This year’s issue of Four Minutes to Midnight is dedicated to our favourite festival here in the city; Expozine, Montreal’s annual small press, comics, and zine fair. Celebrating it’s tenth anniversary this year, Expozine has always provided John and I with an amazing venue for us to showcase our work, and welcomed us into a lovely community of support and inspiration. Our seventh issue won the first ever Expozine award for Best English Zine (the first year I was back in Montreal), and since then we’ve been honoured to be a part of the festival, with me hopping on board the organising committee a couple of years back. The DIY ethic of the festival has always appealed to both the aesthetic and politics of 2356, and it has acted as the catalyst for many dear friendships and allies. Given all this, it only made sense that for their tenth birthday, we bake them a Four Minutes to Midnight zine-cake, complete with a gold-foil stamped cover.

The bilingual issue features interviews with Expozine co-founders Louis Rastelli and Billy Mavreas, long-time co-organiser Pascal Fioramore, two essays exploring the independent cultural scene in Montreal by Sebastian Hell and Stefan Christoff, and a 70+ page collage of selected works extracted from the thousands of zines collected in the Expozine archives. Given the immensity of the festival, our selection is obviously biased (ahem, curated…), reflecting themes of personal interest (eg. social anxiety, cats, sex/love, and revolution!). Still, one of my favorite parts of the issue is the near complete list that we compiled of the 1100+ exhibitors that have tabled at the event over the years (set in 5-point type).

Featured contributors include: Elisabeth Beliveau, Jonathan Reid Sevigny, Jeff Levine, Amber Forrester, Julie Doucet, Ethan Rilly, John Campbell, JB Staniforth, JR Carpenter, Nadia Moss, JP King, Kirsten McCrea, Matthew Forsythe, Shannon Gerard, Shawn Kuruneru, Simon Bossé, Fred Mahieu, Ian Sullivan Cant, Eloisa Aquino and many, many more. A million thank yous to all the talented artists involved, and if you haven’t received your copy yet, please let me know.

Expozine photos were taken by Camille McCouat and Denis-Carl Robidoux.

The issue was lovingly printed by our friends at Imprimerie Kata Soho, and wouldn’t have been possible without the editorial assistance of Sara McCulloch, Jess Alley, Sophie Le Phat Ho, and Heather Stewart.

Download a PDF of issue 12 (16.2 mb)

Browse Four Minutes to Midnight 12 on the Issuu website.