January 5, 2022  •  By Christine Pasalo Norland

Inside Our Premiere Zine & Collectively Packs

Two new zine packs are now available from our online shop, one of which includes Isang Mahal #1. Featured in both packs are limited works previously only available at the 2022 San Diego Zine Fest:

Side-by-side photos showing items in the Collectively 2022 Mini pack versus the Collectively 2022 Full pack.

ITEMS INCLUDED IN THE COLLECTIVELY 2022 MINI PACK (L). ITEMS INCLUDED IN THE COLLECTIVELY 2022 FULL PACK (R).

Supplies are limited: Only 8 Mini packs and 3 Full packs will be sold. Proceeds from each support the ongoing Hello Barkada Comics series and Guest Writer Series.

Special thanks to Social Dropouts for supporting the making of the Made You Look butones sets, and to Elements Dance Space for the paper to make the What Barkada Means To Me mini zines.

ABOUT ISANG MAHAL #1


Our premiere zine "Isang Mahal" is a tangible record of Hello Barkada in 2021 and a collection of original written and illustrated works never before published. 


The artists featured in 2021 anchor Hello Barkada's first offering as a micro-press. Over half of the zine's 16 pages is filled with their insight and work, including:


Interspersed among their voices and contributions are original works I created in the spirit of the issue's title ("one love" in Tagalog), such as: 


Exclusive to the zine is a new memoir essay called "In Minor," a title I landed on just days before I prepared the final proof. The essay reflects on an aspect of my relationship with my dad while also speaking to my experience of growing up Filipina American and as a child of immigrants/first-generation Americans from the Philippines. 


Drafting the essay came easy. Shaping it was rough. Coming up with a title was roughest. For weeks, it had no name. "Zine essay" served as my title placeholder because the organization tick in me (anxiety?) can't move into drafting the body of an essay until I've listed a title in bold orange at the top of the document. 


Then, last week, I began reading "Minor Feelings" by Cathy Park Hong. Inhaled it, really (I finished it yesterday). While references to various authors, art and writing movements, poetry techniques, and art class practices momentarily left me out of the huddle, Hong's investigation of the feelings she's experienced and continues to experience as an Asian American woman hit hard. We are no monolith. I don't pretend that we even stand in parallel, least of which artistically. But I came away from her debut prose work with mental and emotional tethers. In deciding to call my essay "In Minor," I formed a concrete one.


Produced in black and white, "Isang Mahal" is set at $9 before shipping and can be purchased from the Hello Barkada Ko-Fi shop. Only 100 copies will be sold in its first run. Close to half of the overall profits will be used to pay royalties to Rodriguez, Trazo, Begay, and Nuñez, and the bulk of the remainder will be earmarked to fund artist opportunities in 2023.


I'm grateful to artist Sharon Lee De La Cruz for answering my questions about paper weights, and the first four barkada who purchased a copy of the zine! Buy yourself or a friend a copy today!


TAGS: ART NEWS, COMICS, ESSAYS, PROFILES

UPDATED JANUARY 20, 2023

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