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Under the fluorescent lights and cool air conditioning of the Lloyd Center mall food court, two dozen people spread collage supplies, paper, and pencils over tables that typically hold pretzels and cheap chicken chow mein. On Sundays, the Portland Zine Meetup gathers here to layout pages and share in-progress works about everything from a favorite punk band to lovingly illustrated fursonas.
At this particular meetup, Roman Ruddick, 30, has brought a new zine about the emotional process of changing their name. For that folded mini-zine, Ruddick hand-wrote reflections about their name change over collaged photos of themselves as a child.
Ruddick and Charlie Manzano, 26, started the weekly meetup in 2023, after they moved to Portland from Ashland, where they’d launched the Southern Oregon Zine Festival.
One of the big appeals of Portland was its zine scene—and Multnomah County Library’s policy of allowing anyone 100 free black-and-white photocopies a day.
“We did partially move to Portland for the free photocopies,” says Manzano. “It was a big draw.”
The weekly Portland meetup (@portlandzinemeetup on Instagram) eventually grew too popular for just once a week, so comics zinester Sophie Danner, 25, volunteered to run an additional Thursday night session at Rose City Book Pub.
Over the past two years, the free, twice-weekly meetups have blossomed into a staple of Portland’s zine community—a warm and welcoming space for anyone looking to self-publish. They’ll even have a dedicated table featuring members’ zines at this year’s Portland Zine Symposium, held November 8-9, the biggest event of the year for Portland’s zine community.
“The entry point for zines is non-existent. Anyone can make them, and you don’t need anything fancy. They provide tangible proof of someone’s lived experience,” says Danner, who this year is attempting to draw 100 diary comics before her next birthday (she’s at number 45). “And it’s really cool to see people be introduced to zines and then to be like, ‘I can do anything with this!” adds Ruddick.
Both Manzano and Ruddick met because of a shared difficulty: As teenagers, they were both diagnosed with cancer. In 2017, Manzano started a Tumblr about being a trans cancer patient—Ruddick became his only follower. The two became internet friends, then friends IRL. In 2018, Manzano’s cancer came back and Ruddick moved to the Bay Area to be with him. It was there that they stumbled across a zine festival in the San Jose public library.
“We were like, ‘Wow, these people are writing about, like, every topic ever! This would be a great way to find other trans cancer patients,” says Ruddick.
“I was really interested in reading more from patient perspectives, and not, like ‘I survived by eating kale,’” says Manzano. “I was looking for more earnest, personal stuff.”
Luckily, earnest and personal are where zines excel. The duo started making their own zines about their experiences with cancer. They started up a website, TransCancerZine.com, featuring downloadable PDFs of zines, which they still run. Both Ruddick and Manzano are now in remission and make zines about all sorts of things they care about.
“Zines were really important to me. They were like this method of expressing a desire to be heard in the way I wanted to be heard,” says Ruddick. “I really liked how honest I could be in zines and how honest I found other people’s writing. I liked the vulnerability.”
The group plans to continue the popular twice-weekly meetups and have started publishing anthology zines, taking submissions from the meetup regulars. The first publication, Something Good Happened Here, shares personal memories from 40 contributors about good things that have happened to them in specific places in Portland—a sweet and sincere counterpoint to the national narrative that Portland is a crime-ridden dumpster fire.
Published in March, to coincide with the Reed Zine Fest, copies of the anthology will be available at the Zine Symposium too, along with those from meetup members. That’s part of the thrill of zine-making, says Ruddick: finding new stories and new friends.
“Every time I go to a zine fest, especially where there’s zinesters I’ve never met, and getting zines I’ve never seen, it’s inspiring.”
Portland Zine Symposium takes place in Smith Memorial Ballroom at Portland State University, 1825 SW Broadway, Nov 8-9, 11 am-5 pm, FREE, all ages.
