UCF alumnus Matthew Weller launched his first art zine on Sunday, April 24. "Today," the subject of the zine, was the fruit of a three-year labor of love, which sought to capture timeliness and timelessness.

Weller started a blog called The Vinyl Warhol as part of his social media class at the Nicholson School of Communication in 2013. Weller was assigned to run a blog and publish at least seven posts on it. Seeking a subject, Weller decided to channel his love for the Orlando music scene, and he wrote posts about the bands he met and the shows he attended.

While many students would discard the blog at the end of the semester and move on, Weller turned in the assignment and then kept attending shows and updating his blog.

“I thought maybe …show more content…
Weller describes a zine as “a DIY magazine,” a cheaply made publication printed using a photocopier and construction paper. Weller’s zines contained a compilation of photos and journal entries of Weller’s time with bands he accompanied on tour.

On March 31, Weller created a blog post, announcing that those zines he produced were mere warm-ups and that the Vinyl Warhol would be producing quarterly art zines featuring essays, photo galleries and poetry. The first issue, titled “Today,” is issue one of a four-part series centered on the themes of “Today,” “Tomorrow,” “Yesterday” and a fourth issue that’s currently untitled.

“The idea is combining things that transcend time. Things that are everyday like sunsets or breakfasts, they’re today, they’re tomorrow, they’re yesterday for hundreds of years into the future and hundreds of years into the past. Then there are also going to be some things that are going to be more telling as to what time period we’re really talking about," said Katt Mabe, the zine’s …show more content…
The event featured live music from local musicians Zoya Zafar and Fast Preacher, as well as an art gallery containing supplementary materials for the entries in “Today,” explaining what the pieces are meant to represent. There was also a table laden with craft supplies where people were encouraged to “Craft your own today.”

These supplementary materials included a photo gallery by Weller of his 10-year-old nephew holding up a protest sign that said “I want Freddy” to illustrate how Weller felt about seeing children take part in protests concerning public policy. The sign refers to Weller’s nephew wanting to stay up later to watch Youtube streams of people playing a horror video game called “Five Nights at Freddy’s.”

“These are the issues children should be getting angry about,” Weller said. “They should be protesting later bedtimes and less homework not spewing hate and intolerance on issues they can’t possibly