Zines, because they are both visual and textual, messy and experimental, and often meet a personal need rather than being made for a public audience, are the ideal vehicle for describing the in-between, liminal parts of life that we all experience. Lea Cooper is a researcher and zine-maker who has been delving into Wellcome’s zines collection in search of examples of liminality.
Drawn poorly zine : diagnosis. Issue 3, Drawn Poorly. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Rose Sergant (editor) and Brittany Black @BBARTWORKS.
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I started making zines during my training as a mental health peer-support worker when I became frustrated with having to tell my story in a particular way. We use stories to understand experiences of illness, but it can be difficult to tell a story when it doesn’t have a neat resolution. ‘Drawn Poorly’ is a Manchester-based zine that collects experiences of illness and disability. In their third issue, ‘Diagnosis’, different contributors share their experiences of diagnosis, including waiting a long time for a diagnosis or confirmation of a chronic illness. Brittany Black explores what it’s like waiting for a diagnosis that doesn’t come. Frustration and anxiety are expressed through humour in this short comic, which concludes with a punchline where both we, and Brittany’s ghost, are left still asking for a diagnosis.
Waiting room, Hollie Woodward. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Hollie Woodward.
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Waiting is a familiar part of experiencing illness for anyone who has sat in a GP surgery, attended a hospital appointment, or gone to A & E. However, for many people with chronic illnesses, waiting can feel like the main thing they are doing. In this zine, Hollie Woodward captures this through illustrations of a waiting room, accompanied by her thoughts and feelings as she is left there. She uses a single colour, green, to pick out individual features, highlighting the ways that often the same colours run through medical spaces, like NHS blue in the UK. People are mostly absent from the zine’s illustrations, emphasising the in-between spaces that people with chronic illnesses often inhabit.
When language runs dry : a zine for people with chronic pain and their allies. Number 2, Compilers: Claire Barrera and Meredith Butner. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Claire Barrera and Meredith Butner.
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Chronic pain complicates our understanding of health and illness – we expect pain to be a sign of something being wrong, an example of cause and effect, and imagine that once we are better, it will stop hurting. As the title of this zine, ‘When Language Runs Dry’, suggests, chronic pain is an experience that is sometimes hard to communicate. The cover, by Corinne Teed, shows a person in a moment of quiet reflection, bent over three candles on an altar covered with greenery and flowers, in reference perhaps to the importance of rituals in managing moments of transition, like rituals around the end of winter and beginning of spring, and giving structure and meaning to in-between spaces. It echoes a birthday cake – a reminder of how time moves and is marked differently in experiences of chronic pain.
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For some transgender or non-binary people, zines offer a space to explore gender transition as a continual state of in-betweenness. Other trans people use zines to document periods of change and transformation, and to make connections between different experiences. ‘Disgender’ connects experiences of being transgender and non-binary and being disabled or chronically ill. The image on the this page captures some of the feel of in-betweenness through a surreal landscape, as well as what it might mean to intentionally inhabit it. As the shadowy character under the desk says: “I like anywhere that isn’t a proper place. I like in-betweens.”
It's just an account of the worst year of my life : perzine on mental illness, Laura Saunders. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Laura Saunders.
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‘It’s just an account of the worst year of my life’ is a perzine, which is a contraction of “personal zine”. Perzines themselves are often described as being ‘in-between’ a diary and a book – not quite private, not quite public. This perzine’s maker, Laura Saunders, uses doodles from her notebooks at the time to reconstruct a year in which she had a breakdown. While it can be difficult to tell a story about chaotic periods of life, like breakdowns or mental health crises, the drawings and notes from this time are used by the zine-maker as an alternative way to communicate the experience.
Bleeding thunder : a zine exploring genderqueer menstruation. Inaugural issue.. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Confluence Journals/Youth Passageways.
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Coming of age is often considered a classic example of a transition from one social position (childhood) to another (adulthood) – and for some people, this is focused around menstruation. ‘Bleeding Thunder: A Zine Exploring Genderqueer Menstruation’ shares experiences of periods that are often excluded from mainstream discussions, which prioritise cisgender people. Its contributors imagine a relationship to menstruation that isn’t grounded in ideas of womanhood or femininity, instead centring and holding space for genderqueer, trans and non-binary bodies and experiences.
Are you there God? : it's me, menopause : a compilation zine, edited by Jenna Freedman + Kate Haas. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Jenna Freedman + Kate Haas, 2014.
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Until very recently, the experience of menopause was another period of transition that was made invisible, unacknowledged except by those who experience it themselves. ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Menopause’ is a compilation zine edited by established zine-makers Jenna Freedman and Kate Haas. It provides space for its contributors to explore this experience. The front cover makes use of a common practice in zines – using and subverting images from popular culture. Here, the zine creators have taken a pink glittery pen to the photocopied cover of a classic coming-of-age book from the 1970s.
Stuck in the middle : an autistic story., Rin Flumberdank. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Rin Flumberdank.
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For some neurodivergent people, not hitting typical markers of independence or adulthood, or needing additional support, can feel like being stuck. Stories that treat progress as linear often don’t reflect autistic people’s lived experience – as the creator of ‘Stuck in the Middle: an autistic story’ Rin Flumberdank says: “Help isn't linear. Abilities aren't linear. Trust me *IF I SAY I CAN *IF I SAY I CAN'T don't use it against me LATER.” This eight-page zine shows how zines don’t have to be complicated to be effective – they are often made, like this one, with a pen and a single, folded sheet of A4 paper.
Bat habitat. #28, Tukru. © Tukru, 2020. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
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The feeling of being in-between, of being stuck in an odd, ambiguous or uncertain time, will be familiar to many of us after the Covid-19 lockdowns in the UK and around the world. Many zine-makers explored this period through perzines, which documented their experiences and offered resources to other people. Lockdown zines became so ubiquitous that in the description for this one, its creator Tukru describes it as “that obligatory lockdown zine”. ‘Bat Habitat’ is a long-running perzine series, and this issue captures a small part of the first UK-wide lockdown when the now-familiar Zoom screen was still a novelty, using words, collage and illustrations.
About the author
Lilith (Lea) Cooper
(they/them)
Lea Cooper is a zine-maker and zine librarian at Edinburgh Zine Library and they are currently working on a PhD looking at the zines at Wellcome Collection. Their research interests are liminality and the third space between practice and research. They live on the Fife coast in Scotland.