ZINES I GOT ON TOUR IN ASIA AND TRAVELING HOME

Contributed by Arthur Rot

In January, I was lucky to join NYC queercore band PERSONA on tour in Asia. (Thank you AJ!!!) Every show was organized by a collective, some active for over 20 years (CRUX). The group effort and longevity of DIY in Asia was a strong antidote to the passing trends, social hierarchies, and self-importance we’re conditioned into in our region of the world. I came back feeling less guarded and more enthusiastic. I met a woman in Tokyo who said that the underground in Asia wasn’t taking itself too seriously, and I’m trying to hold onto that idea – at the end of the day, we are all just fools messing around together on the fringes of society because we like it.

Shoutout to Palong and Mernie, MUTILATED NOISE Records + HAB HABAN POBLACION (Makati/Manila), HARDCORE HOPE Collective (Batangas City), CRUX OF RESISTANCE AND EXISTENCE Collective (Legazpi City), SUCK GLUE BOYS (Taipei), MOUHOI and RICE (Hong Kong) and everyone who put us on, took care of us, showed us around, cooked us amazing food, took massive group photos, traded tapes and zines, and helped me keep belief in DIY networks alive in a time of isolation and repression at home.

SIEGE Fanzine #5 Baguio City, Philippines (2024)

Edgy fanzine dedicated to “those who are still awake and not afraid to be yourself.” Impassioned “anti-woke” political horseshoe vibes which I mostly didn’t read. Amid diatribes against the “Leftist Manila scene” and its “anarcho-gossip,” there is a thorough interview with YOUTH ALTERATION, an all-girl hardcore band from Bulacan Province who PERSONA played with in Batangas City (on the drummer’s birthday!). Started by sisters Yeumi (guitar) and Kaz (drums) during the pandemic when they were 11 and 14(!!), later replacing their dad with bassist Naya. They are the only punks at their religious school and have gotten some of their peers interested in punk. They don’t stand for bullying and always stick up for the underdog. Their parents are punks and the scene is supportive. Themes: anti-machismo violence, anti-celebrity culture, overcoming shyness, rage for people who kill stray cats. I don’t recommend SIEGE fanzine unless you are entertained by culture war wingnuttery but I highly recommend YOUTH ALTERATION.

*the video for YOUTH ALTERATION – NINE was partially filmed at our show together :)

GRIEF (WINDMILLS #8) - Josel Nicolas, Quezon City, Philippines (2023)

Josel/Josie is a comic artist who volunteers at a zine shop and library (Independent Study/Gantala Press/Library Una) at Chapter House, a comradely DIY space in Quezon City (a city in the Manila metro area). I gave Josel copies of the Chaos Star for the library and he traded me a stack of his comic, about a 35-year old bespectacled animal guy’s struggles through the death of his parents, caregiving, creativity, ambivalence towards god, and the often thankless task of making komiks.

SUCK GLUE BOYS Taipei, Taiwan

SUCK GLUE BOYS are a DIY collective from Taipei who put on punk, noise and art shows, film screenings, and printmaking workshops (“PRINT FAST DRY YOUNG”). They are named after a local street punk song. They formed in 2020 to organize renegade gigs and have since expanded their activities. They are hardworking and inspiring, promoting scene unity between subcultures and across borders. Willie gave us a stack of zines made by the collective, as well as t-shirts and a really beautiful memorial block print he made of Leslie Feinberg. (In the last issue of my zine, I reviewed Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin, an influential Taiwanese lesbian writer who died young in the 90s, who I learned is from the same town as Luhung, a SUCK GLUE BOYS collective member and noise musician. Trading my writing about a Taiwanese dyke ancestor for Willie’s homage to our New York elder on the other side of the world was a powerful synchronicity).

Outlining the Wavement: An Exhibition of Punk Flyers from Taiwan and Japan (2023)

This zine is a bilingual (English and Mandarin) collection of 13 DIY punk artists’ flyers that were exhibited in an art show organized by SUCK GLUE BOYS at TWIN PEAK records in Taipei. The introduction asks,

“besides music, what is ‘punk’? We believe that the true soil of creativity lies in the idea that you can do it yourself, and it is this notion that has given rise to unique visual artworks of nonconformity. … ‘Anyone’ can participate in the scene and express themselves in ‘any way’ they want!”

A beautiful full-color perfect-bound zine with contributions from familiar heads like Yagi from UNARM and Kohei from innumerable sick prints, as well as new friends from tour: Tina Cho, drippy illustrator/frontwoman of SPIT, and chaos agent Khu Tsìng-Bûn, responsible for the iconic SUCK GLUE BOY drawing and hanging out with us on the sidewalk until dawn.

THE SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE IN PUNK SCENES - Chen Wei-Lun (2024)

A history of Palestinian resistance to Israeli apartheid leading up to October 7, 2023, followed by the lineage of international punk solidarity with the Palestinian cause throughout the decades and a scene report on current efforts of the Taiwanese scene: benefits, compilations and artmaking, including many beautiful collectively-made block-printed banners. SUCK GLUE BOYS wasted no time making their position heard, immediately organizing a solidarity event in November 2023 to raise consciousness in the DIY scene around Palestine, combatting misinformation coming from the Taiwanese media and government. The zine concludes with a playlist of pro-Palestine punk tracks (from Oi Polloi to Pure Terror) and Asian DIY solidarity compilations. The zine is free to download and distribute (and also featured here).

PERSON(A) INTERVIEW ZINE

In Mandarin. Shoutouts to 538, Migrante Network, Chaos Computer, Punk HQ, ABC No Rio, 2020 Uprising, and many friends’ bands from NYC. Beautifully printed, this was a generous gift to the tour and a true inspiration to how much thought, intention and excitement can go into receiving a touring band and making their message accessible locally.

RUANG MERUANG Fanzine Vol. 1 STAY IN SANITY Indonesia/Taiwan (2025)

RUANG MERUANG (“living room”) is a fanzine put out between punks in Indonesia and Taiwan with the goal of strengthening ties between scenes. Later issues are in Mandarin and Indonesian, however the first issue is in Indonesian and English. I eagerly swooped the last copy at the Taipei show. Interviews with So-Cal emotive crust revivalists LAGRIMAS, Indonesian/Taiwanese noise duo SUNDIALLL, an in-depth interview with our new friends SUCK GLUE BOYS, among others. I felt shy to talk to the creators of RUANG MERUANG, they seemed cool, mysterious and focused. The general consensus in Asia is that Indonesia has an amazing scene, is very supportive and attentive to scenes in the west, and that we would do well to pay more attention to what is happening there (and stop only touring Japan!). This in-depth and intentional bilingual, international DIY zine proves the point further.

GAY GUERRILLA #3 San Francisco, CA, USA (2025)

GAY GUERRILLA is a love letter/altar to Eyevee, a continuation of her newsletter by her friends after her death last year. Eyevee was a trickster criminal girl child breathing real life into the San Francisco Mission District against the grain of the city’s sterilization, which her crew continues to do. A chaotic b&w 11x17” zine spraypainted multicolored around the edges, cut-up of her drawings and writings with contributions from living friends and favorite references – Jean Genet, Kaliflower (SF queer commune and freaky newsletter of 1970s), named for a piece by avant-garde composer Julius Eastman. What forms is a nonlinear collaboration that cuts through the veil, where lost friends and spaces continue to shape our living reality. GAY GUERRILLA is the embodiment of love for a friend who lives on through the words, actions and attitudes of her people.

BROWN RECLUSE VOLUNTEER GUIDE Oakland, CA (2025)

BROWN RECLUSE ZINE DISTRO is a zine distro for and by QTBIPOC zinemakers. BRZD formed in the 2010s in response to the liberal white feminism of 90’s riot grrl and the sexism and racism of anarchist/punk scenes in the Pacific Northwest. It was started by Xiamara Chupaflor and is now run by Ari and Rufino in Oakland. I was lucky to hang out with Ari (La Bola de Cristal, MRR), Elsa, Zuli and Romeo at the distro studio when I was in the Bay and trade stacks of paper and cute stuff. Ari is a no-bullshit zine lifer whom I love and respect very much. The distro has expanded beyond their expectations since 2020, when they committed to offering free printing services to Black zinesters and movement organizers and gained a ton of new readers and subscribers online. This zine explains how the distro functions and how to contribute as a volunteer, and offers a framework for running your own distro – how to keep track of logistics and not exploit yourself too much in the process. Of interest to people committed to their ethics who are trying to navigate growing projects through shady institutions and unspoken power imbalances.
signal: @BrownRecluseZineDistro.04

COSMIC SLUDGE #2 + SAPLING Elsa Trash Oakland, CA, USA (2026/2025)

Elsa Trash is one of my favorite artists. We met on the internet 15 years ago as gay noise freaks who made zines. Since then, we both left our hometowns and got to be real-life friends on the West Coast. These quarter-size zines mark her celebrated return to comix after several years prioritizing her noise punk/no wave band INVERTS and becoming a mom! SAPLING is a short wordless comic in which a smiling three-eyed, two-nosed, two-mouthed mommy at the bottom of a staircase watches over a wiggling child-shape meandering in the garden. COSMIC SLUDGE #2 is a full-color “automatic comic” featuring Elsa’s multi-faced girl-selves compelling us to stop cop cities everywhere and keep going. In spite of the extermination fantasies of our enemies, these small zines are a testament to our continuity and a good reminder that we actually do love drawing.

Long live freak international underground connection!