ChemBros Fanzine (The Colours All Around You)

[instantreigen]

Happy new year to all my wonderful Chemical Siblings!

After reading Paused In Cosmic Reflection and finally seeing Tom and Ed live, I felt a new wave of inspiration and energy rushing through me. I had this idea for quite a while, and finally got to sit down and actually organize it: A Chemical Brothers Fanzine! For those unfamiliar with the term, it is a magazine by fans for fans. This zine is going to be called "The Colours All Around You - A Celebration of Immersion, Lasers, Robots, and Clowns", and it is going to focus on the live experience of a Chems show from the crowd's perspective. When it is finished, it will be published as a pdf, and hopefully with enough demand, we will be able to have a small run of physical magazines.
 
For this, I am calling all my fellow siblings to be a part of this zine. Whether you are an artist or writer, or would just like to see where this project is going, I would love to hear from you! If you have five minutes to spare, I would kindly ask you to fill out this form. It will help me with gauging the general interest for participating in and reading the zine, and to get a feeling of what is and is not possible in terms of length, content, extras, paper quality, etc. If you know any people outside of the forum who would love to participate in or read this zine, please feel free to share this post with them!

I will mention here that this zine is strictly non-profit. My intention with this magazine is to bring fans together to create something that is a thank you to the boys, to Adam & Marcus, to Mark Monero, and the countless other people involved in those mind-bending live shows.

If you like where this is going, I would be really happy about some feedback through the form as well as in reply to this topic. I will always do my best to keep you updated on the progress of the project, but if you'd like to follow along yourself, I did make a Twitter/X and Instagram account for this zine as well as a microsite that will always be kept up-to-date.

Very excited to see where this project will go, and I hope some of you guys are just as excited as I am! 

[whirlygirl]

What a wonderful idea! I'm in awe of your dedication to start this (and of your organization of it all)! Love it!

[Bosco]

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're going for, but I do enjoy hearing feedback/pictures/ experiences surrounding Chems concerts. If somehow you can package that in a non-official official-way... I would be intrigued.

All I know is, Chemical Bro shows are now becoming fewer and farther between, and for us hardcore fans, concerts become significant dates regardless if we attend. I would love for someone to document or do an official-type reporting/summarization for all futures shows, if that could be made possible.

[instantreigen]

If somehow you can package that in a non-official official-way... I would be intrigued.

That's honestly what I'm going for! My plan is to have the magazine being sort of like a best-of-compilation of Chems live visuals, with drawings/artistic interpretations of the different visuals as well as people writing a little something about them or their experiences and feelings while they saw these visuals live. I also want to dedicate a larger section to Mark Monero, he's been about every character in the book! 

I would love for someone to document or do an official-type reporting/summarization for all futures shows, if that could be made possible.

Now if someone ever does that, I'd be so invested! Not what I'm aiming for with this zine as I don't want to focus on just a singular show, but my does it sound wonderful. 

[𝒥𝑅𝒮𝒵]

And I was just wondering WHO's behind that fanzine which started to pop up on my ig.
It was so obious.
Filled the form, now let's observe the thing 👀

[whitelabel84]

I am all for this mate!

Can't wait to see what you come up with!
Best of luck 🙌🙌🙌

[Stefan]

That sounds like a fantastic project!

[instantreigen]

Thank you all for your feedback! So far responses to this seem to be really good, but unfortunately the flu season did not spare me and I have to take a step back for a little bit. I'll keep you guys updated once I am back on track! 

[whirlygirl]

Feel better soon!! 

[instantreigen]

Hey all! I feel much better now and wanted to report back - the overall response to and interest in this zine went far beyond my expectations! Thank you all for filling out the interest check form, I think this is a project we can realize!

I'm not planning on officially announcing the zine until next week, but if you'd like a head start you can apply to participate in it ahead of everyone else here: https://chembroszine.carrd.co/#join. I'm aiming to include as many people as possible while still maintaining some overview about this zine. Filling this form out will take a little longer, I'd say around 10-15 minutes, but it'll ensure that I can properly assign every contributor a topic they will like to illustrate for or write about.

If you have any questions or feedback, again I'd love to hear from you, either here or through the link above!

[inchemwetrust]

Count me in! Would love to do write ups on all things chemical related! Just put my application in!

[𝒥𝑅𝒮𝒵]

I'd say around 10-15 minutes, but it'll ensure that I can properly assign every contributor a topic they will like to illustrate for or write about.

Took me a hour (normal thing, so dw) because I wrote the whole text I want to share, but later read that I can't copy what I wrote in form, so just put the introduction as I really want to share this exact story.
Also if I put the wrong mail (I don't think I did, but just in case) feel free to contact me via discord.

Looking forward to the project

[instantreigen]

Thank you all for your applications so far! I'll post about this online this week too, hoping to get more responses through that. I just wanted to mention it here in case it was not obvious: You absolutely do not need to be a high level professional artist or writer to participate. This zine is all about love, and love is all 

[instantreigen]

Also thought it'd be a good time to share the table of contents (as planned so far!) with you. I tried my best to compile and compress the best/most memorable/most iconic visual moments of your average ChemBros show, whether 2023 or 1993, into a total of 28 pages including cover. My plan is to have people creating an art piece that showcases said moment/visual, and then have another person writing about it, whether it's an essay, a poem, a review or any other form of writing. Combined, the artwork paired with the text will each cover one of the topics listed below:

• Early Chems Visuals (Projections, etc.)
• 3D-Visuals (exploding teapot, anyone?)
• Further
• George and Mildred
• Kate Tabor costumes
• Live show immersion (e.g. Saturate baloons, GTKO confetti tears, MAH lasers)
• Mark Monero (the GOAT!)
• Adam Smith & Marcus Lyall
• and of course Tom & Ed!

This list is still a WIP and highly dependent on the amount of artists and writers sending in an application. If you'd like to see a specific topic covered in the zine, please do let me know either here or in your application. If we end up getting more traction and attention drawn to this project, I can expand this list if we also have enough artists to illustrate. I am not shying away from illustrating for the zine more than once, but it shouldn't be just my work in there either!

[instantreigen]

Hey! Just thought I'd give another heads up as this Friday is the last day to apply for contributing in the zine! You can apply here: https://chembroszine.carrd.co/#join

Should you for some reason not be able to fill out the form(s), feel free to send me a mail (chembroszine (at) gmail (dot) com) with your name and previous work you've done! I'm excited to get back to everyone soon!