Where is the zine capital of the world?

I asked the Internet and it sent me HERE and now I refuse to Google anything ever again.

Day 16 of taking myself to Creative Camp.

I want to build my zine collection. But I don’t trust Google to tell me how to do it. What if I ask the Internet another way?

I ask a somewhat friendlier algorithm over on Threads:

View on Threads

The answers are enough to make me a veritable Phileas Fogg of punk rock periodicals if I so please. Around the world in 80 zines.

But the kicker? According to at least six people who answered my Thread (a real scientific metric) the official/ unofficial zine capital of the world is right here in my backyard?!?

Is Quimby’s Bookstore in Chicago the zine capital of the world?!

The spirit of YES AND! insists I go on a Creative Camp field trip. And I haven’t even pulled my prompt yet.

Today my prompt is:

Frame.
Color.
Wild Card.

Since I already know I’m headed to Quimby’s, the self-described specialists in the “unusual, the aberrant, the saucy, and the lowbrow,” I’m WILDLY CONFIDENT I’ll find something colorful and worthy of framing on this field trip.

This is too easy. This is so much fun. THIS IS CAMP, BABY!!!

OMG OMG OMGGGGG. 🥹🥹🥹

Quimby’s Bookstore – nestled in Wicker Park, Chicago – is a zineage dream.

I wander through this wild wonderful word museum and decide to grab whatever grabs me. I’m in the business of vibes, double takes, and oooooh what’s that? And let me tell ya, business is booming. I am not in Creative Camp anymore. I’m not even in a bookstore. I am on Cloud 9.

Zine come true.

There’s just one problem – my prompt! I can’t find anything to frame. But in process > product we trust, so I skip home merrily with a satchel full of freshly picked zines, knowing I already have what I need somewhere in here.

Or in here? **taps Internet glass**

Creative Camp, in zine spirit, has stopped handing me tidy happy endings for my creative adventures. Instead, I collect treasures, compost, “the unusual, the aberrant, the saucy, and the lowbrow,” and eventually they are useful to me – as tools, insights, callbacks, all of the above.

So instead of an easy answer to my prompt, today in my satchel of wild word ephemera, I found this:

1. Creativity IS a communal act, even when you’re going solo.

From Threads to Quimby’s, my mixed media voyage, the treasure map, the glittering trunks of gems at the end were all powered by people along the way.

In fact, I DID find something to frame after I got home from Quimby’s from another Internet stranger turned friend. But you’ll have to wait for the end of that story. Coming soon to a Creative Camp “To be continued…” near you.

2. The machine answers in black and white. Humans answer in a rainbow.

I refused to Google this because with AI-powered search results, answers to questions are shorter, more defined, and authoritative. Black and white. And that’s exactly why they can’t be trusted.

The answers are ALWAYS in technicolor, not black and white.

When the machine gives us an answer, it strips it of nuance. The only concrete answer we can trust is the vastness, the contradiction of the rainbow.

So what IS the zine capital of the world, then?

You know you couldn’t trust me if I told you the answer, right? You know the truth is rainbow, not black and white? And why live in greyscale when you could go on an epic rainbow quest?

Maybe the capital is wherever you’re standing right now.

Welcome to camp.