Anto McFly, who produces the eclectic DIY punk-rock zine Loserdom with his brother Eugene, is not the only zine writer in Dublin, Ireland, but it can feel that way. “I think that zine publishing is still alive, though not as well as its been in the past,” he says. “I would love to see more Irish zines being produced.”
Maybe the problem isn’t the availability of zines but what the future of Irish zines looks like. “Those being produced are mostly by people who have been around for a while,” Anto adds. “I fear that younger people aren’t inclined to venture into producing something on paper, or if they do, they spend so much time trying to perfect their first issue that it never sees the light of day.”
Since Loserdom was first published in June of 1996, Anto and Eugene could well belong to that old guard of zinesters, but the sheer breadth of material contained in each issue ensures that this Irish zine will not grow stale.
The latest issue, Loserdom #20, features interviews with Darcy Alexandra, a digital storyteller who does projects on asylum seekers; Cecile from the Fanzinothèque zine library in Poitiers, France; and Skubi, owner of a hardcore-punk distro and record label in Ireland. Autobiographical comics featuring the Loser Brothers and a story on the Boycott Israel movement in the Dublin Food Co-Op round out the issue.
Past issues have included interviews with Irish political activists, zine writers from across Europe, and independent musicians, as well as cycling stories, comics, zine reviews, and concert reviews.
The Loser Brothers illustrate the interviews with pen and ink drawings, and even write some of their interviewee quotes comic-strip style, complete with a caricature of the speaker. Charming touches like these set Loserdom apart from other alternative news zines.
Neat, concise, informative, and diverse, each issue of Loserdom is jam-packed with insights into new sociopolitical movements, art styles, and bands, while also remaining sharp and enormously entertaining.
As one can imagine, the time it takes to write a zine so stuffed with material can get a bit lengthy. So perhaps the issue is not the availability of the zines but simply the wait for new issues. Ten issues of Loserdom were published between 1996 and 1998, but then new issues didn’t appear until 2003 and have appeared sporadically since then. In the intervening time, Eugene published a series of comics, and Anto published a zine called Promise Me Skies, both later returning to collaborative work.
“At that time in Dublin (1996), there was a lot of DIY publishing going on,” Anto explains, “and although this has diminished over the years, there are still some excellent Irish zines being produced, although irregularly.”
With a zine like Loserdom on the market, his optimism about Irish publishing is well founded.