What is a CRIP* Zine?

Full text for the audio description of
What Is a Crip Zine?

What is a Crip Zine? It’s my new mini-zine for Disability Pride Month, July 2024! With tactile as well as visual surprises, bonus material on the interior, and featuring Principles of Disability Justice and the Disability Pride flag. The pages of the mini-zine turn as a tiny, double-sided booklet ( 2.75 by 4.5 inches) that also can be unfolded into a letter sized page with text and drawings on both sides. There’s a corner cut from the upper right corner of the front cover that indicates where to begin.

The front cover reads, “What is a Crip Zine?” with the all-caps word “CRIP” followed by an asterisk. At the bottom of the page: the hashtag #DisabilityPride followed by the artist’s tag (my name, Rae) and the year, 2024. The zine’s upper right corner is hand-colored in bright pencil with diagonal stripes of charcoal, red, yellow, translucent (or white), blue, green, and another stripe of charcoal.

Turning the page, there’s handwritten text across the two-page spread, which reads: “In 2023, I made a quick MINIZINE that asked a bunch of questions, and I titled it: What Is a Queer Zine?” Note the word zine is enclosed by a rainbow colored with pencils in black, brown, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Text continues: I made this zine to ask What is a Crip* zine?” Asterisk next to smaller text reads: “Upset the set-up! Reclaim ableist words.” Beside the words Crip Zine, diagonal pencil colors: Charcoal, red, gold, translucent, blue, green, and charcoal.

Turning the page, the left side elaborates on and labels the diagonal stripes of colors, with names of the colors written across each stripe. On the right side, text explains the colors’ significance. The text reads: “Did you know there’s a FLAG for DISABILITY PRIDE? Designed by Ann Magill.”

Here are the diagonal stripes and their meanings:
Charcoal is the background of the flag
Green: sensory disabilities
Blue: emotional and psychological or psychiatric disabilities
Translucent (or white): non-apparent and undiagnosed
Gold: neurodivergent
Red: physical
Charcoal: memory, mourning, rage, protest

Editorial here: a flag that depends on visual and colorful symbolism may not be the most meaningful object to unite blind and low vision people among other people with disabilities. But I learned about this flag for the first time this year and wanted to include it. I also note that I call the white stripe translucent or kind of alternate between those two, and in this zine I refer to it as translucent. If you have questions, contact me.

Turn the page to the back cover of the mini-zine. Text reads: “Does a crip zine include?” Then there’s Braille: A raised Braille label and black dots which spell out the word Braille. Text reads: “Or offer vision access tools” Drawing beneath that of a black rectangle with a smaller, open rectangular space it in with text inside that says, “like a line reader. In some editions this space is cut out, so it could actually be a mini, mini, tiny version of a line reader.

Continue turning to the next page, on the other side of the zine, with a two-page spread. It holds text, in hand-printed and script letters, with small drawings such as arrows and musical notes. On the left side, text reads: “or use LARGER dark print greater or equal to 20 pt? increase contrast!” On the right side, text reads: “Is there an audio version PLUS full text? How about a QR code with tactile guide?”

Next to this question I’ve placed a square silver sticker with QR code and a black bump dot. If you feel for the dot and point a phone camera at the dot it guides to the QR code and links to my website with additional features.

On this page you may notice the top margin is deliberately cut to be uneven. One side is higher than the other, like a raised flap with a point in the middle. Fragments of text and drawings show on this flap. If you reach in between the flap parts, it might be possible to gently unfold the entire mini-zine into a letter-sized sheet, exposing the interior of the booklet.

On the interior is a typed quotation from Sins Invalid (2018) in the upper left corner. Here's the text: “Disability Justice is a vision and practice of a yet-to-be, a map that we create with our ancestors and our great grandchildren onward, in the width and depth of our multiplicities and histories, a movement towards a world in which every body and mind is known as beautiful.” (Sins Invalid, 2018) And just to note that I’ve bolded a few of the words here: vision, practice, we create with, multiplicities, body, mind.

A drawing made up of densely overlapping ovals covers the rest of the page, filled with an abundance of hand-scripted words and phrases. These are 10 Principles of Disability Justice. Superimposed on the circles are several small drawings of disability symbols: a navigation cane, hands signing, an infinity sign, a person in a wheelchair, a person walking with a cane. Here’s the text written inside the overlapping, intersecting circles:

“10 principles of Disability Justice, adapted with gratitude
Recognizing Wholeness, we are full beings
Leadership of those most impacted, who know the context of historical systems of oppression
Anti-Capitalist Politic, human worth does not equal “productivity”
Cross Movement Solidarity, unified for social justice
Intersectionality, multiple identities of privilege or oppression
Sustainability, embodied
Commitment to Cross-Disability Solidarity, connect across all disabilities
Collective Liberation, no body/mind left behind
Collective Access, to meet needs together
Interdependence, of all beings and land and communities.”

Thank you for listening to this audio version of What is a Crip Zine? by Rae 2024.