Zine Collection

LPL Zine Collection

The Zine Atheneum and A-TEEN-eum were founded in the summer of 2019, the product of an open call for submissions placed by The Lewiston Public Library on several zine and artist forums. The response was encouraging. We received 2 copies each of around 40 different zines; featuring submissions from Philadelphia, Seattle, Brooklyn, Detroit and Cambridge, and even overseas from New Zealand and Poland. Additionally, we have not forgotten our roots as we proudly include LetterFounder, a zine based in Lewiston, Maine.

The format of zines changes from author to author. They range in scale from 10cm x 6cm to full comic book size.  Because the binding and the making are generally a complete DIY process, volumes will range from origami type folding, to staples, to hand sewing. Part of the joy of zines is their uniqueness. Some of these editions are very rare.

We have received travelogues and artist zines, comics and photography, poetry and short creative fiction. The subject matter of the collection is equally diverse, including titles on feminism, civil rights, identity and gender. We’ve even received a zine with recipes for herbal and homeopathic remedies. The collection contains humorous works like That’s Entertainment, which plays with celebrity names and puns, a written account of a garden club filled with older women, and a zine full of “freak show” performers who suffered from Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.

Zines allow artists and everyday people the ability to publish work that might be too sensitive for major publishers on topics which champion underserved populations. Zines serve as activism, promotion, and communication in one of its rawest published forms.