Report back from SF Zinefest 2012: POC Zinester Edition! *Pt 1 of 4*

On September 1, 2012, POC Zine Project’s Daniela Capistrano attended SF Zinefest, on a mission to meet zinesters of color. This is what she saw and who she found:

I was in San Francisco for work but wanted to find some spare moments to do zine research. I actually showed up at SF Zinefest one hour before it was over (eep!), so I didn’t have a lot of time to browse. I immediately went into crazy-focused mode and sought out zinesters of color - for personal enjoyment and also to get more zines for the archive.

Luckily, within minutes of arriving, I found Liz Mayorga of Spunky Cat Comix!

This awesome chica was there tabling with her zines, including her latest creation Monstrous Love Stories.

I actually knew about her because I ordered some of her older zines for the archives a few weeks prior to arriving in SF. It was a great coincidence that she was at SF Zinefest too! Here are some of her answers from our brief Twitter interview on @poczineproject:

Why she made Monstrous Love Stories:

“inspired by Twilight/XFiles+dealing w social anxiety, thought B fun 2make zine re monsters on dates” - Liz #sfzinefest twitter.com/POCZineProject…

— POC Zine Project (@POCZineProject) September 2, 2012

Why the Latino Comic Expo is a great resource for her and other poc zinesters:

“At the Latino Comic Expo I met Gabby [Gamboa] & Jaime [Crespo], it was really important 4 me 2 meet other #poczine folk” - Liz Mayorga twitter.com/POCZineProject…

— POC Zine Project (@POCZineProject) September 2, 2012

Why Liz loves making zines:

“It’s important 4 more #poc 2 make zines because it’s very personal & empowering.” - Liz Mayorga #poczines #sfzinefest twitter.com/POCZineProject…

— POC Zine Project (@POCZineProject) September 2, 2012

Live-tweeting Liz’s interview was fun but it was also distracting me from her creations, so we stopped at three questions and I browsed her table.

Liz hooked me up with a list of all the poc zinesters she knew about who were at SFZinefest. This was incredibly helpful, because even though I couldn’t meet up with all of them that day, at least I have this list for following up after the tour!

Liz also gave me a flyer for Latino Comic Expo. I can’t wait to attend next year for POC Zine Project!

Big thanks again to Liz for pointing me to new resources and being so welcoming!

Daniela has to pick up the POC Zine Project Race Riot! tour vehicle now, so stay tuned for three more poc zinester profiles from SF Zinefest. We’ll post them later tonight and tomorrow!