An Introduction:

Zines are a wonderfully freeing creative medium. The only restraints you really have are the ones you make for yourself. It’s a forever growing, ephemeral blip of information. I personally think that’s cool, and it can become a satisfying project with as many written and visual components as you would like.

I’d also like for you to think about making a zine yourself (if you are new to this like myself). It’s a fun, tangible, and creatively satisfying project that is great for so many aspects of one’s creative practice. While this post is (personally) a way for me to document the process I went through, it’s going to be formatted like an essay to get you to try it as well.

Note to the Reader: This will be the first of 3 posts about making this zine. If you'd like to read more, links will be at the bottom of the post when they're finished.

Have Some Fun!

Oftentimes, work is boring. It’s typically full of monotony, and it has usually been a sign of inevitable burnout for me. Zines don’t have to be that way. Nothing technically has to be like that, but some work is more immediately connected to that monotony than other types. Zines don’t have to be monotonous. Fun is possible!

The idea behind my zine is “frogs with nihilistic quotes under them.” I hate to explain comedy but… I think it’s funny because of the contrast between pictures of frogs (that look a little brain dead), and the anxiety-inducing thoughts behind existential nihilism. I used this as a chance (an excuse) to have fun with nihilism and also to learn how to format. I just had to take advantage.

For your own personal zine/ project journey, I recommend trying to find these blips of joy. While learning a new medium especially, I think using humor and joy can be a crucial element of making anything. Especially if it involves other people. When I am learning to make, I aim for something that is 80% joy and 20% serious and has a message outside of happiness. I occasionally flip this if I’m looking to make something more serious, but I find joy first to be more sustainable.

This might be a little arbitrary to you. Imagining writing as a back and forth between emotions can be helpful as well, and this time it allowed for regular thoughts of death and insignificance to be brought through the medium of frogs. I think that’s a pretty great example of using negative energy in a positive way. Looking at frogs and thinking about how inappropriate they are next to brutal quotes is something that was so full of joy to me that I was excited to plan/ make it.

That’s the important part.

If it stopped doing that, I probably would have stopped, or made the zine even shorter. ———————-

You can hold them

One of the reasons I decided to start this project was because of a friend of mine named Shane. Shane is a visual artist. We had a little Christmas get-together this year with friends who didn’t/ couldn’t go home to their families. After the day came to an end, and everyone went home after a day of games and eating too much, Shane and I were talking to each other about our creative pursuits and the everyday work. They read a couple of my blog posts and immediately suggested that I start making zines and selling them. They love zines and works at a game shop that (I believe) sells zines. While I’m not hugely into the idea of selling them (especially my first zine), I was interested enough to keep asking questions.

Then they showed me this almanac zine that a friend of theirs had done. It was amazing! I loved how it felt, the designs on all the pages, and how it all worked together to create this charming little book. But what I loved most about it was the feel.

Many friends of mine who write, play music, and even draw, do all of this on their computers. Even when they use analog or physical mediums, the art is often put online in the end to show people. While I like the sharing element of the internet, I think computers are kind of boring sometimes. Where is the joy in experiencing art if you can’t feel it? Where is the experience of it in a richer context than a tiny screen? I think having the physical print/ version of a project you’ve worked on can be so important to making art feel real.

Also, it’s hard to sell digital prints. Even if you end up digitizing the zine, it still works in the format of a real-life zine, so it feels cooler!

In a way, zines are a physical version of these blog posts to me. I enjoy making them, and the rich visuals and feel make me happy.

Get that satisfaction

Satisfaction in Art, for me, is about having art that serves its purpose. It’s about a job well done, and about the harmonious context with its creator. Making art without that context sucks. Art in a vacuum for art’s sake has always been really rough for me. It’s always been a way to communicate feelings in an abstract way that I couldn’t necessarily say otherwise. It’s communication. It’s usually between myself and others, so when it lives in a box behind the entry point of a link, it begins to get in the way of that communication and my intentions behind the work. That’s why I like a physical medium to share. If someone is in the vicinity of the work, it’s much easier for them to have a context-rich experience that represents the artist’s intentions.

I admit… I do sometimes write songs just for myself, but I typically still end up showing it to friends, or so it’s usually not for the sake of pure catharsis. I usually find that writing for writing’s sake has always been a complete drag. So I try not to do it!

Because I’m looking for that satisfaction from communicating with others, I try to have writing live in a world where even these blog posts are full of visuals, and visually rich writing. This sort of work has led me to really love the release that zines offer. Even if I don’t imagine a post being able to be turned into a zine, I think of it as being something that could be physically printed later. So it has pictures, it has colors, the font type matters to me. The spacing, the way sections are divided and the eye goes from section to section has become something of an art project to me. Zines can teach you that. It lets you get into the idea of self-publishing, and really gives you a different sense of respect for the things that go on to make sure books are the way they are. It’s super satisfying, especially when there is clear progress. Zines are cool because you can just do that.

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In the next post, I’ll talk more about the drafting process behind the zine.