$100 and A T-Shirt: A Documentary About Zines in Portland

Description

Four years in the making, the third version of this mildly exciting talkie/video features newer, cleaner, re-mastered audio, a new history section, and 50 new visual shots and pieces of archive material to break up the talking heads. Includes two brand new bonus short documentaries - "Tennessee State Prison" and "Record Playerz". A cultural analysis of what causes zine makers to tick; what the hell zines are, why people make zines, the origin of zines, the resources and community available for zine makers, and the future of zines. Interviews with about 70 zine makers, ex-zine makers, and readers from the northwest. Featuring footage of the Portland Zine Symposium, a zine bicycle tour of Portland, and activities bringing zine culture to life. An original documentary culled from over 64 hours of footage. Best suited for people with a new interest in zines, pros, and novices. The video sparks untapped creativity and new interest into zine making and reading. Artwork by Cristy Road and music by J Church and Defiance, OH! Created by Basil Shadid, Rev. Phil Sano, Nickey Robo, and Joe Biel. 51 minutes with 47 minutes of bonus material.

Joe Biel is the founder of Microcosm Publishing and creator of the documentary about the DIY music scene,If It Ain't Cheap, It Ain't Punk. He is the coauthor of 13 Years of Good Luck and the author ofBipedal, By Pedal!; all volumes of the The CIA Makes Science Fiction Unexciting series and The Perfect Mix Tape Segue series; andYou Can Work Any Hundred Hours a Week You Want (In Your Underwear)!! He lives in Portland, Oregon.

$100 and a T-shirt is a wonderful documentary chronicling the Portland Oregon zine scene circa 2004. There are tons of interesting interview snippets with zinesters that exemplify the diversity of motivation for and approaches to do-it-yourself publishing, and a little zine history and lore going back as far as Martin Luther. I don't know why anyone couldn't want a copy of this DVD. They should be playing this on PBS. - Syndicated Zine Reviews This isn't really a how-to guide - more like a celebration. The filmmakers were smart to focus on the Portland scene. The point isn't to tell the comprehensive story of zines, even the story of zines in Portland. But by selecting such a slender piece of the pie, this [talkie] hasn't made me full but rather hungry for more pie. Surely the hunger is the point; to go out and create and search on my own, not just to be content with living vicariously by watching people on a DVD. Like a good zine, the documentary is high quality without being slick. It's good to see zines getting the same documentary treatment that music has long received. - Punk Planet #73 Some of you kids out there may not remember this, but once upon a time, San Francisco was the Zine Capital. That title undoubtedly now belongs to Portland. $100 was made by Joe Biel, zine publisher, co-head of Microcosm [Publishing], and [former] co-organizer of the Portland Zine Symposium. Joe made this documentary to not only capture the zine scene in Portland, but to also give a good, comprehensive overview of zines: their history, what they are, why and how people make them. - Reader's Guide to the Underground Press #22