Hi! We're Scum Mag, and we want to make a zine.

There is a lot to be said about online publishing. It’s instant, for one thing. People are more likely to click on a link than go to the bookshelf, for another. Not to mention you can publish whatever the heck you want - and we do. Still, there’s something real nice about holding something in your sweaty little palms. And with print, we can publish the longer-form pieces we simply haven’t been able to publish on the site – people’s attention spans are short nowadays, yo!

That’s why we’re making a zine. We’ll be commissioning exclusive content for the zine, labouring over staplers, and releasing it out into the world in early October.

So, what will the zine be like? 

Remember blue light discos? That's the theme of the zine. 
Blue light discos were a transformative space of early subject-formation and bourgeoning sexuality. 
Nostalgia might be fun, but it can also be dangerous. We want to celebrate but also interrogate the early naughties. We want to hold that Paul Frank monkey accountable for something we haven't yet put our finger on. We'll be asking writers to pen us odes to sweaty first kisses, auditoriums and cold hawaiian pizza. We'll be apologising to the boy we told we'd dance with even though we knew we'd never show up. The zine will be challenging, mesmerising, provocative and most of all fun. Mel Stringer will be creating some awesome themed art for us - and keep this on the down-low, but there's gonna be some sweet temporary tattoos in there too. The zine will be everything you’ve already seen us do, but on paper and with more words.

Thanks to Creative Partnerships Australia, every dollar you give will be matched $1 for $1 through their Match: Crowdfunding for the Independent Arts Sector initiative program. With your powers combined, we’ll be zine-ing it up and throwing a launch party at the festival in Newcastle in October – hope to see you there!

The majority of the money will be going straight to the artists involved and the physical printing of the thing. All writers will be paid for contributing to the zine, and Officeworks will probably be coming out of this pretty flush. The fabulous Mel Stringer (responsible for the Scum logo) is working on the art for us, and we’ll be slinging her some dosh for her time and effort.

The major costs involved:

Artist fees
Mel Stringer
Layout
Printing
Postage


The awesome Scum Girl, by the wonderful Mel Stringer


Additional money earned will mean we can do things like:
- print extra copies of the zine
- pay the writers more money
- throw a killer launch party for you - there'll be a launch party anyway, but extra $ means pizza and oreos ya'll!
- fly the team to Newcastle

The biggest challenge we can foresee is time. Due to circumstances out of our control, we only have around 3 weeks to get this puppy barking. Not the greatest arrangement, sure, but hey - we're feeling crazy. Let's do this! YEAH! Another challenge that Scum has always faced is that our team is separated by distance - so we have to work twice as hard to stay connected. Luckily for us, it's 2014 and Skype and Facebook exist. Thanks for technology, LIFE!