CJ Wu

Today’s the day! @readtome_ will be performing and chatting comics at the Addi Road Writers Festival today! ———————- Some great folks reading to kick things off: @yeevz_ @cjmakescomics @tayla_colley @stickwriter I’ll be reading something too. And then, AND THEN! Then we’re going to talk craft, comics literature, and the Australian indie seen for a bit. ——————— All@the detail are in the usual spot! Xx

If you’re on ZineMap you’ve probably already gotten this in your inbox but if not, we’ve got a ~newsletter~ and the first one is up on the site! I’m planning to send one every 2 weeks to share a bit about what’s been happening around ZineMap both on the site and out in the world. This first issue talks about new behind-the-zine-scenes interviews, a zine fair, a presentation, a strategy meeting, a new map steward, site updates, conversations with people using the map, and lots of people to thank! Read the full thing at zinemap.com/stories and sign up if you want the next one in your inbox. or just DM me your email :)

the collective unconscious has chosen violence 🥕 a #gentlecomicshabit exercise from last year's Toolkits: Graphic Narratives by @express_media (word has it their apps for 2026 are open for 2 more days 👀)

possibly the most intimate I’ve been with a dude. also, feels good to be making comics again \o/

Here’s a recent piece of work I’m proud to share: an in-depth interview with Stef, founder of la Fanzinothèque Genevoise @fanzinoge , the only zine library in Switzerland. I stayed with Stef during my self-funded research trip for @zine.map , so this piece comes not just from what she told me, but also what I got to see. Stef’s path to founding FanzinoGE came out of a couple decades of being in zine culture, realizing how easily these publications can disappear, and then literally studying to become a professional librarian in order to build a place for them. So no, a zine library is not just a room full of zines. There’s the day-to-day admin, the cataloguing, archiving and indexing, the programming and events, the relationship-building, the applications and paperwork behind trying to secure a permanent space, all while preserving small pieces of history for public access and building a shelter for publications that almost never make it into institutional or commercial circuits. It was very special to witness a tiny fraction of that work up close, in moments like watching her explain to someone new at the atelier what a zine can be (for what I imagine must be the gazillionth time), and taking the train with her as she transports all the workshop materials with her caddie de grand-mère that climbs stairs (and still super heavy). It might not be a quick read, but if you care about zines, DIY culture, or the people building infrastructure for independent publishing, I think it’ll be worth your time. Read here: /stories/la-fanzinotheque-genevoise-behind-the-zine-scenes #fanzine #fanzinothèque #zinemap #zinelibrary #suisse

Very last minute but I'll be reading a thing TONIGHT with @readtome_ at Knox St Bar!

𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗽 𝗔𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗢𝘂𝘁 庙会摊位阵容陆续公布中…… CJ Wu（any pronouns）是一位居住在悉尼的华人酷儿，兼任漫画家、译者与软件开发者。CJ 创作自传式与日常片段风格的 zine，记录生活中细小的快乐与挣扎，也将波兰语和意大利语的儿童书与漫画翻译成中文。CJ 同时也是 ZineMap 的创办人——一个由社群共同维护的平台，帮助大家在全球找到支持 zine 的书店、图书馆与艺术节。 这次 CJ 将带来自行出版的自传 zine 与迷你漫画，内容围绕作为一名华人酷儿，在不同城市与语言之间移动、沿途收集故事的真实生活经历。摊位上还会有一点特别应景的小惊喜。欢迎来翻翻 zine，打个招呼！ @cjmakescomics . . CJ Wu (any pronouns) is a queer Chinese cartoonist, translator, and software developer currently based in Sydney. CJ makes autobiographical and slice-of-life zines life's little joys and struggles, and translates children’s books and comics from Polish and Italian into Chinese. CJ is also the creator of ZineMap, a community-maintained platform that helps people find zine-friendly bookshops, libraries, and festivals around the world. CJ will be bringing a selection of self-published autobiographical zines and mini-comics based on real life experiences as a queer Chinese person moving between places and languages and collecting stories along the way. There will also be something very festive on the table. Stop by to browse the zines and say hello! @cjmakescomics 📅 Saturday 21 February 2026 | 12:30–5:30pm 📍 Ashfield Town Hall 🎟 Free entry LINK IN BIO (registration required) 🗣 Mandarin / English Curator: @cedricyccheng , @ellen62442 Assistant Curator: @joeisshort4johndoe Producers: @christine_hung26 @star.gayze Caption & Translation: @ellen62442 Illustration: @cat.arttherapy Poster: @ellen62442 Special thanks to @sydlnymarket for co-creating part of the stallholder line-up for this event, and to Wen Pei from Project Market-space for their support in the market.@_waterclover We acknowledge the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation and Djarrawunang Land as the traditional custodians of the land we gather on. This event is proudly supported by the Inner West Council and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. @innerwestcouncil @sydneymardigras

Trades from @sticky_institute ’s Festival of the Photocopier! Excited to read these on my flight home 🤓 Thanks to everyone who stopped by my table! So nice to catch up with folks and meet new people. Special thanks to @even.little.meg for feeding me 🍫🙏 #fopc2026 #comics #comix

This January feels like the 13th month of 2025 to me for a variety of reasons, one of them being that I haven’t properly celebrated my *career milestones* from 2025 as a newbie cartoonist, so here they are: March: talked with @clough.robert who said, hey, you got enough pages for a minicomic! And you should get out there! 3 days later I put one together and brought it to Blue Mountain Zine Fair @mtnszineclub ! April: got into a shop for the first time! Huge thanks to @cockatoocomics , who I met at BMZF and offered to stock my comic. May: Became a *published* cartoonist through the Gutter Anthology! June: met lots of new folks at @cakechicago and had my minicomic picked up by @aquatic.panda.distro ! July: @zine.map was born! A project that stemmed from me wondering “where else can I stock my comics” and grew to something much bigger. Now I’m proudly building infrastructure for the community <3 Aug: stocked my minicomic in 20+ shops in the US and France! Sept: tabled at my first fest @strangefoldszinefair ! Nov: first comic reading w/ @readtome ! I’d been to a few RTM events and thought it must be so nice and validating to do a comic reading and when might I get to do one of those? Then I met @fionnmccabe at Comic Con-versation who asked me to read at @healesvillezinecomicfestival the week after \o/ Dec: tabled at my sixth fest @krakowzinefest and received my first comic review from #deathtothezins (in Polish, no less) 2025 is the first year I’ve felt like a legitimate cartoonist. It’s an understatement to say I’m still massively insecure about my drawing skills (or “rendering skills”). I’ve been telling everyone “but I can’t draw” just so they can’t say it first! What I’ve come to learn is that this insecurity never really goes away, no matter where you are on the objective spectrum of “rendering skills” (if there is one) so this year one small change I’m making is to stop saying “but I can’t draw.” How that affects my art we shall see :P (worst case I’ll just start saying it again in 2027.) Thanks to everyone I met through comics and zines this (last) year! So grateful to be part of this community. Can’t wait to see what we create next! #comics #zines

Trades and purchases from @krakowzinefest 🔥 Dziękuję wszystkim za wymiany i miło spędzony czas! Wielkie dzięki dla @ildeb i @agnes_de_gregori za organizację, i dla @pawel.slon za mega sales pitch 🤓 Scena polskich niezależnych komiksów i zinów jest naprawdę wyjątkowa, i tak bardzo się cieszę, że przyszłam!

Will be tabling at @krakowzinefest tomorrow + debuting a new comic zine about my long and open relationship with the Polish language. And other stuff in Polish. It will be fun. Do jutra :) #komiks #zinefest

Hi people! I’m working on an interview series for ZineMap called Behind the Zine Scenes. It’s a collection of conversations with the people behind the pins you see on ZineMap - the ones running shops that stock zines, organizing zine festivals, maintaining zine archives, or hosting zine workshops. This grew out of the many small conversations I had during the early days of building ZineMap, doing a lot of door-to-door walk-ins (because there was no map yet to tell me which shops stocked zines :P) I’d ask if they carried zines (and if they would take a look at my self-published comics please?), and if they said yes, I’d stay and chat, learning about how each shop handled things like consignment, curation, bookkeeping, etc., and the challenges and joys that come with running a zine space day to day. These early chats helped shape the first versions of ZineMap, and as the site slowly grew to include not only shops, but zine libraries, archives, festivals, and workshops across the globe, I started to get a clearer sense of the ecosystem around zines, how different it can vary from place to place, and the incredible amount of work and care that goes into running a zine space. So this series is just me continuing and expanding these conversations, and putting them in one place for anyone curious about zine spaces to get a better feel for how they work, for people running them to pick up ideas, and for those without a local scene to maybe get inspired enough to start their own! I’ve already chatted with a few folks and am really excited to share their stories soon! If you run a zine shop, library or event and would like to add your perspective, feel free to reach out via DM or email [email protected]. I’d love to learn about what you’re building and help others discover it too! Lots of love! CJ from ZineMap #zinemap #behindthezinescenes #zines #zinescene #comics #indiecomic #zinemapping #diy #smallpublishing #zinester #zineworkshop #zinemaker #zinelibrary #zinefair