Queer!Content Comix & Zines
Rather than pressing political views, I wanted Q!C to explore how we queer folk shape our own identities through interactions with media. It validated our tendency to ‘tribe’, but also emphasised a need for our community to come together in queerness.
Over the years, publishing Q!C has provided opportunities for me to develop my writing, publishing, and networking skills, which I tested in 2018 with Sadvertising: a short-form perzine on growing up gay in foster care. It was never going to be perfect (it was only a place to start), yet it garnered an overwhelming reception when it was launched at Festival of the Photocopier alongside Concrete Queers.
Since then I’ve used Q!C to deliver workshops on storytelling, publishing, and responding to media—in collaboration with organisations like QSpace, Micah Projects, Queensland Writers Centre, and the Australian Queer Archive. It’s connected me with literally hundreds of brilliant storytellers from around the world. This brought me so much joy.
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Q!C#1: We Think We’re Funny
Published July 2015
A 24hr Zine Challenge, this issue was about five of the greatest people you’ll never meet.
My housemates curated quotes and inside jokes on a Facebook page called ‘We Think We’re Funny’, which I paid homage to in this collection of photos and cut’n’paste text.
CW: coarse language, homophobic slurs, drug use, sexual references.
Q!C#2: Anthology
Published April 2017
This zine included queer writers and comic creators like Daryl Toh, Metranisome, Cal Ridley, and several others from around the globe.
It consisted of poems and stories, collages, and comics exploring queer intimacy and longing.
Q!C#3.5: Primary Children
Published April 2017
I was stuck at home during a long weekend, with no money, no food, and far too much coffee. I worked through the jitters to produce this sixteen-page Dadaist nightmare directed at the lack of LGBTIQ+ education in Australian schools.
Primary Children was adapted for stage and performed as a ten-minute play.
Q!C#4: Auden Zine
Published November 2016
This semi-academic essay was an attempt to correct my university lecturer who failed to give Auden’s sexuality a positive identity within his own work.
Frustrated with the coverage of Auden and Gertrude Stein throughout the course, I handed in a strongly-worded assessment piece—which I then adapted for zine lovers.
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Q!C#5: Sadvertising
Published February 2018
It’s hard to keep chugging along when you’ve worked yourself to exhaustion and people tell you you’re still not enough. After a while you start to wonder what you’re doing wrong.
This perzine was an account of growing up in foster care, my experiences with sexual violence and self harm, of surviving a community of ‘trend-setters’, and their lasting effects on my self-image.
Q!C#6: The Gay™
Published December 2018
This issue was published in partnership with Southport Library and QSpace: a community service supporting LGBTIQ+ youth.
Contributors included James Goldsworthy, Fletcher Quilty, Lysa Aubigne, and Rae White.
Q!C#7: Boihood
Published February 2020
Another perzine, this time exploring non-binary identity and how it’s portrayed in mainstream media.
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Queer!Content Comix (Series)
Published 2013 – 2015
A collection of fourteen A7, eight-page folded zines exploring embarrassing stories and hard-learned lessons. Topics included everything from sex and alcohol to my first time seeing Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, discovering what the word ‘gay’ means in highschool, and discussions on positive sexual health.
My first experiment with comics since highschool, I wanted to share stories in a comedic light and, most importantly, join my friends at the table.
BADBIRBS #1
Published July 2017
CW: Sexual themes and alcohol abuse.
Their relationship in decline, their affair gone sour, and their best friend ready to read them for the filth they are at every turn. How much is a twenty-something trashbirb expected to take?
This comic is twelve fabulous(ish) pages of illustrated awkwardness guaranteed to leave you queasy, questioning, and aroused?
BADBIRBS #2
Published July 2018
CW: Sexual themes and alcohol abuse.
Sloth and Token aren’t bringing their best selves to the party. Our badbirbs reflect on each other’s flaws and failures (though never their own) while on their way to a boozy birthday in Brisbane’s New Farm Park.
Like the goddess Divine who came before them, they’re left to wonder whether there really is such a thing as ‘gay time’ when it comes to getting your life together.
Queer!Content Comix & Zines 