When I first had the idea for Spare Parts Press , I felt uncomfortable with the few aspects of the venture. In some ways, I think the awkwardness was from being too timid and in other ways, the awareness pointed to important aspects of what I was trying to do.
Zine is short for magazine and pronounced ('zeen' not 'zoine'), is a self-published booklet, usually small and given away freely or sold for cost. In many ways, zines defy definition. They're strongly tied to subcultures such as the Punk and DIY scenes, they emphasise a do it your self mentality with a lack of artificial pretences.
I'm starting a new venture called Spare Parts Press . The project aims to help independent creators get their collected comics into libraries eresources and online bookstores.
It occurred to me recently that we are quite likely to be in a new golden era of comics, or at least I hope so. The reason I say this is that I see a pattern emerging which reminds me of Steven Johnson's idea of the adjacent possible .
Around this time two years ago I launched my new website spare parts press. Initially, I intended to use the site to publish my own anthology comic under the name of spare parts. Spare Parts would be a publication that collected my ongoing comics. I released the title under that name, and as I was working on the second, with most of the content written and about a 1/4 of it drawn. Then the pandemic hit.