We're in the news, and we've moved!

Hello! If you're still following this page, head on over to www.chartyourcycle.co.uk where my blog and website have chosen to cohabit at the same address out of wedlock.

Also, check out some groovy coverage we just got in The Guardian.

Skids Pads, Viral Ads...and AWESOME comments sections.

I have a minor addiction to the Guardian G2 Shortcuts section and quick crossword. Yes, they're available online, but as a zine writer, I need it in print form. Today's dose included Kira Cochrane's account of a viral ad campaign about masculine hygiene products by, um, one of my competitors. It's getting a bit freaky how closely feminine hygiene product advertising seems to be echoing our comedy sketches lately. Have we tapped into the zeitgeist? Or are their marketing departments just very thorough? If it's the latter, "Hi there, marketing department researchers. Thanks for stopping by. I think." (Waves nervously.)


I did these ads for the launch of issue 3 of Adventures in Menstruating, and they've been around ever since at our live comedy shows, which feature various riffs on 'pads for men' ads.



You may enjoy my own contribution to the viral internet canon, which, like the other Skids stuff, went live in August 2007. Thanks to Cakebread Illustrations for offering to make the website after seeing our show in Berlin. Stay tuned for further additions.


In the meantime, please enjoy the fantastically hilarious comments on today's G2 article. Now Mooncup really know how to do viral.




Time flies. Issue 4 is due another reprint, and we're back in Berlin on 18 July.


-Chella

Newphemisms.

So, in our quest for ever stupider content, Sarah and I have been doing some fart-joke style menstrual riffing. Proper lowest common denominator stuff. That's your disclaimer.

I mentioned to Sarah that I wanted to come up with some new menstrual euphemisms - just for fun - no stigma attatched but more for vocabularic variety. There are fabulous metaphors for masturbation, defecation and all the other -ations that come out of your body, but menstrual metaphors all seem very negative and 1950s to us.

Her suggestion: When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along - I laughed and laughed. Then we looked up the song and realised it was sung by Doris Day (we love Doris Day), mentioned throbbing, and was about feeling positive. Why not specifically period positive, we say.

Usage:

Sarah: Hey, Chella, my Red Red Robin just came Bob Bob Bobbin' along. Have you got a tampon?

Chella: What a coincidence. My 99 Red Balloons have just gone by and and I've still got a pad in my bag.

(Only the English version of that song works, by the way, and could have some straw-grasping interpretations about male panic about menstruation rather than an impending invasion.)

In more sensible news, Sarah's poem was posted on Feminist Review today. For her efforts, she's won a quite cool looking book. Another winner, Erika Mikkalo, wrote a poem that reminded me of the Radio 4 programme I mentioned the other week about feminists being funny: Call Yourself A Feminist.

Do send us newphemisms.

Chella

Adventures in Menstruating: Bigger and Redder

The stirrings of spring mean our hiatus is over and a new issue of Adventures in Menstruating is on the way at last – a ‘true confessions’ style bumper edition. Thank you to everyone who's waited patiently this year while we got gaymarried, worked on the Obama campaign and supported an ill friend.

The year hasn’t been totally devoid of things menstrual or zine, though –

We had an excellent review from Brittany Shoot at Feminist Review and she felt moved to write a piece for our next issue. Brittany's writing is fantastic and we're really pleased to have made friends with this radical woman. Chella will be contributing to Brittany’s upcoming zine about expats - stay tuned for an article called 'Adventures in Emigrating’ and more details about that zine later this month.

We did a mini tour called 'Honeymoon Period' which included a comedy sketch performance, menstrual craft workshop and poetry reading at Ladyfest Berlin and concluded with Malav's gallant hospitality once again at Bluestockings in NYC.

Sarah won a poetry competition at this year’s Off the Shelf Festival – one of the poems she read, ‘A Celebration of Menstruation’ (which you may have read in the zine or seen on tour) united the crowd and the judges, and a trophy cup has joined her mooncup on the bathroom shelf.

An extract from AiM #3 was included in Zine Yearbook 9 put out by Microcosm. Details available here.

Chella is getting involved with Red Chidgey and Elke Zobl's fantastic book - working title: DIY Activism! Dispatches from the Transnational Feminist Zine Movement - and is keen to promote their website.

And finally, Chella's recently (like literally just today, actually) been asked to contribute work to a book coming out next year by Christine Bobel tentatively called New Blood: Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation from Rutgers University Press. More details on that as they come in.

So that’s been the zine highlights of the year for us – we’re excited to be back, uh… bigger and redder?

All the best from
Chella and Sarah

PS Chella will be in New York from the 6^th – 12^th April – if you’ve got a hankering for putting something zine or menstrual together, get in touch.

Zinefest Today!

Zinefest is on today at the Women's Library in London. We went to the last one and really enjoyed it - it's a great space. There was a really cool write-up of that one in the London edition Time Out. We're sorry to be missing this one, but finances are keeping us local.

Issue 4 of AiM is coming together, believe it or not. I have the cover and back cover ideas mapped out, about 70% of the content, and the covers have given me the theme for the new issue, which I may or may not reveal before it's done - I'll keep you posted.

The myspace page has been pretty active recently, although I'm not a fan of the myspace layout and actually find it almost too jarring to use it regurlarly (the page skins aren't a problem - it's the user area I find a bit 'sensory overload'), but I'm trying to because I've met some quite cool people on there through the Ladyfest network, so please keep the friend requests coming.

I'm still in my post-inauguration come-down. I may do some research on how the tone of US feminine hygiene product advertising changes with each new president - like, do tampons tap into the zeitgeist? Maybe not. Maybe I was just trying to shoehorn in a menstrual topic to an otherwise non-menstrual event just so I could still post it on this blog - although getting your first period in the White House might lead to a leakage horror story, actually. Maybe I'll approach the Obama kids for a contribution sometime during issues 6 - 10...

No longer pretending to be Canadian,

Chella

Feminist Tested, Feminist Review Approved

So, Feminist Review has done a piece on the zines, and it's pretty darn glowing. I'm incredibly flattered and just wanted to say thanks. Their website is a pretty handy-dandy resource and I'm adding it to my links over there on the right.

Thanks to Brittany Shoot, who does half of HollaBackBoston among other nifty things, for the props.

I'm kinda speechless, which is very out of character for me. I'll just point out the awesome patchwork of covers someone over there put together to go with the article.

Cheers,
Chella

Nothing like reading zines on the train home.

We're getting used to this funny old commute down to that London. Zinefest was awesome. We showed some new material to a bunch of decent people who gave us feedback we could use.

I got to have a brief look at the exhibition in the Women's Library, and had a chat to some of the staff there - they were totally welcoming and I had a good chat to them. I bought a Women's library pen. Ok, I acutally bought two because if I ever buy one thing like that, I never use it. I've only just started using some of the Lisa Frank stickers I had as a kid in the 80s. I'm a stationery freak.

Crazy star-crossed moment of the day: Nearly didn't get to meet Daria of Revenge of the Nerds Distro who'd come to London from Poland. Through the magic of a hastily scrawled postcard and messengers from the 56a Library's distro, we were able to finally chat in person.

Crazy star-struck moment of the day: A really nice guy came up to Sarah and said he'd seen us mentioned in Timeout.

Cheers to Naz who taught us bookbinding. Sarah's decided her next zine is going to be a limited edition hardback run of like...5.

I'm going to go back to watching Spaced and go to bed.

Cheers to Red for organising stuff, and all the Women's library staff for letting me use the copier.

Chella

Holy Mackanoly! We're in the Independent!

According to Luiza Sauma in Talk of the Town (the first page of the ABC section), "There's a zine for everything, it seems; from the traditional comics, radical politics and punk music, to self defence and menstruation. (Indeed, I spent a good 15 minutes flicking through the genuinely excellent Adventures in Menstruating.)"

I've corrected two typos in the quote above.

Maybe my future lies in editing.

If anyone could save us a cutting, I have some American fridge space my relatives will want to fill back in New York.

The article was about the London Zine Symposium, and it was awesome. We had the best vegan cheesecake in the world, spent some quality time with old friends from around the country, met some awesome new peeps from around the world, and traded serious zine.

The venue wasn't suitable for readings, which is a shame cos there were some people there who were also hoping to read and we wanted to hear their stuff! Next year, though.

Thanks to Edd, Natalie, Chris, Eran and everyone else who helped get it together!