For the past year or so I’ve been working on this little side project that I’ve been meaning to write more about — a zine called Pink Mince. I was waiting to see how it went, and whether or not it would be something that I’d stick with for a while. Now that it’s been a year and I’ve cranked out 4 issues, an offshoot line of 4 mini-zines, and have the next couple of issues well underway it seems safe enough to declare it’ll keep going for a while. Besides, I’ve just invested so much on printing and reprinting that it has to or I’ll be up shit creek.
It’s mostly gay stuff, but it’s also a lot less straightforward than that. The standard tagline is that Pink Mince is “for the confirmed bachelor of exceptional taste”, but I’ve also described it as “a journal of contemporary typeface design illustrated with pictures of dudes”. My pithy mission statement from its Facebook page says: “We aim to delight, titillate, amuse, provoke, and inspire. (That is to say: we feature jokes and blokes, possibly with a point behind it all.)” It’s also about wanting to make something that tactile instead of just another image on a screen. And it’s about getting to feature contributions from a lot of amazingly talented other people. It’s a lot of things, but mostly it’s fun to do.
But like any print publication, it can be hard to seduce people into taking a gamble and coughing up a bit of coin to check it out. But trust me: there’s something real nice about holding it in your hands and taking it slow. Try it.
So yeah, I actually have a lot more to say about what it’s been like to do all this, but that will take a little more reflection. For now, though, word continues to spread and interest continues to bubble up, so why don’t you check out the awfully kind things that these other gentlemen have had to say so far: Gym Class Magazine, Sturtle, SUNfiltered, We Made This.
