2010 Review: Rob Peart, Zineswap

Date
16 December 2010

An introduction to Rob Peart: he’s one half of the celebrated zine archive/resource Zineswap; he acted as a mentor for this year’s graduates and he’s currently helping us ‘document’ our recent Future:Content conference. He also seems to have a talent for pretty much everything.

Rob’s image of the year: “This is from our second birthday party early in the month – a great way to finish up the year. We rely heavily on the support of other people, and it was nice to get them all together to say THANKS in the best way we know: with booze and a beautiful cake.”

Mark out of 10 for 2010?

9.5. It would be a 10, but who wants to peak too soon?

What broke? How did you fix it?

Actually, everything went rather smoothly. Some things certainly stretched, but nothing so much that it snapped.

What was the best thing you saw this year?

Almost all of these questions could be answered with things to do with my wedding this year. So let’s just say that everything mentioned is the second best/most dangerous thing that happened…

On that note, it’s tough to say. So much. It has mainly to do with friends branching out to do their own new and exciting things. Work has tended to be a very personal experience in 2010. Working alongside and collaborating with my closest friends has made it a very satisying year.

What was your favourite day of the year?

These questions are pretty hard to answer. I only just read through to the end. Actually, now I’m rather wishing I hadn’t: best man/woman? That’s cruel… Anyway, favourite day? My birthday is the 23rd of January. If it falls on a Monday it’s (supposedly) the most depressing day of the year. I have a close friend who shares this celebratory date, so I guess this would be my favourite day. My ex-colleagues used to throw a ‘most depressing day of the year party’, which was always great fun. I hope they invite me in January, especially after the ‘incident’.

Most dangerous/scariest moment?

I am fortunate enough to have a brother. Having a brother makes tough decisions easy. For example: who will be the best man? The answer fell to default, and saved a fight between muscular pals. More fortunate than having a brother is having a brother that can make wild, difficult decisions when there are easier answers at hand and which ultimately means we end up in an ex-soviet nuclear bunkers shooting live rounds from an AK-47 deep in the Latvian suburbs whilst simultaneously being harrangued by a man hidden behind the best moustache I have ever seen.

Best Google image search of 2010?

Oh, er.

Best man/woman of the year?

When Gordon and I talk about Zineswap, we always get asked about our favourite zines, and we always try to give the same answer. It’s not that we don’t like specific zines, but it’s that picking favourites seems pointless – each one has its place both in and outside of the archive, and each one has value added to it by those that we have seen before, and those that will come in future. I think the same can be applied to people this year. If we’d only met one person, we probably still wouldn’t be able to answer the question. It’s been a long twelve months spent with a lot of great people who we owe a lot to. Can we chose everybody?

Your finest moment?

AK-47…

If you could only take one thing that you bought in 2010 into 2011, what would it be?

-

What would you like to say to 2010?

I’ll be back.

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About the Author

Alex Moshakis

Alex originally joined It’s Nice That as a designer but moved into editorial and oversaw the It’s Nice That magazine from Issue Six (July 2011) to Issue Eight (March 2012) before moving on that summer.

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