Orange County may have its share of zinesters, but not many of them are as concerned with including youngsters in the practice, nor with making sure helpful and engaging zines will find their way into the hands of local youths, as Sarah Rafael Garcia. The Santa Ana native, who is also writer and founder of Barrio Writers, created a means for children and young people to learn, read and make their own zines and is including them in her LibroMobile project.
Founded in August 2016 as a collaboration between Garcia and Red Salmon Arts, LibroMobile is a traveling book cart playfully reminiscent of paleteros (ice cream cart salesmen) that usually resides at Cal State Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana’s Artist Village, though it also makes trips throughout the city for special events. It offers readers of all ages books and written material by local writers of color on topics including art, social justice, culture, literature, and other bilingual and Spanish published works for affordable rates.
“I became interested in zines because I wanted to get young people engaged in storytelling,” Garcia says. “And I wanted to work with zines because it’s a medium with no limitations.”
Part of making zines the spotlight for this project is bringing in different collectives for special events. At the next downtown SanTana art walk, LibroMobile will be hosting Los Angeles-based Love Crew, a street-art and graffiti-writing crew bringing color and the word Love to an urban environment. A hefty collection of zines and chapbooks will also be on display and available for sale.
As Garcia builds LibroMobile’s collection, local artists and writers are encouraged to submit their zines for donation or sale. Email
li*********@gm***.com
, or find more information at www.libromobile.com. Now get those zines a-circulatin’!
Aimee Murillo is calendar editor and frequently covers film and previously contributed to the OCW’s long-running fashion column, Trendzilla. Don’t ask her what her favorite movie is unless you want to hear her lengthy defense of Showgirls.