them and make them accessible to all of Galesburg.

Zak said, “We believe that if you have something that you want to say in the form of a zine, you should have the resources to do so.”

Tabling during last year’s Artsplosion to promote the club and self-publication,

Valentine-Fossum said, “People made a page and we took all the pages people made and photocopied them. The zine is available in the library, called ‘Off-Art.’”

The Club re-installed the Galesburg Zine Library in Seymour Library, maintaining it and adding new zines. The collection is located on the first floor, on shelves across from the old editions of Catch.

“We also want to get the word out there that the Galesburg Zine Library actually exists, because currently, I don’t think a lot of people know, and there is some amazing stuff in there. It’s a nationally recognized library, too,” said Zak.

Zine Club! had lost almost all of their budget money during Fall Term after a group of students from Zine Club! went to a conference in Madison, Wisconsin. Facilities fined the students $250 for allegedly smoking cigarettes in the van.

The main goal of the fundraiser was to raise money for the rights to show a documentary about zines, costing about $150, and for zine-making supplies for workshops.

“We aimed to make about $150 to $200, hoping for $200,” Zak said. They made $133.

The fundraiser held at apartments 55 and 57 on Simmons featured all-you-could-eat homemade vegan empanadas for a dollar. Students gathered in the hallways and the apartments were filled with even more people. On the other side of the kitchen, students poured out apple cider for everyone who walked in. The night as a whole went over well as students filled all the couches and chairs talking about Zine Club!

Zak said, “I hope people recognize the resource of zines more, and the Galesburg Zine Library. It’s a fun thing to start doing once you get into making them and reading others.”