by VINCENT TINGUELY

The four organizers of Expozine are dynamos of productivity. Andy Brown is launching the Conundrum Press fall line-up; he and Billy Mavreas are co-editors of the "Public Domain" issue of Matrix, which is coming hot off the presses for its first appearance at Expozine. Mavreas has put together Monster Island, a comic antholozine featuring seven Montreal artists. Louis Rastelli has been expanding his network of Distroboto machines, and has just put the finishing touches on the latest Fish Piss. And when he's not editing stuff for Cumulus Press, publisher Dave Widgington works with Les Lucioles, the anarcho-video collective, and is a journalist with CKUT.

With such creative muscle, no wonder the second edition of Expozine is shaping up to be almost twice the size of last year's, with 100 anglo and francophone comic artists, small-press and magazine publishers and zine moguls converging in one gigantic space.

How is it that a city chock-full of indie publishing activity didn't have its own zine fair until last year? "A number of years back it was a running joke with Andy and Billy," says Rastelli. After seeing the success of the Montreal comic fair Komikaze, and huge turnouts at the Anarchist Bookfair, it seemed likely that the city could host a more general zine fair. Mavreas quips, "Personally, I was tired of spending all this money and time in Toronto every year, spending all my zine earnings on gas and Taco King. I felt there was enough talent in Montreal to have its own thing." According to Brown, "It's something that's long overdue. It's a lot more diverse here than in other cities - it's bilingual, multicultural, with European and American influences - Expozine is bringing everyone together, it's a celebration of independent culture."

Widgington points to the creative dynamic a zine fair can set in motion. "There's a need for everyone to get together from the underground alternative independent publishing scene. Get the people creating the stuff all in one room, getting to know each other, meeting each other, making contacts - maybe it'll develop more creative efforts between people." Mavreas adds, "The poets have to get out of their poetry ghettos, cartoonists out of their cartoonist ghettos, and mix and match a little." This year's fair features artisan presses like L'Oie de Cravan, indie artists like Julie Doucet, literary and art magazines like Esse and Maisonneuve, activist zinesters like Bloodsisters, out-of-towners like European comic distributor F-52, and Highwater Books, a high-profile American comic publisher that has just relocated to Montreal. There'll also be tons of zines. Says Rastelli, "Quite a bit more one- or two-zine people are coming out of the woodwork - it's pretty staggering, 30 or 40 per cent of the exhibitors, both French and English!"

EXPOZINE HAPPENS SATURDAY, OCT. 25, AT RELAIS MONTREAL (500A MONT-ROYAL E., NEXT DOOR TO METRO MONT-ROYAL), FROM 10AM–7 PM, FREE