Donovan

A self-published queer zine from Barcelona, Donovan is filmmaker, writer, and activist Elio's love letter to pre-digital gay print culture, splicing homoerotic vintage imagery from the 1950s through the 1980s with new work by contemporary artists.

Each issue, its cover flagged simply "gay X rated," pairs archival physique-era photography and period graphic design with commissioned drawings, collages, and photographs from an international roster that has included Bruce LaBruce, Daniel Riera, Paco y Manolo, Roberta Marrero, Felix d'Eon, Pol Anglada, and Luis Venegas. The zine launched in December 2019 with a party at Bar Candy Darling in Barcelona organized with the LGBTQ+ bookshop Llibreria Antinous, and has run for at least five issues through 2023, circulating through queer bookshops such as Antinous (Barcelona) and Berkana (Madrid).

Elio, credited on bookseller listings as Elio Colen Mirete, edits and publishes Donovan as an independent project dedicated to the photographic culture and design of the 1950s-1980s seen from an LGBTI perspective, keeping the look and feel of the vintage gay magazines it draws on while placing them in dialogue with current queer image-makers.