Zine Fair

The venue, Gorman House, Canberra City

The first load of typewriters

For me, a highlight of the day was being able to catch up again with Eloise Peace, who as co-ordinator of the Sticky Institute in Melbourne was the organiser of the unforgettable, magnificent "I Am Typewriter" Festival in February 2011. I hadn't seen Eloise since then, as because of the ludicrous short-sightedness of Victorian authorities, funding was withdrawn and Eloise now works elsewhere.

Eloise gave me her latest zine (about her visit to Canberra), and, as a reward for Charlie the Typewriter Guard Cat's patience and dedication to his duties in my absences during this Zine Fair weekend, a zine about a cat which went into space.

The Sticky Institute representatives, meanwhile, gave me a zine about an Olivetti and Canberra Zine Emporium Collective organiser Natalie a zine about her feelings on living in Canberra:

I, of course, had struck yet another T-shirt for the occasion.

Richard Polt observed in a comment on the Zine Fair Pecha Kucha post last night that the Australian zine culture appeared to be alive and well. That was very evident today. The large crowds arrived early and the numbers didn't start to thin out until the fair ended some six hours later.

The Corona 3 had been bought from me right at the start of the fair and was very promptly put back on display at another stall.

At my table, the Underwood USB portable was a constant source of interest, but no buyers! This young man tried it out, looked closely at how it was done, photographed how it was done, looked up USB typewriters on the Internet on his iPhone, and was photographed photographing it!

I did make some sales, however, and as typewriters went, other typewriters were moved in:

On ya bike, fella, with nine typewriters still to sell!