Floating round a zine launch

by jonaxhepa

Walking into the Vintage Room of the Workmans Club, the sounds of the “The X Files” theme tune permeate a dark blue hue while projected drawings make curtains of the wall. The founding members of The Runt zine are scattered about the venue getting ready for the launch of the paper’s sixth issue, this one on the theme of SPACE. Colm Kearns sits concentrating on the UFOs he constructs out of tin foil and the finished products that end up swinging on the chimney and beside the entrance, anticipate the whimsical evening that awaits the audience. I first met Colm at the Zine Fair a couple of weekends ago, the polka-dot handkerchief in his breast pocket sprouting a discussion about the pitfalls of being a truly original tramp.
The zine was co-founded by a group of friends* in English, Media and Cultural Studies course out of IADT college as much a platform for their own writing as an incentive to write more and do something with it. The overall theme was to be one of “hyper-capitalist parody,” eventually opting for specific themes, like “Friendship” and “Music” once the submissions started pouring in and members were assigned individual issues to edit. The editor of the current issue, Richard Howard says there’s a healthy zine culture in post-depression Ireland analogous to more people going to see bands than they used to. He himself is suited to the theme having grown up on “the trippy science fiction,” enjoying its irreverent sense of humour. The current cover by resident artist Lori Turner, redolent of “Houses of the Holy” was inspired by sci fi book covers, specifically Hawkwind.
I confess to having no real knowledge of science fiction besides radio plays of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and am impressed by the amassed knowledge of the genre and the contributors’ comic and heartfelt take on it, which I think is what creates a feedback loop of goodwill throughout the evening. Enthusiasm for the genre and the spirit of community at the birth of the zine is also present in its sixth series’ launch.
While images of esoteric landscapes and alien creatures shift shape around modestly dressed contributors – with the exception of the sartorially innovative Colm – lovingly hand-crafted baked goods are offered in exchange for a space-themed limerick.
“SPACE is really big…and yet we’ve captured it in a Zine”
Colm starts the proceedings, introducing a create-your-own-adventure Neptune travel story, stringing the evening with the audience and adding a new level of whimsy. Stephen Hill, provider of sweets, reads the adventures of a potato in space, and Saul Philip Bowman presents Stephen Totterdell’s piece, not included in the issue, of a lonely man who looks at the ambiguities of his past and present relationships through his newly diagnosed Asperger disorder, then Lorcan Blake is gifted with the back issues give-away before his poems. Current editor Richard reads “Floating Hell,” where Irish allusions still linger aboard a spaceship, and snails (or slugs?) take on a metaphorical dimension. Vestiges of human emotions, of the human condition seem to be a motif in most of the pieces somewhat confirming my notion that the zine and this particular issue come from a place of alienation; to a very small extent I hasten to add, these people are amiable and welcoming. A cosmic loneliness in an age where the cosmos is cool.
Brian Dunster reads an existential piece about how big space really is, and Ruairi Conneely presents a verbally engaging story from the perspective of a private contractor on the moon. James Moran is introduced “for the sparkle,” a softly spoken funny stoic (I’m guessing) with hair that is both static and mobile: “I don’t want you to feel like you can relax,” he sighs, while the James Blunt-like troubadour next door serenades us. I feel the slightly clunky delivery by most of the readers adds to the charm of the evening and the feeling of ease about the rafters. It’s refreshing considering the oftentimes obfuscating, or alternately overly optimistic poetry nights I go to. This isn’t trying to be anything and there’s a quiet self-deprecation within the humour that follows the evening’s rhythm. A simultaneous world-weariness and a kind of euphoria – many audience members laugh consistently and loudly throughout.
It’s a pleasant evening in the company of writers and artists who love what they do, often paying for the publication themselves without any knowledge of what profits may come “like lending money to a friend” as Colm quips. At the end of the day, it’s a window into storytelling from a niche publication: if we ever have to leave this planet, we would spend our intergalactic journey telling stories about adventures we imagine we might one day have.
And not one Uranus joke.

*Founding members: Colm Kearns, Richard Howard, Lauren Turner, Stephen Hill, Stephen Hughes, Colm Whelan, Mary Margaret Regan, Rose Fortune, Stacey Grouden