Best Artzine: Distance 33cm to Memory

“This is a beautifully made zine,” says Zine Awards judge Jenn Woodall.

With a plastic pink cover, this autobio comic-adjacent project chronicles Xiaoxiao Li’s life and relationship in Spring 2018. Social media screenshots and sketches are layered together, telling a story of “the complexities of sexuality, relationships, desire and optics,” Woodall says.

“It felt natural to use the raw material of my life to collage together the story, rather than contrive to draw pictures and write words,” says Li, who was depressed and uninspired by drawing at the time. “I started making zines to continue creating, but free of the baggage of image-making.”

This semi-chaotic composition “reflects the difficult dynamics of the relationship as well as the feelings of the storyteller,” Woodall explained. “Sexuality is explored in an honest, authentic way, which is the complete opposite of how we typically see it expressed through mainstream media.”

A huge thank you to our Artzine category sponsor, Opus Art Supplies.