Support the Zine Library!

The Anchor Archive and Radstorm are fundraising to buy the building we're currently in so we have a permanent home! We have the opportunity to buy our building for a great price from our supportive landlords.

Skyrocketing real estate prices in Halifax leave non-profit arts and community spaces like the Anchor Archive at risk of losing our building due to rising rents. We know this too well after having to move 3 times in the last 10 years.

This Place Is Definitely Crashing!

Yellow background featuring the title, "This Plane is Definitely Crashing" in all capital letters, in a black, stenciled font. Beneath it, the subtitle "Four Poorly Drawn Picture-Stories" is written in in a small serif font. Next to the title text is a simple illustrration of clouds. The author's name is not featured on the front cover, but on the back cover, which also includes the dates and some doodles of hearts, and is otherwise blank.
"This Plane Is Definitely Crashing! Four Poorly Drawn Picture Stories" is a 16-page narrative comics zine from 2003 featuring four short comics by artist and author Paul Hammond. The first of the four stories is based around is more of a one-way conversation with the reader about a habit often experienced by folks who identify as neurodivergent, while the remaining three short stories are a recounting of personal / real-life events in the form of anecdotal comics.

What Better Time Than Now?

What Better Time Than Now? ... notes on consciousness and unity in US cities and prisons is a 2011 zine gathering information from several sources (all of which are cited on the back cover) that is communicated in the form of a sixteen page article. It touches on prison activism, colonization, anarchism, class consciousness, and unity.

Nat Turner Issue #1

A full-colour illustration depicting the hand of the titular character, Nat Turner, holding a sword against the backdrop of the moon in the night sky, with droplets of blood curving around the sword in an arc. There is also a spine design on the left side of the cover reminiscent of "little golden books" era hardcover story books, which is black with dark blue swirls (the same colour as the background behind the moon). There are two orange stickers for Strange Adventures comic shop on the cover.
A comic book adapting the real life accounts, journal entries, and court confessions of Nat Turner, an African citizen kidnapped and enslaved during the American slave trade during the early 1800's. Nat Turner would later become the leader of an insurrection in Southampton, Virginia. The entire comic is presented from start to finish with no spoken dialogue, with the story presented entirely through visual media.

The only text contained beyond the synopsis (which itself appears to have been scanned from a real life court document) on the reverse side of the front cover, the advertisements for proceeding books in the series on the final page, and the copyright information are excerpts from journal entries on pages 26 and 47, placed below, and to the left of the art panels depicted therein respectively.

Social War on Stolen Native Land

The title is written in black sans-serif text on a white background that says "Social War On Stolen Native Land", accompanied by a colour photograph of two individuals dressed in all black burning a Canadian flag at an indigenous gathering. Below, in black
A half-page colour zine detailing the perspectives, struggles, triumphs, and stories of various groups of anarchists, indigenous people of Turtle Island (specifically the occupied lands classed as "Canada") and how their struggles are interconnected. These stories come from all over "Canada", with a particular focus on articles from the west coast, and "Quebec". The zine, though compiled and released in 2016, is comprised of various blog posts and editorials from as far back as 2003, compiling over a decade and a half of indigenous stories, anarchist stories, their mutual struggles, and constructively addressing fundamental differences in their mindsets towards societal structuring, reconciliation and land back movements.

I Don't Do Boxes No. 3: Act Out!

A minimalist, abstract ink and watercolour illustration of several people holding up protest signs and a large banner. The banner text depicts the name of the magazine, "Act Out", with the O replaced by the Transgender symbol. Most of the crowd, save for the two on the outside edges holding up the banner, are standing inside of a circular rainbow gradient.
Dear Reader,

In this third issue of I Don't Do Boxes: Act Out, we're speaking out about all the things we were told we couldn't say and we're armed with all things we were told wasn't meant for us. Our editorial team sent out a call for submissions for queer creatives to send us poems, essays, stories, and art surrounding the theme of acting out.

We all struggle with taking action - whether it's getting out of bed, writing our scolarship essays, correcting pronouns, or saying what we really think. And as queer people in the south, we're constantly on the brink of choosing between action and safety, between justice and survival.

And no matter if you're acting out of rage, love, or fear, it can be terrifying. But actions don't have to be grand to matter. Acting out doesn't just mean protesting in the street- it's any way that you use the power that you have. It's building your own community where there is none. It's rewriting histories to include people who've always been left out. It's creating art. It's letting yourself be loved for who you are when you've always believed you're wrong. It's resistance. It's allowing yourself to exist, unfiltered, with or without boxes.

We hope that the varying perspectives in this issue will help our readers continue to explore ways of acting out. You already have the power - it's just how you decide to use it.

Finally, a note on survival: it's okay if the person you need to fight for most is yourself. If you need permission to reach out, here it is. Exhaust every resource to keep yourself from burning. As your battle dies down, breathe and pull another from the open flame.

Collect others. Heal together. Survival is the greatest act. The rest is an encore.

"It is our duty to fight for our freed.
It is our duty to win.
We must love and protect each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains."
- Assata Shakur.

Sincerely,
The I Don't Do Boxes Team