Cover of Uproar zine edited by Jayne Barket Lyons (Lakewood, Minnesota, USA)
Lately your essential culture workers here at Glam Faction have been diligently tracking exciting mail art trends such as the add & pass-idemic, collab mania & Trashpo Nuevo.
We've overlooked another genre that is experiencing an Eternal Network golden age: A new generation of extraordinary zines! To illustrate our point, we're sharing selections from Jayne Barket Lyons' wonderful Uproar zine. Documented here on GF is the April 2020 issue (Volume II, Number 1.)
Jayne Lyons' Uproar is one of the better-known mail art zines circulating today. We'd call its tone retro because Jayne invokes the structure & aesthetics of the great photocopy network zines of the 1980s (but adds color in just the right places as well). Photostatic, MaLLife & Lime Green Bulldozers come immediately to mind but there were dozens of 80s mags/zines worthy of praise here.
The 80s network zines seem to have arisen mostly from the surge of Punk fanzines & the "underground" zines of the 60s & 70s. Mail art provided an entertaining & inexhaustible source of copy. Thus, many of the of the publications became fanzines about mail art & mail artists.
Jayne adopts the successful zine formula but adds enough self-awareness of the genre & contemporary tropes to distance us from experiencing Uproar as an exercise in nostalgia. What is astounding in our Digital Age is that paper zines work.
Network "stars" emerged in the old zines. The editors themselves often joined the cast of colorful characters. Uproar draws upon this very successful model. Many of the 80s zines had circulations in the hundreds & sometimes in the thousands! But many disaffected suburban youths enjoyed sharing their most profound thoughts & crazy mail that amused them with a few dozen correspondents.
The genre of "fine arts" zines that also circulated via mail art - many assembling zines - had a different goal in terms of competing with mainstream culture & deserve their own discussion elsewhere. A similar strain exists today among those working with artists books.
From Uproar zine edited by Jayne Barket Lyons
The April 2020 issue of Uproar includes a diverse sampling of mail art. In particular, the "Envelope Bits & Pieces" section features an astonishing array of stamps & ephemera from mail artists around the world (look out Brain Cell!). Meanwhile, Jayne B. Lyons provides engaging articles, coherent editing & structure.
Zines are an investment in time, effort & expense compared to postcard production (although the art of the cheapo zine has been mastered by many). Knowing mail art history as we do here at the Glam Faction, we can tell you confidently nothing is a better contribution to community & culture building than making a zine. We are amazed at the zines we see online, in rare book collections & in exhibitions - things we thought were lost forever & never considered would survive much beyond a few immediate readings. People love zines. And people love Jayne's Uproar!
From Uproar zine edited by Jayne Barket Lyons
From Uproar zine edited by Jayne Barket Lyons
Back cover Uproar (April 2020)
