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Zines at Wellcome Collection

  • Series
A selection of 5 zines arranged on a table as seen from above the table. A person sits at the table with one of the zines open infront of them.
Image credit zines: Embodied: A memoir comic, Rae Lanzerotti, 2023. Prompts for zine making for disability & chronic illness, Vicky Stevenson and Ellie Page, 2019. Dependant Alarm, Chloe Heffernan, 2021. Did it help? Getting an autism diagnosis in early middle age, Heena, 2023. Believing: a zine about love and loss among the mad, Rachel Rowan Olive, 2023. Photo: Thomas Farnetti, Wellcome Collection, 2024..

Zines are DIY publications, produced in limited numbers and often aimed at a specific audience or community. Yet zines defy definition. As one zine-maker put it: “Zines can be anything – any size, shape, quality, format”.

Explore some of Wellcome's collection of over 1,400 zines in the stories below, with topics including mental health, disability, gender, chronic illness and menstruation.

Discover more about how zines have been used to share experiences of disability and disabled identity from one of our past exhibitions: 'Zines Forever: DIY Publishing and Diability Justice'.

  • Article

Rag mags and monthly issues: Five period zines to stop you seeing red

Using humour, personal experience and political activism to explore the bloody reality of menstruation.

  • Article

Six personal health zines that might change your life

Personal zines put health conditions back in the hands of the people who experience them. Here are six that Wellcome Collection staff love.

  • In pictures

Zines from the in-between

Zines, because they are messy, unconventional and personal, are the ideal vehicle for describing the in-between, liminal parts of life. Lea Cooper is a researcher and zine-maker who has been delving into Wellcome’s zines collection.

  • In pictures

Quaranzines

Researcher and zine-maker Lea Cooper explores pandemic zines made by people who were often familiar with “staying at home” because of disability or chronic illness.

  • In pictures

Neuroqueering comics

Researcher and zine-maker Lea Cooper considers how comic-zines use the distinctive qualities of zines to explore some of the complex connections between memory, autobiography, disability, neurodivergence and queer identity.

  • Article

What are zines doing in a museum

On the face of it, zines and museums are not a good fit, but Lea Cooper argues, they have a lot to offer each other.

  • In pictures

Zines as 'crip doulas'

Find out how 'crip doula' zines offer support, advice, resources, and share the complex feelings and experiences around disability.

About the authors

Black and white photograph of the head and shoulders of a young white person with short blonde hair and glasses. They are smiling and looking straight at the camera.

Lilith (Lea) Cooper

(they/them)

Lea Cooper is a zine-maker and zine librarian at Edinburgh Zine Library. They recently completed a practice-based PhD working with the zines at Wellcome Collection. They live on the Fife coast in Scotland.

Photograph of Nicola Cook

Nicola Cook

Nicola Cook is a librarian, and is interested in diversifying the voices and perspectives of health in our library collection. When she’s not cataloguing, she can be found discussing curious cures in the Reading Room or trawling the web for new zines.

Photo of Loesja Vigour

Loesja Vigour

Loesja Vigour is a librarian who spends her time cataloguing and instagramming books for Wellcome Collection. She is interested in seeking new and diverse audiences for the collections by engaging them with unique, beautiful and thought-provoking content.