Here at DUM DUM, we’ve been busy folding and stapling all week to gear up for the first time L.A.’s independent publishing community has gotten together in 10 years. That’s right–10 years! It’s all coming together this Sunday, February 19th from 11am-5pm at L.A. ZINE FEST, hosted on the space above The Last Bookstore in Downtown.

You can RSVP on LAZF’s Facebook event page, and don’t forget–we’re also DJing L.A. Record’s pre-party for the fest at Footsie’s Bar! Join me and our WaxPhil columnist Christina Gubala on Saturday night while we spin some crazy jamz. Fun starts at 10pm, so swing on by to Cypress Park!

DUM DUM will be hanging out, selling and trading zines at our table all day Sunday. Here’s what we’re bringing with us!

Since the big duh of the Internet, music blogs and the creative L.A. community being so geographically fractured, zines sorta phased out after the ’90s. Thinking back, how ridiculous does that sound? L.A. started the punk zines out here in the ’80s! It stands as no shock to me, your #1 Dummy, that we are all banding together in self-publishing just as formal publishing is dipping its way down. I started DUM DUM for that very reason, drowning in thankless freelance writing gigs, not knowing where to land between Chicago and Los Angeles.

But fractured no more. And it’s all thanks to 5 extremely badass women who put together L.A. Zine Fest, along with the local artists, writers, zinesters, and cultural producers here in the city. So in their honor, I’ve asked a few of the organizers to tell you a little bit about their very first zine.

Bianca Barragan, Simon Sotelo, Rhea Teppelim, Meredith Wallace, Eryca Sender

MEREDITH WALLACE: I made my very first zine, Tacomobile, in 8th grade, shortly after I discovered what a zine was! I was a painfully shy computer nerd who quickly became enraptured by zines after discovering them through various feminist, punk and zinester message boards. To me, zines were a way to connect with people that didn’t engage my social anxiety. I didn’t really know anyone in my real life that cared about social issues or rocked out out to Bikini Kill, but the zine community was FULL of them. Writing my first zine was a form of self-validation for me during a time in which I felt like I had no real voice. Through self-publishing, starting my own zine distribution website (Supernova Zine Distro), and reading as many zines as possible, I think I became aware of how much I could create and accomplish on my own. To have that happen when I was so young was pretty powerful. I definitely credit zines and the zine community for getting me to where I am today. My latest zine is Life, Death, Love & All of the Above.

ERYCA SENDER: My first zine was called “Posse of Roses” I made it when I was 12, and the cover was a traced drawing of two people kissing! hahaha! Oh man. I don’t think I would show that to anyone if they paid me! It also had a list of (incorrect) Courtney Love “facts” that I found on the internet. I made it because I had read a book I got on Amazon called “The Girls Guide to Taking Over The World: Writing from the Girl Zine Revolution” and just fell in love. The concept that I, this socially awkward 12 year old, could just write anything I wanted and publish it? I was ecstatic. My current zines can be found at my Etsy Store.