QUARANZINE: 12 Issue Assortment

Editors: Marc Fischer and Public Collectors

Publisher: Public Collectors (2020)

QUARANZINE is a one-page zine (a complete publication that is just a double-sided sheet of paper) that Public Collectors began to publish on a daily basis starting on March 15, 2020 as "A printed space for creative work produced during the COVID-19 pandemic." This collection is an assortment of 12 different issues from the project, which is ongoing. The images in this listing are samples of different issues and not necessarily the ones that you will receive! Most assortments will be drawn from the last 20 issues printed. A very limited number of complete sets will be available only after the project has ended.

"By Friday, March 13th, I felt the full importance of staying home to slow the spread of coronavirus, and so I began to shelter in place. With the exception of a quick trip to Walgreens to pick up a prescription, one more grocery trip, and walks outside, away from people to get air and move my legs, I’ve been hunkered down at home with my wife Jen, an academic advisor who is now working remotely. Most of the things I want to do creatively and am employed to do are not possible now or have to be changed in a way that requires me to stay home. Teaching is on pause or moving online. Book fairs and related events are canceled or postponed. Other Public Collectors projects are impossible to continue in any realistic way until it is safe to do so.

I did not want to stop making things, however. I had just ordered more ink and master film for the risograph and I have been hoarding odd amounts of paper for years. The name QUARANZINE occurred to me (as it did to multiple other self-publishers as a shared epiphany) and I decided that one-page zines would a way I would occupy my time and brain to get through this pandemic and all of the anxiety that has come with it. The zines would also be a way to collaborate with others outside of any kind of institutional framework, returning to the spirit of sharing and generosity that made me start Public Collectors to begin with.

Since March 15th, that is what I have been making. Every day I make a new issue and if I miss a day, I make two the next day. Each person or idea gets both sides of a single sheet of paper. I'm printing about 100-175 copies of each issue. Some will go to the contributors, I've been hanging some on utility poles, bus shelters and dumpsters around my neighborhood during solitary walks, and the bulk will be turned into complete sets to sell or give to libraries later."

–Marc Fischer