Review of Fat Girl Zine @ Marching Stars Distro

Fat Girl #15
Nicci, USA - 20 pages –1/4 sized
perzine, body image

This zine by Nicci is peppered throughout with the writers own illustrations and has a cool Japanese stab binding.

Nicci talks about her struggles to reconcile her identity as an artist with her identity as the titular fat girl: she questions why life models are always slender women and why we are forced to compare ourselves against unachievable standards of beauty.

Nicci takes her practice as an artist looking beyond standard ideas of beauty and applies it to other images that surround us on a day-to-day basis in magazines and on TV. In doing so, Nicci talks about how she has found self-acceptance and self-love for her own body shape and beauty.

It is an oft-discussed subject, but reading about it from the point-of-view of a trained artist – someone who relies on images and imagery in order to be an artist – is a fresh and fascinating take on the matter. Nicci’s writing had me nodding along in agreement a several times and it is wonderful to read something that so eloquently expresses something that we are all troubled with from time to time.

Description thanks to Em (who writes Angry Violist zine)!

Fat Girl #12
Nicci, USA - 20 pages –1/4 sized
perzine, body image

Fat Girl features some of the most incredible drawings and I’ve ever seen in a zine doodles (the entire thing is hand drawn and written). This issue’s theme is ‘community’ and Nicci writes about acknowledging fat role models, feeling supported by other fat women in any given situation and creating and sustaining positive fat communities. A really cute zine which certainly gave me things to think about.

Reviews found @ Marching Stars Distro in the UK. If you're into zines, please support distros because they support indy press! Lizzy, the owner of Marching Stars, is a pretty cool lady, and always great to deal with. :)

Fat Girl # 15

excerpts: "I saw other women in my life forgetting their beauty, their worth--forgetting how to be loved, and to love without fear of rejection because of their size. I saw those women forgetting that a large part of being beautiful is attitude, and that no one, not even the women in magazines, really look like the caricature of feminine beauty on the covers."

"Sexy can have a double chin, thank you very much."

"FG is a validation, and a decree. FG is an attitude, and a reassurance--it is a battle cry. Sometimes, it is a soft whisper of reminder to women (and men) that to be happy is not to be thin, to be beautiful is not to weigh in at a lower number on a scale, and to be healthy isn’t to fit into single digit sized jeans."

"More than anything, it is important that we first accept ourselves so that we can begin to accept others. We accept others so that we can begin to accept ourselves."

FG#15 is a 1/4 size, 20pp zine. this zine is photocopied in black and white on text weight paper. It is hand sewn with a japanese stab binding.

fat art

fat girl zine has been on hold in the last year, due to other pursuits! it's always in progress, just more slowly than i would like sometimes. in the mean time, i've been working on various projects, including a few collaborative art journals. body positive artwork goes into most of my projects, and here's a recent sketch:



some older work, from the same project (just a different part) is below, shown in watercolor and ink. it's a bit of journaling about childhood, and body image:



FG 1-14 are all available in my etsy shop if you're interested. keep your eyes out for other body positive things in the future. lots planned for the summer! xox nicci

Nicci on Sweet Candy Radio

check out Nicci's conversation with Sage on Sweet Candy Radio!

fat girl # fourteen - guts (fat is bold)

fat girl # fourteen - guts (fat is bold)
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

just finished fat girl # fourteen!

fat girl is a 1/4 size zine dealing with body positive imagery and writing, specifically where fat is concerned. FG is a 1/4 size, 20pp zine. this zine is photocopied in black and white on text weight paper. it is hand sewn with a japanese stab binding, and a heavy weight thread.

FG#14 includes a personal essay by Patricia Amos about medications and weight gain, struggling with body image, and her own self acceptance, art by Ang West, art by Nicci (of course!) and some short pieces by Nicci such as body love, food love, and dispelling the 'if'.

Excerpt: "Representations of beauty differ depending on time and culture. What is considered beautiful and desireable changes. Define your own beauty. Defend it. Love your face; love your body."

for more images, please see: etsy or flickr.

Love, Rebirth, Healing

Love,Rebirth,Healing
Originally uploaded by altermyworld2

fat girl # 14 is in progress still, along with # 15. in the mean time, i have been swanning around checking out various art by some wonderful artists. as it happens, Ang has some lovely ATCs in her flickr stream, so i thought i would post about it here!

beautiful bodies at her flickr.

she took a little inspiration from the beautiful woman project, and has been doing some pretty snazzy art along those lines:

http://www.beautifulwomenproject.com/

fat love & other beautiful things

looking for some body love? check out not sorry! distro for issues of Fat Girl as well as other body positive zines. an excerpt from the catalog regarding FG (#11):

Fat Girl is a beautiful zine featuring personal experiences and musings on being a fat girl. Each issue is bound like a little art book and features loads of Nicci's drawings of fat girl bodies. Each page is clearly an artistic process to be savored. In this issue, Nicci blasts the media's new claims that fat is contagious; she questions the meaning of beauty; she breaks down her family's struggles with body-hatred whether they be fat or thin and lastly, she acknowledges the power of constant visibility and taking advantage of that.

thanks, jenny! xox.

you can also find a selection of buttons and patches over @ not sorry! distro on the crafts page, including an awesome button by kate black that reads "diets make you pissy." i know i'm going to have to pick that one up!

another friendly place on the internet to play is pony boy press, hosted by the awesome krissy. you can find her zines on etsy. if you haven't yet, please check out figure 8. you will not be disappointed by her informative body positive zine!

if you really want to find a zine, on a variety of topics including body image/body love, don't hesitate to check out sweet candy distro where you will find comics, crafts, buttons, perzines, art zines, literary zines, family friendly zines, diy zines, and just about anything else you can think of that's done well! sage writes a review for every zine in her catalogue, and keeps track of shipped orders & new/restocks to her catalog via a community on LJ called the candy cluster. she also has a presence on etsy.




as you may have noticed from the graphics accompanying this post, fat girl is available in a gift pack of issues #1-13, containing all the fatty goodness you could want, and then some. check it out over on etsy. be on the lookout for issues #14 and #15, and please consider submitting. there is an open and ongoing call for art and writing, should you feel inclined to answer it! submissions should be e-mailed.

if you're looking for a prompt before you submit, FG#15 is about throwing out our scales, and recognizing internal cues rather than external ones--literally throwing out that which shames/controls and/or negatively affects our personal space. #14 is still in process--it's not too late to submit! so far in this issue: artwork by nicci, artwork by ang, writing on food/food love and writing about medication and depression on body image and body size.