Sunday, 8 February, 2026
in 8th of February this year, I went to this event called "Bandung Zine Fest 2026". As the name said, it's a zine convention in Bandung, Indonesia. It's not that far from my home and campus, located in a very strategist place I can say. Middle of the city, close to the town square.
I know about this event thanks to my college friend asking if I could go there with her or not. And of course how can I decline! I like zines and I do make one sometimes. This is my chance to get some zine inspirations so I know what kind of zine I wanna make next (spoiler alert: nah I still dunno).
To be honest, I only created 1 zine, physical only, and I just gave em all away to my friends. Maybe I'll post the digital version in my website later but idk when. It's a pretty decent zine, about my favorite album of the year (in 2025), I Love My Computer by Ninajirachi. But man, compared to all zines I saw in BZF, mine is just, kinda meh...
But hey, there's no certain rules of how making zines, you can just make whatever there. I've read so many short stories, poems, and someone's diary there. You can even make photography zines, art zines, anything, really.
Not the real title cuz I forgor, I only remember that it's a zine about architecture in video games. There's not only Minecraft they're talking there but again I forgor what the other games are sorry... Yeah I only read it a little, I don't have much time there... But not only that, I love how they design the contents I really took so much inspiration from them. Kudos for the graphic designer not only in this one edition, but other Minikomm zines too, they all are cool as heck.
by the way you can check more of their works here, It's all written in Indonesian though so, maybe just take a look at the designs maybe you'll like it too.
It's basically a compilation of many interesting, cool, niche websites you can visit on the internet. I'm sorry that my pics really bad at capturing what I want to tell here but, the zines itself despite being small, it's a thick zines. There's a lot of pages. I wanted to buy one but my budget is VERY limited here...
Translated from Indonesian "Panduan Aman Kwir Turun Aksi" btw. It's very self explanatory, a guide for queers who wants to take an protests. Why queers to be specific? well because queers here are a one of the many communities that are very oppressed here. It's hard to be queer in my country you know... So I'm glad that they got some kind of representation here.
This is very intriguing to hear but, I heard from the author's conversation with someone that, the cops are trying to catch whoever made this, and seized all of their zines related to LGBTQ+. That's scary, I hope the author and anyone who speaks up about this are safe.
There's some photography zines I found cool and unique but I'm too busy looking around so I forgot to took their pictures. I took a peek to some more creative zines like scrapbook'ish style zines, and many zines about the author's struggle in mental health or many struggles in general. I didn't know you can use zine as a medium to rant out but again, zine has no binding rules. That's what why I like zines.
This is their posters design, and the merch are using the same style too. dot matrix old-school 80's-90's era type shit. Cool, right? well see, they're not just following the retro design, but they also made it using hardware from said era. Using a computer that's as old, if not older than Honda Civic EG6/Estilo.
I talked to the artist, his name is Age (pronounced A-gey or smth like that), I call him Kang Age cuz he's basically my senior... So he talked a lot about how he made the designs, he even demonstrates it to me, showing what software he used, and of course using Windows 3.1 too man I don't even know how to navigate in that...
Not only that, he also let me mess with his computer and I create a typography of my name there and DAMN I want to eat it so much (idk why...) It's just, so sick man. This old ass pc with old ass operating system and old ass software he used is so capable at making sick art like this, like what he made, damn...
I u wanna know, he's using PC Paint 3.1 (1988) for creating artworks and Banner Mania (1989) for typography.
Tuff shi man
I you want to know more about the artist, you can check his website or his Instagram profile and please give em a support!
I'll never regret it. It was my first time going outside and touching sum grass in 2026. Tired? of course I am. The event is huge and people everywhere. That's why I can't stay there for longer. Sea of people just give me a headache man.
But that's worth it, my haul isn't that much, I only got one free zine, buy some stickers, and yeah that's all. I didn't prepare for that much stuff happened in the exhibition... Will I attend BZF 2027? absolutely. And I'll be much prepared then. I promise hehe.
Yeah that's all. I'll drop rest of the images I took here. Thanks for reading my blog, cya.,.,.,
- dz, ma wallet dry... -