Tori Holder is a zine maker from Los Angeles who makes Comix zines titled Sorry For the Inconvenience, LA Ghost, Not New Yorker Stories, and more. We have carried Tori's zines at Wasted Ink since we opened years ago and Tori designed our super rad WIZD t-shirt! You can find Tori's zines in Wasted Ink Zine Distro and in our online store! Tell your zine story. What inspired you to make zines? I really got into making zines through submitting to minicomics and seeing how much of that community was DIY and thinking I could take a go of making something on my own. Finding zine culture really sprung out of that, and before I knew it I had all these wonderful friends around to country that I got to see at these awesome events. Why are zines important to you? Why do you choose zines as your outlet? Zines are such a vital part of how I express myself. It's a place where I can incubate my thoughts and feelings into narrative, whether it be for an autobiographical pursuit or something fictional, it's woven out of my life, my intimacies, on a level you would normally never share with a stranger. But then you do and the readers are overwhelmingly kind. When I started out making zines I never thought I would talk about things like mental illness in anything more than allegorical terms or divulge where I thought I was lacking on social issues, and then I found myself being really frank about both those in Sorry For The Inconvenience, and was shocked to get drawn into so many other people's stories about their own flawed feminism or issues with depression. Strangers just don't bond like that without zines. Share your favorite zine story with us.
I was so direly nervous my first zine fest. The organizer had stocked one of my zines in their shop and thought it'd be a good fit for me and encouraged me to apply (thanks Ray!) but I'd never been to a zine fest and only had three titles with me as opposed to everyone's crammed tables. I instantly spotted Yumi Sakugawa at a nearby table, whose work I loved from following her online, but was too shy to say hello. I completely made a fool of myself during the reading of the fest,especially after the cool bearded guy that followed my wordvomit was met with uproarus applause for his clever writing. Later he stopped by my table to ask if he could interview me for the podcast he was doing as he thought my reading was great, which is how I became friends with Brodie Foster Hubbard (and his amazing wife and later, their brilliant children). Emboldened by Brodie's pep talk, I went over to buy a comic from Yumi, where I was again shocked with kindness when she asked if she could trade for one of my zines. There blossomed another friend-love. It was a banner day in an otherwise unstable time in my life and I'm forever thankful for it.
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