San Francisco Zinefest ’09 Wrap-Up

Scores of craft-conscious San Franciscans made it down to Golden Gate Park’s County Fair Building this past weekend for the annual SF Zinefest. It was a breezy, cloudy weekend and a great reason to be indoors, cozying up to some handcrafted comics and magazines. I took a few photos and caught up with the some of the creators about their work.

Zinefest 2009 Special Guest Andy Hartzell had an interesting stereogram contraption that highlighted special 3D versions of characters from his “Foxy Bunny Funny” graphic novel. Andy is a Xeric Award winning cartoonist with acclaim for works published by the likes of Top Shelf and Fantagraphics.

I spoke briefly with “punkpunk” co-creator, Jing Bentley about the joys of DIY bookmaking. She had this to say:

“You know, there’s just such a big rush to share everything right away on the internet, where here it’s nice to be able to give something that you made by hand in person. It’s like a gift.”

“punkpunk” is a different format every issue, and features a range of topics, including comics and interviews.

Here are some more shots from my visit:

Rani Goel is Just Visiting.

Cartoonist Amy Martin has fist-fulls of cash.

Doctor Popular reveals the secret stash.

Cartoonist  Joseph Cotsirilos has a pretty good beard going for a high school student.

Artist Matt Delight is a lightspeed champion.

Artist Mark Todd prepares to sign my purchase.

There are more photos in my Flickr set.

photos by Josh Ellingson