Tapling: Queer Zines 🏳️‍🌈

Konoronhkwa ❤️ hehehehe

A photo of a hand holding an abalone shell which is being used as a smudging bowl. The iridescent blue shell holds sage and tobacco leaves which are burning, with smoke visible around it.

Happy Indigenous People's Day from your local two-spirit mod (Felix) ❤️💛🤍🖤

so don't fret if you don't hear from us right away!

For those that don't want to apply as an artist, you can still sign up for our email list via the button on our Carrd:
taplingzines.carrd.co

Thanks for sticking with us, everyone! 💜

you will be added to our email list once the form closes and will start receiving our newsletters after that.

Everyone that applied will be contacted by mid-November with the results of your application! We'll post on social media once everything is sent out, but this will be done in waves,

Update!

We were finally able to contact support and got our account cleared again, and the updated newsletter should be on its way. Please add hello@taplingzines.com to your contacts to help our deliverability in the future 💕

For those that signed up during the artist application,

Thanks, we hope so too! 😭 We have backup programs we can use if this one keeps having problems, but porting email lists over can be a mess so we really hope we don't have to 🫩

In short, if you wanted to sign up for our emails, sorry! We're working to fix it, but we may have to port to another program entirely first.

In the meantime, you can turn on notifications on our social media to make sure you stay up to date with the latest news! Thanks for sticking with us. 💕

We don't want to jump to conclusions here, but both mods behind this project actively work in email marketing in specific. We know CAN-SPAM and GDPR laws and regulations. There's no reason this should be happening, especially not twice in a row. Queer censorship strikes again! 🫠

We had aims to send out a 'one week remaining' email on Friday, but it didn't send, and their support was unavailable. Now I've received an email reply, and they're saying our account was flagged.

Literally the only reason we can think of why this is happening is that we're sending queer content. 🤔

Regarding the last image, it turns out our email program has labeled us as spam, despite having zero reports filed and following absolutely every guideline we're supposed to. This is probably queer censorship.

This happened with our first email too and we were assured it wouldn't happen again.
🧵⬇️

Rainbow stripes with a white text box over it, and an image below of a person holding the intersectional pride flag over their back. The text box reads: "As a team of two trans (Sapling is nonbinary and Felix is two-spirit!) husbands, we’ve felt exhausted online lately, with censorship closing in on us all. Queer content is being banned, restricted, under fire, and we’re sick of it. So we’re creating something offline, a physical art book, a collaborative community project. Something to give us all hope. Something to connect us through our many cultures, all across the world. With our first zine, “We’ve Always Been Here,” we aim to show just this: that we’ve always been a part of history, and we’ll always be a part of the future too."

Rainbow stripes with a white text box, and an image below of two Black men getting close, with one kissing the other on the cheek. The text box reads: "'We’ve Always Been Here' focuses on the 'unseen' queer history of the world. There’s plenty of names we all know of real people who have made their mark: Marsha P. Johnson, Alan Turing, Audre Lorde, Oscar Wilde, Frida Kahlo, and many, many more. But what about those that didn’t ‘go down in history’? What about the woman down the street from your great grandmother, who lived with her ‘best friend’ for decades until she passed? What about the medieval king who kept his lover secret his whole life? What about the cowboys who used the wide, open ranges with no one else around to keep their relationships a secret?"

Rainbow stripes with a white textbox, and below are three circular images of two Korean women walking together, two African men laughing as they talk, and two Indian women chatting and laughing. The text box reads: "Our zine focuses on this, on the everyday people that no one knew about, that no one wrote about. The people that modern society wants to pretend never existed. LGBTQ+ people just living their lives, throughout all of history and all of the world. We want to show one simple thing to the world with this collaborative zine: We’ve always been here. And we always will be."

Rainbow stripes with a white text box, and below is a colorful image from a pride parade, with rainbow flags waving high into the sky. The text box reads: "How to support our mission. Share us on social media! @TaplingZines on BlueSky, Instagram, and Tumblr. Join our email list! Sign up form at taplingzines.carrd.co And tell all your friends!"

We're tired of LGBTQ+ content being censored.

Tired of people pretending that being queer or trans is a new "fad", and not something that’s existed, perfectly naturally, for as long as people have been around.

Check out our mission, and join us in fighting censorship. 🏳️‍🌈
⬇️

Thanks so much for sharing! 🥰

Tapling Zines Community-made LGBTQ zines and artbooks

If this email re-sends later over the weekend and still says 'one week left,' we're sorry for the confusion! Applications officially close midnight October 17th, as it becomes the 18th, central European time.

If you'd like to sign up for our emails, the link is on our Carrd!
taplingzines.carrd.co

An email was supposed to be sent out today to go along with this post, also containing a few more updates about our process so far, but it looks like the program we use to send our email is having issues, and their support team is on vacation 🤦
⬇️

A graphic with stripes in the background in a blue-green-yellow gradient, reading: "Queer zine! Paid opportunity! One week remaining for artist applications!" Below is a watercolor image of two masculine figures sitting overlooking a canyon, and one has their arm wrapped around the other.

Only one week left! We've already received a lot of wonderful applications, but we're still eager to see what else you all have to show us!

We've Always Been Here is a queer historical zine, aiming to show that LGBTQ+ people have always existed, and always will.

Apply:
forms.gle/MssWPMukkE39...

Yay, thanks for the support!! We can't wait to start reviewing applications! 🥰

A graphic with a rainbow background, announcing, "Queer Zine! Paid opportunity! Two weeks remaining for artist applications!". At the bottom is a watercolor painting of two masculine characters kissing, cropped into a semicircle shape.

As of today, we are officially halfway through our artist application period, with just two weeks left!

"We've Always Been Here" is a queer historical zine, aiming to show that LGBTQ+ people have always existed, and always will.

If you haven't applied yet:
forms.gle/7r8B6TZ1RdaK...

#Zines #Zine

A colorful image titled, "Meet the Mod: SacredSapling". The background has vibrant rainbow stripes with a white text box that reads, "SacredSapling, aka Sapling (he/they/it), is a disabled genderfluid watercolorist with a passion for painting queer and disabled characters! He’s obsessed with fine details, patterns, and flowers. Sapling oversees the majority of project logistics: print specs, legal, finances, and art direction. They have successfully run two previous Kickstarters and shipped over 1000 products globally." Below the text box are five circles showing off samples of his traditional watercolor art.

Introducing the second half of our husband/mod team, @sacredsapling.bsky.social 🌱

As Tapling Zines, we're publishing collaborative queer print media to combat increased censorship online. 💜

Artist apps for our first zine, We've Always Been Here, are open until Oct 17.
forms.gle/zTMRy7TEN16S...

A colorful image titled, "Meet the Mod: TapiocaWizard". The background has vibrant rainbow stripes with a white text box that reads, "TapiocaWizard, aka Felix (he/him), is a digital artist and polymer clay enthusiast. He is two-spirit and mixed race, working on reconnecting with his Kanien’kehá:ka ancestry. Felix has a passion for drawing diverse bodies and using bright colors. For Tapling, he handles most of the social media and general organization (writing artist guidelines and emails, creating forms, etc.)" Below the text box are five circles showing off samples of his digital art.

Introducing our first mod, @tapiocawizard.bsky.social

Tapling Zines is run by a team of two husbands passionate about creating queer print media to combat increased censorship online. 🩵

Artist applications for our first zine are open until October 17!
forms.gle/YTBcJYf5yfHJ...

a dead link if the upload provider stops working, a file is removed, etc, giving the book a sort of 'end date' which isn't in line with our goals. But we hope you'll still stick around to see the final product anyway! 🥰

Thanks for yout interest in the project! Unfortunately we're not looking for music, as the main goal of the zine is to move away from online media and towards print because queer people are being censored more and more online. Something like a QR code that links to music can also eventually become

Thank you so much everyone for over 150 applications already! 🥰

After a quick skim, we want to note that we'd love to see more ideas for (any) Indigenous, and especially African themes! Feel free to tag artists you think might fit 💗

#Zine #ZineApps #ArtistsWanted #LGBTQ

Thanks for applying and for all the support! 🥰 We'll be looking everything over once applications close 🩵

For this particular zine, we'd like to focus on everyday LGBTQ+ people (through fully original characters) rather than those whose stories have already been told through history.

But maybe in the future we'll consider one about real historical figures since there definitely is demand for it!

Haha that's great, we can't wait to see once we start reviewing apps! 😊

Thanks for applying! We're so excited to see everyone's lovely portfolios and ideas soon 🥰

Thanks for sharing! We can't wait to see their application! 🥰

Great! We can't wait to see your applications! ☺️

That's not an issue at all 🙂 We look forward to seeing your application!

Thanks for sharing! From what we can see, we'd unfortunately have to pay for another monthly service in order to have the space to host all artists' files, but it's nice knowing there are more securing sharing platforms being developed. We'll keep it in mind for future projects, budget permitting!