As I open up a PDF containing previews from the The Fat Zine – a freshly-launched publication created by fat-positive writers Gina Tonic and Chloe Sheppard, for fat people – the very first thing I see is a picture of a model called Elyonna Mone. Within the photo, which was shot by Izzy Jackson, Mone’s backside takes centre stage. She’s within the shower as gentle drops of water trickle down her frame. It strikes me that even on this age of supposed ‘body-positivity,’ it’s very rare to see images of fat bodies from behind. That’s, from angles that is perhaps considered “unflattering.” It’s especially rarer to see such images of fat, Black bodies (or other bodies of color).

Here, though, drips pour down Mone’s back boobs. We are able to see her rolls, her cellulite, and the width of her bum. Her face shouldn’t be visible, but there’s still an amazing sort of power to her stance. A definite lack of apology that makes me wonder how seeing such a picture as a younger person may need impacted me. Would it not have perhaps encouraged me not to cover from the mirror? Would I even have believed that delighting in my fatness was possible? Would I even have known there was beauty to be present in my mass? There’s little question that, regardless of the impact, it could’ve been much more affirming than Fat Monica – one among the few representations of bodies like mine I ever saw back then.

“Chloe and I even have each said the entire way (through this project) that we just wish we might had this publication after we were teenagers,” Tonic tells Dazed Beauty. “I ponder who we could be now if we had.” Sheppard adds: “Little question. In my editor’s letter I mention it too. I ponder if I’d have checked out it at 15 and tossed it to 1 side considering, ‘Yeah, that couldn’t be me,’ or whether it could be the awakening I waited so long for, and desperately needed.”

Through 100 pages of interviews, photos, artworks, personal essays, and more, The Fat Zine gets incredibly real in regards to the nuances of living in a fat body: the great, the bad, the ugly, and maybe most strikingly, the potential for beauty once we’re liberated from every little thing we’re told we cannot have or be due to our size. It also carves out space for the sorts of topics and imagery that lots of mainstream publications proceed to draw back from, like fat fetishism and fat nudity. 

The creators primarily relied on open submissions for the content, in order that they didn’t know precisely which direction the zine might take. In the long run, the variety of the submissions – a tangible metaphor for the variety of experiences one can have when existing as a fat person – is a component of what makes the publication so memorable. It’s a large contrast to the fluffier, watered-down depictions of a once-radical movement we now see in all places – and an intentional contrast, at that.

“It becomes quite tiring seeing people who find themselves a size 12 bend over to create rolls then post about it on social media and get celebrated for being ‘authentic’ when fat individuals who have rolls without trying are shamed just walking down the road or in a food market,” explains Sheppard. “To make this zine which calls that stuff out, and is an area where fat people really could be whatever they wish to be, felt necessary, and to attempt to echo a few of what created the fat liberation movement in the primary place.”

In 2020, it unfortunately does feel like actual fat people have been solid apart from a movement created for us. The Fat Zine not only re-centres fat individuals, but celebrates us fully. “For therefore long, fat people’s voices haven’t been centred, and still rarely are, so I feel having an area where people could just send in just about whatever they liked meant that we had such a variety of submissions to select from and meant we got to cover a complete range of themes,” Sheppard explains. Tonic also notes that the overarching theme for this issue was “self-isolation, not simply because of quarantine, but because feeling alone and isolated is certainly an element for any fat person, specifically growing up.”

There’s something quite special about this project’s format as well. Although ‘fat-liberation’ and its more mainstream incarnation ‘body-positivity’ have definitely exploded in the general public consciousness throughout the past decade – breeding books, blogs, Instagrams, Etsy illustrators, and myriad articles on online publications – I cannot personally say I’ve held a fat-focussed zine in my hands. Fat activist and writer Marilyn Wann launched what was perhaps the primary fat zine Fat, SO? in 1994, but for Millennials and Zoomers, The Fat Zine might just be the primary time we will physically hold such a group of fat works near our hearts.

“Having a publication you’ll be able to hold and rip apart and stick in your wall and show to others that exclusively has fat art, words, and imagery is something that might’ve modified my life as a young person,” Tonic muses. Sheppard agrees. “I’ve at all times been obsessive about displaying my love for things with tangibility, whether that’s collecting records, posters, or zines, and I know the way holding a zine in your hands feels so rather more magical than reading off a screen. It’s a physical reminder that we’re here – we’re beautiful, worthy, every little thing that so often we’re told we aren’t.”

“Having a publication you’ll be able to hold and rip apart and stick in your wall and show to others that exclusively has fat art, words, and imagery is something that might’ve modified my life as a young person… It’s a physical reminder that we’re here – we’re beautiful, worthy, every little thing that so often we’re told we aren’t” – Gina Tonic & Chloe Sheppard, founders, The Fat Zine

For Tonic and Sheppard, it was also critical to create an area that felt secure for fat Black folks and POC. While making the zine, they witnessed some major silencing and erasure of fat Black bodies on social media, resembling Instagram’s censorship of Nyome Nicholas-Williams. Tonic explains that platforming Black fat individuals will take priority for the zine. “Without Black fat women, we would not have body-positivity, so why are they so excluded from the conversation now? We’d like to bring these voices back to the forefront and it’s our responsibility in starting a fat only publication to achieve this,” she notes. They can even be donating 100% of the profits from Issue 1 to Black Lives Matter groups and Gofundme pages.

If there’s ultimately one feeling the creators want readers to walk away from once they pick up The Fat Zine, it’s a way of community and safety. Tonic wants to point out the countless “alternative ways our bodies can look, be, exist, and thrive.” Sheppard hopes people realise that “they’ll live of their fat bodies and know that that’s enough. This world is a fucking awful place lots of the time and I’d prefer it if (the zine) helps our readers to do not forget that we’re not truly alone in it; to know we’re greater than the headless figures we’re made out to be within the miserable media and that being here and telling our stories is enough.”

Order Issue 1 of The Fat Zine now with 100 per cent of proceeds going to BLM groups and GoFundMe pages.