The Underground Publisher’s Convention was held at Lawn Gnome Publishing Saturday, promoting the zine and craft culture in downtown Phoenix.
Lawn Gnome Publishing, located near Roosevelt and Fifth streets, has a portion of the store dedicated just to DIY and zine published works.
Though there were only about a half-dozen booths at the event, Aaron Johnson, owner and founder of Lawn Gnome Publishing, said the culty, kitschy zine culture is on the rise.
“All of the artists here today showing one or more people using their hands to create things that add to our lives through information, but (also) to add function to our lives,” Johnson said. “Whether it is making soap without blowing your face off or how to draw a comic or how to make coffee, quirky comics to talk about the funny things of life we don’t think about, these are the things we want to highlight at the Underground Publisher’s Convention.”
Rick Larsen, 39, came to the convention to promote his comic books and his new e-book, “How to Draw a Unicorn and Other Essential Life Skills.”
“It is primarily just a collection of my tweets and then some other shorter pieces that I had written for other things but it is all very, very short material,” Larsen said.
Joy Young, 28, said she was promoting her chapbook. She said she is selling the book because she will be heading to the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Minneapolis.
“I really wanted to see the other zines and things because a lot of them aren’t poetry, they are all types of different things,” Young said. “I really think that underground literature is really important and that physical manifestations of it are important in a world that mostly is done online.”
Mackenzie Mathieu-Busher, 24, sold her zine, “How To Do That,” at the convention. She said she also has her green chili recipe in the RoRo Chili Pepper Festival Recipe Book. She is currently looking for agents to publish her book “Keep Yourself Alive.”
“I am totally a supporter of Fifth Street,” she said. “I am not from Arizona like most people that are on this street so when I found out Lawn Gnome was opening a bookstore and when they had all those great events, it was nice, it was a great idea to find other writers, other people that are supportive of literature.”
Johnson said the convention started at StinkWeeds, a record shop near Central Avenue and Camelback Road, with owner Kimber Lanning.
This year was the first year anyone with a zine could show for free, as authors were previously charged a fee per table. This is the convention’s fourth year and second year at Lawn Gnome Publishing.
“She (Lanning) was kind of pioneering a whole group of artists and Phoenix that didn’t exist before but exists other places like Omaha, Chicago and Indiana. A lot of college towns have zine culture, craft culture, DIY culture,” Johnson said.
Johnson said Lanning asked performer and Pool Boy magazine publisher Jacki Orr to help her with the convention when it first started. Orr later asked Johnson to collaborate on the Underground Publisher’s Convention while they were working together on First Friday Night Live at the Firehouse.
“Jacki is really good at doing small events that have lots of meaning and lots of content to them, where I am more about doing events that bring lots of people,” Johnson said. “With her content driven ideas and my publicity ideas, we bring more people together talking about something I love and making it more of a social movement.”
In addition to putting on the event, Orr also had a table set up, promoting her zines and art notebooks.
“It comes together really quickly and easily. It is fun to do,” Orr said. “It always comes together in the end.”
Cultist No. 138 was representing the Cult of the Yellow Sign at the convention, showing their promotional pamphlets.
“I like to think of this as a community outreach event. I reach out and strangle the community,” he said.
The group is raising money to go to the NecronomiCon Providence in August.
“I am offering people an opportunity to join the Cult of the Yellow Sign, also, I like to support members of the art community, these are my friends, they understand what I am doing,” No. 138 said.
Contact the reporter at aimackli@asu.edu
