Alex Wrekk

Alex Wrekk

Alex Wrekk (born June 19, 1977) is a zinester from Portland, OR.

Wrekk was born in Houston, Texas, where she lived for the first nine years of life, and then moved to Greensboro, North Carolina with her family for 9 months. After that they moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, when she was 10 and later in High School she started getting into reading zines and thinking of creating her own.

Wrekk was first introduced to zines by her high school boyfriend's father who let them borrow from his collection. Alex got more involved with zines after meeting some kids in the midwest on a church youth trip in the mid '90's. Her early influences include comic zines like Bad Art, Then She Deflated and Shelf Life . From there she and her sister, Webly Bowles, created their first zine Fun in a Bucket in 1995 and were part of the small zine community in Salt Lake City, Utah along with such zines as Hat, Failed Jedi, Maybrick's Diary, Hemopheliac's Papercut, and Lunchroom. In 1997 Alex was the "merch girl" for the band Homesick and ran a small zine distro on the side to a largely disinterested crowd at shows where she carried local zines as well as out of state zines like Cometbus and A Punk Kid Walks Into A Bar.

For the most part Salt Lake City lacked interest, knowledge and respect of zines, Wrekk looked mainly to pen pals for other zines and inspiration. She later broke away from the silliness of Fun in a Bucket and started her own zine, Brainscan in 1997, that was more reflective and thoughful than Fun in a Bucket.

Wrekk later moved to Portland, Oregon to be closer to where her sister Webly went to college and also where she already knew some zine penpals like Antonio and Zack Hyde of Three Sheets to the Wind and Beer Powered Bicycle. In Portland Wrekk found and contributed to the zine community working on the anual Portland Zine Symposium, and volunteering at the Independent Publishing Resource Center and the creative reuse store S.C.R.A.P.

Alex Wrekk met Joe Biel as a pen pal in the late '90s. Wrekk convinced Biel to move to Portland since his house burned down. Wrekk started helping Biel with his record and zine distro, Microcosm Publishing, out of their home in 1999. A few years later, Microcosm grew and moved into office space below Liberty Hall, in large part thanks to the original zines and books they were publishing, including Wrekk's own successful Stolen Sharpie Revolution a DIY zine resource.

Alex has recently left Microcosm Publishing due to personal reasons and is currently making 1 inch buttons through a new site at [Small World Buttons][1].

Bibliography

Contributions to Other zines

• $100 & A T-Shirt DVD
• Coffeeshop Crushes
• Make Something book
• O #4
• Eyecandy
• You Can Work Any 100 Hours Per Week You Want (In Your Underwear)!!

Podcasts/Audio Recordings

• An audio chapter on the IPRC Audio Zine CD.
• Selections from "Brainscan #21" for the Zinester Podcasts series.
• An upcoming podcast with her sister Webly called "Born to Love Volcanoes"
• "She Handed Me Her Diary (video)" narrated with Alan Lastufka, available on YouTube.com

Zines

• Fun in a Bucket (perzine) 1995-1998
• Brainscan (perzine) 1997-present
• I'm A Wrekk 1999
• Crossing the Rubicon 2001
• Fire Apparatus 2002
• Is it July yet? 2002 split zine with Eleanor Whitney of Indulgence zine
• Don't Send Me Flowers (split with Webly Bucket) 2002
• Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2002
• Birthdays & Christmas / Faking Distance (split with Korinna Irwin) 2004
• Timezones & Statelines (split with Alan Lastufka) 2006)

Split Zines

• Brainscan #8 with Big Surprise 1998
• Brainscan #9 with Touched by an Anvil and Ritalin Kid1999
• Brainscan #11 with Eyecandy 2000
• Brainscan #14 with Three A.M. and Journalsong
• Brainscan #16 Cars in the Bike Lane with Joe Biel 2001
• Brainscan #17 with Rock Star With Words a one night split with Korinna Irwin 2001
• Timezones & Statelines with Alan Lastufka 2006

Zine Tours

• Copy and Destroy Zine tour 2003
• Cut and Paste Zine Tour2003

External Links

• Wrekk on MySpace
• Wrekk's Artist page on Microcosm

Alex Wrekk
Bibliography
Zines: Fun In A Bucket (1995-1998) • Brainscan (1997-current) • I'm A Wrekk (1999) • Crossing the Rubicon (2001) • Fire Apparatus (2002) • Is It July Yet? (split, 2002) • Don't Send Me Flowers (2002) • Stolen Sharpie Revolution (2002) • Birthdays & Christmas / Faking Distance (split, 2004) • Timezones & Statelines (split, 2006)
Contributions to other zines: Coffeeshop Crushes (????) • Make Something (book, ????) • O #4 (????) • Eyecandy (????) • You Can Work Any 100 Hours Per Week You Want (In Your Underwear)!! (2006)
Audio Recordings
Podcasts: Zinester Podcasts: Brainscan #21 (2006)
Audio CDs: IPRC Audio Zine ("Between the Lines", 2004)
Filmography
Documentaries: $100 & A T-Shirt (DVD, 2004)