I love a zine that's positive. I also love zines by librarians and zines about roller derby. Hotrodlibrarian aka "LibraryFine" is a derbrarian, so you can imagine how I feel about her zines. I mean, the name is Realia, for the love of dog. Realia is a word I learned in a library school cataloging class, or maybe on a trip to special collections. It's a word for something undefined to most people; it's like a word in a language you don't understand about a concept that you can't quite grok because there's no word for it in the language(s) you grew up speaking. The Wikipedia definition includes the phrase "do not easily fit into the orderly categories." How great is that? So, a zine called Realia by a librarian who plays roller derby: mwah!
Hotrod's visual style is collagey, with mixed types of images, but mostly vintage photos and clip art.
She tells her roller derby origin story (thank you, Bust magazine), and there's an essay (with referencers) about Vali Myers, who I hadn't heard of before. Many of the likes lists have to do with librarianship and reading, and there's a photo of funny spine labels.
It's possible she lists my zine among her favorites, but I swear that's not why I like her zine so much. Things I ❤️ ends with a Lego librarian and font credits (Remington Noiseless and Impact Label Reversed). She lists her postal address but no email. Love this girl*!
*I say girl, but she's 40*.
**As I'm writing this she's in fact turning 40, because it's her birthday.