Zines (self-produced, small-circulation publications) are extremely DIY, and therefore punk- and hacker-adjacent by nature. While they can be made with nothing more than a home printer or photocopier, some might benefit from professional production while losing none of their core appeal. However, the professional print world has a few gotchas, and in true hacker spirit [Mabel Wynne] shares things she learned the hard way when printing her solo art zine.
[Mabel] says the most useful detail to nail down before even speaking to printers is the zine’s binding, because binding type can impact layout and design of an entire document. Her advice? Nail it down early, whether it’s a simple saddlestitch (staples through a v-shaped fold of sheets), spiral binding (which allows a document to lay flat), or something else.
Aside from paper and print method (which may be more or less important depending on the zine’s content) the other thing that’s important to consider is the finishing. Finishing consists of things like cutting, folding, and binding of the raw printed sheets. A printer will help arrange these, but it’s possible to do some or even all of these steps for oneself, which is not only more hands-on but reduces costs.
Do test runs, and prototype the end result in order to force unknown problems to the surface before they become design issues. Really, the fundamentals have a lot in common with designing and building kits or hardware. Check out [Mabel]’s article for the full details; she even talks a little about managing money and getting a zine onto shelves.
Zine making is the DIYer’s way to give ideas physical form and put them into peoples’ hands more or less directly, and there’s something wonderfully and inherently subversive about that concept. 2600 has its roots in print, but oddball disk magazines prove one doesn’t need paper to make a zine.
Old hacker-ajacent guy says: “Back in my day, sonny, we were lucky if we had access to a mimeograph or ditto machine. Now get off my lawn!”
Mimeo or later grainy photocopy. The essence of the zine is:
– its imperfection and DIY nature
– its content, that typically would not get published
In Soviet Union zine makes you. Samizdat.
If you own a printer it’s not a “zine” it’s just a brochure. If you’re taking it to a printer it’s not a “zine” it’s just a velo-bound prom night disaster.
Lemme tell you about “punk”. Most people who style themselves as “punk” are Summer’s Eve.
Stay in your lane, HaD.
This guy never has to pay $10 for the seat cause he only needs the EEEEDGE!!!!
Lighten up, Francis
Sounds like someone hasn’t had the pleasure of punching Ian McKaye in his effing face because “Someone I know works there so I can go behind the counter and grab a magic marker and give myself a make-believe tattoo.” It was wonderful banning that ass from my store, and it wasn’t even my store..
Brian Baker, late of Bad Religion, previously Minor Threat and Dag Nasty: “We’ll just put an ad in the paper and say “punk band wants to sell van.”
Name me a punk who didn’t grow up in an upscale neighborhood and didn’t have a fallback. You can’t.
Punk equals a-hole in my book.
Y’know what’s not punk? Gatekeeping. How about you stay in yours, o arbiter of truth.
Being against gatekeeping is the ideology of a tapeworm.
Being against gatekeeping is the business model of a door seller.
It’s not a zine if you print it yourself.
It’s not a zine if you have someone else print it.
QED zines do not exist.
Look, disregarding all the talk about gatekeeping, after reading the article, it seems more like overcomplicated self publishing.
I think for most people, ‘zine’ means something that’s cut and pasted on letter sized sheets, and photocopied wherever you could find a copy machine. The fancy ones had flashy, bright orange, or pink cardstock covers.
I’ve made photocopied comics, and self published soft and hardcover books, and none of it was as complicated as what was laid out in the linked article.
The thing about zines is that they are about getting your ideas out there using what you have at hand. The article said she needed the help of four technicians?
One of the best
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factsheet_Five
I work in public transit and we are by law required to give drivers printed booklets with their duties and rosters. The price of these booklets is enormous, about 5 (euro) cent per (A6) page, which counts up to a lot if it’s 300 pages, for 200 drivers (so order 250 for temps etc).
I have often heard “Let’s do it ourselves, that’ll save costs” from depot managers, especially if it’s for a short term, like only a week of detour workings. Often, after this week, the depot manager sighs and says “next time we’re going to bring it to the printer”, because the cutting, assembling and punching holes would always take so much (paid) time.
The only booklet I usually printed and assembled myself was for a small island (1 line, 2 buses, 7 drivers, but 10 different “working days” depending on how many tourists the ferry company expected.) Explaining to the printer what needed to happen was more complex than just printing it myself.