Sunday, September 27, 2009

How to make a mini-zine

Ahh Zines. I remember when they were quite prevalent back in the 90’s. Little tiny self made articles of interest. Published whenever the author felt like it, usually free, or maybe $1. Most were photocopied so many times that the images would distort, or have random ramblings or theories which sometimes made no sense at all. But still I liked them nonetheless, the little windows to another’s mind and creativity that they were.

With the dawn of blogging making it easier to speak one’s voice with minimal effort, the zine fad has since been killed, or at least horribly crippled. There still remains a strong zine underground as long as you know where to find it. I was surprised to find that Myspace has an exceptional amount of zines and zine distributors, along with a few zine libraries as well. Most of these pages list a way to contact them for copies, or you can just simply message them as well.

I had gotten my first glimpse of zines at a young age, when my family had hosted a small BBS from our house called, “Swagland.” My father being none other than the “Swagman” himself. The BBS had many postings that inspired everyone involved to create a zine they dubbed, “Swagazine.” Although I gladly hold possession of hard copies of the first few editions, it has since been put up on the net at www.swagazine.com.

As I have grown older, I have aspired to write my own zine that I have dubbed, “Debauchery.” However with the life events that have occurred seemingly one right after another, I have not been able to produce what I originally thought would be a great zine, full of naughty pictures and surrealistic stories of the night’s debaucheries that I myself had a hard time believing. One day I will make this zine, in all it’s glory that it deserves. Until then I have settled in making a small miniature version using the format below.