Behind the Zine Scenes #2: Kraków Zine Fest
A few days before the fest, I reached out to @krakowzinefest about doing a Behind the Zine Scenes interview for ZineMap. They were up for it. The evening before the festival, I had just finished a good print run of my new Polish-learning zines and was folding them in Galeria Krakowska, the big mall next to the main train station, when @krakowzinefest messaged me. They were heading out to drop off zine fest flyers at a few clubs hosting alternative concerts that night. Did I want to come along?
An hour later, I met Ilde in front of Klub RE. He told me right away that he was Spanish, not Polish, and that he’d been living in Kraków for ten years. I pressed record on my phone, and we started chatting as we walked toward the next spot.
CJ: What’s the origin story of Kraków Zine Fest?
Ilde: I was drawing my own comics for a while and meeting people who also drew and were into zines. But there wasn’t really a place. Then there was this friend, Wojtek Kozielski. He’ll be there tomorrow. He’s like a legend. He was involved in music and zines in the 80s/90s. He used to have a bar where we hung out all the time.
CJ: Like a secret little club?
Ilde: Well, a little bar. He likes to tell stories about bands and old-school punk zines. One night we were talking again. This was sometime during COVID, when things started to be a bit more relaxed. I said maybe we could do a small zine event in your bar. He agreed so I contacted the people I knew who drew comics and zines. The place was very small, space for maybe 15 participants. But we did it. And so many people came! It was crazy. There was nothing like this for a long time here in Kraków, so many people seemed interested.
CJ: Where was this bar?
Ilde: In Kazimierz. It was a basement bar and it got full of people, we could barely move! We realized we had to find a bigger place. The next year we did it on the other side of the river, in Skład Solny, an independent cultural space connected to activism. And again a lot of people came. Some people knew what zines were, some didn’t, but they were curious about it and wanted to know more.
Ilde: And it kept growing. In 2023 we made a third edition at Poczta Główna with around 70 participants. It was huge for us! The zine fest is run by me and my girlfriend, with a little bit of help from friends.
CJ: Ah, so the other person, Agnieszka, is your girlfriend? I wasn’t sure who I’d be meeting today. I saw both your names as organizers in the emails.
Ilde: Yes, she’s also folding zines today. You’ll meet her tomorrow. Anyways, the third edition was really big, with many rooms and tons of people. It was growing too fast. I didn’t like it this way. It was also going in a different direction than what I’d imagine. So I thought, okay, let’s go back to the beginning and try to find a smaller place to focus on local zines. Like the place where we’ll do the fest tomorrow. It’s cool because that place, Spółdzielnia Ogniwo, is also run by activists. It self-sustains by organizing events and selling books. It’s a very nice place.
CJ: So it’s a conscious choice to keep it small.
Ilde: I like keeping it small, at least for KRAK! It’s easier to manage and keep mostly local. I think when things get too big, it's harder to build some connection between participants and you lose that nice thing of randomly running into each other around town, in concerts, etc. The sense of community.
CJ: How many people will be tabling tomorrow?
Ilde: Around 30.
CJ: And did you have to reject any applications?
Ilde: Only a few. Some people didn’t have zines, only prints or merch. I don’t have a problem with that, but if we have limited space, we give priority to people who make zines. After all, the idea is to support zine makers!
"Place shouldn’t be a limitation. You can always do something anywhere."
Ilde: Lately I’ve noticed more and more young people getting involved with zines in Poland. For example, the biggest zine festival in Poland right now is Poznań Zinfest, and there’s a curious story connected to it. At the second edition of Kraków Zine Fest, a zine maker from Poznań called Edmund, who was maybe 16/17 yrs old back then, wrote to me at the last minute. We had already closed the selection and had no more space. Still he sent me photos of his zines. I fell in love with his work instantly. They were kind of weird, in a very cool way. He said he could sit anywhere, even on the floor. So we couldn’t say no. He came, had a lot of fun and that same day after Kraków Zine Fest #2 ended he came to me and asked, “How can I do this? I want to do a zine fest in my city!” I told him to just find a place, contact a few people in his area who were doing similar things, and go for it.
CJ: And he did?
Ilde: Yes! They started in a small space. Super DIY. And now it’s huge! It grew very fast and it works for them that way so I’m really happy about it. He and the rest of the organizers have great energy. They also do some talkings, workshops and stuff. It's a very cool festival.
(The conversation later drifted into where we’ve lived, moving between countries, Spain, and other zine festivals.)
CJ: Do you have a network of people who organize zine fests?
Ilde: We just talk sometimes with other organizers through social media. Usually they’re also drawing and making zines so we have things in common apart from organizing. It’s pretty natural. I think it would be very weird if someone organized a zine festival but never made zines.
CJ: (laughs)
Ilde: I mean, maybe someone is super passionate, but I think most of the time it’s people who make zines or used to make zines. Like Wojtek, who helped me with the first edition. He did, and still does sometimes classic zines, full of text. Actually, I now remember another story. In the first edition, we were packed, with no extra space at all, and suddenly two guys came in that day and told us, “Oh, Wojtek said there’s a zine fest, we want to join!” And I was like, that's cool but there is literally no space. Still they said, “Don’t worry, we’ll manage.” (laughs) They set up a chair on the stairs and opened a shoe box. It was full of old zines from the 1980s/1990s. Crazy!
CJ: Oh wow! But they made them, or was it their collection?
Ilde: They made some and also brought part of their collection I guess. They were old Wojtek’s friends. Everybody was like, “Wow, look at these!” It was so cool. I think Agnieszka managed to get one. I really liked how due to the difficulties to print back then and the cost of it, they used all the space, there was no white space in those old zines at all. All space taken by text, collages and drawings. It was amazing.
CJ: They had to use every little bit of space?
Ilde: Yeah, they cut the text, collage, glued everything and made the copies. You have text upside down, doodles filling every space… Super cool.
CJ: Do you have pictures? I'm so curious.
Ilde: I can try to find it and take photos. Agnieszka has it. Wojtek later worked on a collection of old polish punk zines with his friend. They reprinted them in a big book called “Antena Krzyku: Antologia 1986-1990”.
CJ: I keep hearing this overlap between punk and the zine community.
Ilde: I guess it’s all about DIY and freedom. Do it yourself, do what you want. Tomorrow I can show you a funny zine about aliens we made with Agnieszka and some musician friends. It's based on a popular Polish UFO sighting from the end of 1950s. We took that story, added tons of absurdity, and put it together. Our friends from Ascending Order, who also play in some punk bands, helped with the story and made a soundtrack for it. We released it on cassette tape with the zine together.
CJ: Wow! Do people still own cassette players?
Ilde: Yeah, some do! But for those who don't have a tape player there are also other ways to listen to the album.
CJ: That’s so cool!
Ilde: We made the zine at the end of 2023. We printed 100 copies with cassettes that sold out fast, then decided to reprint the zine. The cassette was pure green, screen-printed with a little drawing of the main character Agnieszka made. Anyways. I’m telling you all this because of the connection with music. The friend who had the idea of the whole story proposed to write music for the zine, because he doesn’t draw but likes comics. It was very natural and fun to do it together.
CJ: And how did you start making zines?
Ilde: I always drew and stuff but what I really wanted when I was young was to make movies. Unfortunately I didn't have the means to do that so the most similar thing I came up with was to draw comics. I didn’t want to think about whether I could find a publisher or not. So I decided I would just do it all by myself.
CJ: So you started printing your comics. What did you do with them?
Ilde: I gifted them, sold some, or exchanged with people.
CJ: How did you sell?
Ilde: Mostly at festivals or online, people contact by e-mail or social media.
CJ: What’s your vision for the Kraków zine scene, beyond the festival weekend?
Ilde: I would like to see more zine-related events throughout the year. Lectures, workshops, etc. That kind of stuff. There’s always someone interested, even in a small place. I believe zines and all things DIY like this connect people. Place shouldn’t be a limitation. You can always do something anywhere.
Watching Ilde move through the space, checking in on everyone, greeting people, answering questions, switching between languages, I was reminded of what he'd said the night before about place not being a limitation; clearly language shouldn't be either. After we'd stopped recording, I asked him what it's like to run festivals and build community in a foreign language. He said he can now manage most things in Polish, and only occasionally needs help with a word. For phone calls and logistics, like renting tables for the fest, he relies on Agnieszka. The rest, he figures out as he goes.
