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Con-G 2024 Panel Slides

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Con-G 2024 Panel Slides - Text only

Slide 1

Introduction to DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Zines

  • Image: A variety of art supplies and zines lie in a semi-circle around a hand-written title

Slide 2

Link to slides

Slide 3

Introduction

  • Name: Kai, they/them pronouns
  • I make stuff…sometimes it’s art, streaming, zines
  • Hobbyist, doodler, manga collector
  • Not an expert
  • Image: Two puppet charms sit on a longboard with the design visible

Slide 4

Reasons for making this panel

Zines are cool and I’d like for more people to try making them.

Zines in the fandom context seem to have gained an impression where they are highly polished and commercial creations with a high barrier to entry when zines have historically been a creations of the marginalized.

  • Image credit: Lindsay Eyink
    • Alt text: Box of San Francisco punk zines from 1990s in collection of Prelinger Library

Slide 5

What is a zine anyway?

Zines are (pronounced as in “magazine”):

  • self-published or published by a small, independent publisher
  • non-commercial, and are printed in small numbers, circulating only through specific networks
  • underground publications that tend to have niche audiences
  • provide a vehicle for ideas, expression, and art
  • Source: A Brief History of Zines, Zine Genres

Slide 6

What’s so great about them?

You can be as small or big as you like

  • Freedom of expression
  • Easy to make and distribute
  • “Anti-surveillance”

Why make them?

  • Expression of yourself
  • Processing an event
  • Recording an experience
  • Tutorials and other information to share
  • Fighting back against a harm in your community

Slide 7

What about fandom anthology zines? (not the focus of this panel)

  • Fandom compilation zines

    • Usually curated and competitive with a portfolio required (but not always)
    • Free or paid
    • Sometimes comes with merch add-ons
    • Can be expensive

  • Modded a server zine in 2022

    • Audience: only the people in the server, 25+
    • Queer fanfiction and fan art

  • Use discretion when vetting what projects you want to take part in

  • Image 1: The characters Tadashi and Ainosuke sit next to each other and are dressed in office wear. Tadashi has short black hair and Ainosuke has short blue hair and is making a pout face at the viewer.

  • Image 2: lemon emoji

Slide 8

Okay, but what to make my zine about?

  • Things you’re interested in
  • Things you’ve already made, but collected
  • Collages
  • Zine idea generator
  • Zine jams with themes (Google it)
  • That comic or book or poetry collection you keep saying you’ll make
    • You can always remake it if you’re not happy

You have freedom to make it as you like~

Art by Rainie.draws on Instagram

  • Image: It’s a zine, Issue 2, May 2022. Featuring a cover with a brown and white cat drawing, and a quote “The next zine topic, by divine dictatorship, shall be cats”

Slide 9

Quarantine digital zines, 2022

  • Audience: Friends & whoever feels like downloading it

  • Credits: Mercurial.doodles, Ironside.illustrations, Rainie.draws

  • Image 1: Fuck it, it’s a zine. aka “COVID: Year 2” Issue 1, January 2022

  • Image 2: It’s a zine, Issue 5, September 2022, “Wings”. Featuring a cover with an angel with a halo and a pair of wings eating a lollipop “there you are! I was beginning to think you chicken’d out.” The caption reads: “True to her words, she actually showed up”

  • Image 3: It’s a zine Issue 3 June 2022, “Monster”; a werewolf howls at a red sky, an illustration by Ironside.

  • Image 4: It’s a zine Issue 4 August 2022 “Building” - 4 pieces of art are cropped and featured, including a cat, a house, two men in an alley, and a Rowlet.

Slide 10

Quarantine zines, 2022

  • If you don’t want to worry about file resolution, just make it on paper and photocopy it
  • We named it “It’s a zine”
  • Issue one had a zine inside a zine
  • Downloads
    • Options: Google Drive, Itch.io/Ko-fi, Discord, Neocities website, Dropbox, etc.
  • Downsides: digital only, BUT easy to make
  • Just chuck everything into a word processor, Google slides
  • Image: Discord chat with the message “We are making a zine that you can print at home; Theme: COVID Year 2

Slide 11

You don’t need a whole lot of materials

  • Paper
  • Writing/drawing utensil
  • Scissors
  • Image: a minizine folded out flat on the theme of “Anime that I am looking forward to this year” with each with a new anime. The anime featured are Frieren, Bucchigiri!?, Bang Brave Bravern, Apothecary Diaries, Medallist, Yakuza Fiance, Wind Breaker, and Detective Conan 30th anniversary film.

Slide 12

  • Image: Minizine before it is folded, made with a single sheet of paper. The zine is titled “Maids & cats” and features maids and cats.

Slide 13

  • Image: Minizine before it is folded, made with a single sheet of paper. The zine is titled “Tadashi x Ainosuke [ SK8 the Infinity ] A Man & His Dog: A Shipper’s Manifesto”.

Slide 14

Minizine

  • Image 1: Maids & Cats minizine cover with art of a shaking black cat
  • Image 2: A squatting Ainosuke from the anime SK8 the Infinity while dressed in a maid outfit. He is smoking. Next to him, Tadashi is also dressed in a maid outfit while skateboarding.
  • Image 3: Tadashi and Ainosuke play together with cat versions of themselves. Cat Ainosuke is sitting on Tadashi’s head, and Ainosuke is teasing the cat Tadashi with a toy.

Slide 15

Meta essay fanzine

I wrote it because I have a lot of feelings about this pairing and it’s a convenient size to print, cut, staple and give away.

  • Image: “Tadashi x Ainosuke [ SK8 the Infinity ] A Man & His Dog: A Shipper’s Manifesto” cover featuring the official art of Ainosuke in a bathrobe washing his face while Tadashi stands like statue behind him.

Slide 16

  • Image: Inside of the minizine with a page about the history of Ainosuke Shindo, and another page about the key events of the anime.

Slide 17

Sk8 the Infinity Fanzine

  • It was actually a submission for the server zine but I realized it was getting out of control in terms of length and wasn’t a comic😂
  • Combined fanart and the lyrics from George Bizet’s aria “Habanera”
  • Image: Habanera, A SK8 TadaAi Zine cover with a teen Ainosuke peering expectantly at Tadashi with a rose in hand, while Tadashi looks at him sadly.

Slide 18

Slide 19

Printing version 1 at the library

  • Image 1: A letter size paper folded in half with the cover of the habanera zine
  • Image 2: Interior of the black and white zine with art featuring child and teen Tadashi and Ainosuke. It is black and white with streaks.

Slide 20

  • Image: Close up of the 2 pages. Page 1: “Love is a rebellious bird / That none can tame,” Child Tadashi plays with a sparkler while child Ainosuke clutches his arm and looks on in awe. Page 2: “And it is quite in vain that one calls it, / If it suits it to refuse;” Teen Ainosuke looks at Tadashi while offering a rose.

Slide 21

  • Image: “And it is quite in vain that one calls it,” Tadashi and Ainosuke as adults, and Tadashi is lying above Ainosuke on the ground while wielding a sword.

Slide 22

  • Image: Page 1: “The one talks well, the other is silent;” Ainosuke drinks from a glass with a frown while Tadashi peels and apple. They are surrounded by red threads. Page 2: ” And it’s the other that I prefer, He said nothing, but he pleases me.” Tadashi and Ainosuke sit by the pool under the moonlight, about to kiss.

Slide 23

  • Image: Colour cover of habanera with Ainosuke sprawled on the ground with a cassia flower in his mouth while Tadashi stands above him with a sword.

Slide 24

Leave room for printing discrepancies

  • Image: Light shines through a paper that is printed double-sided, but te edges don’t match

Slide 25

OC x Suits x October artzine

  • Art challenge work printed in a booklet format
  • Image 1: A stack of paper with the inside page visible next to a large printer
  • Image 2: OC x Suits x October artzine cover presented by Kaitou-al featuring 3 cropped images of characters kissing a frog, pushed to the ground while covered in food, and sharing a cigarette kiss.

Slide 26

TadaAi logs fanzine

  • Full colour, 8.5 x 11 in folded in half
  • Gifted, traded, or donated
  • Collection of art from 2021-2023
  • Printed at local print shop
    • If you’re concerned about having the print shop read your zine, I’d recommend self-serve printing
  • Had weird banding
  • Unusual size since it’s “full-bleed”
    • The print shop owner helped me cut the edges off with a big paper cutter
  • Image: TadaAi logs sk8 unofficial fun book featuring Tadashi and Ainosuke in S gear holding hands happily

Slide 27

  • Image: layout progress in Affinity Publisher showing the master pages and user interface

Slide 28

  • Image: interior colours pages featuring art of Tadashi and Ainosuke. Zine pages: Left: Adam dances on his longboard while Snake rides his white skateboard. Right top: Adam and Snake from the anime “SK8 The Infinity” fighting each other with swords. Adam is dressed as a matador, and Snake in a dark jacket and purple cravat. They are both bleeding. Right bottom left: Snake from the anime “SK8 The Infinity” removes his black gloves. He is a young man with short black hair under a red cap. He is wearing an olive bomber jacket, white undershirt, and black pants. A large “S” sticker is on his left arm. Right bottom right: Snake from the anime SK8 holding a piece of silver heart jewellery in his mouth.

Slide 29

  • Image: Photo of the zine with banding in the printing

Slide 30

  • Image: Zine page - Left top: Tadashi and Ainosuke laughing together at S. Ainosuke is holding a bouquet of roses and Tadashi is holding a paper chain with the name “Adam” with a heart on the end written on it. Left bottom: Ainosuke and Tadashi are sitting on an airport bench waiting for a flight. Ainosuke is dressed in a pink Kariyushi shirt and dark sunglasses, while Tadashi is napping with a baseball cap covering his closed eyes. By their sides and under their feet are bags with worn skateboards strapped to them. Ainosuke’s skateboard is pink with the twin hearts symbol, and Tadashi’s is light blue with a white snake. Right: Ainosuke and Tadashi in their day outfits of a vest and full suit working at the office. Ainosuke is seated while reading a piece of paper and holding a pen. Tadashi is standing and speaking to someone over his smartphone.

Slide 31

Here we go again: Hand-lettering artzine

  • Low resolution art because I made the art for web uploading
  • When in doubt, draw with a higher resolution and scale down
  • Image: Here we go again cover with the words done in a flowery script. The word “Again” is incomplete while art supplies are scattered all around the words.

Slide 32

Tools

None of these these tools are required. Zines have a lot of freedom.

  • Start here
  • Intermediate
    • Affinity Publisher, and Adobe InDesign ($$$); are much more precise but learning curve is much higher
  • Image: Sharpie and scissors

Slide 33

Tips

  • If are making art, draw it bigger or at a larger resolution than you think you need
  • PDFs are the most common file format for export and printing
  • Make a prototype; test, test, test!
  • It doesn’t need to be perfect; part of the charm of zines is in the imperfection
    • If you’re selling them, might be a different story
  • Image: PDF icon

Slide 34

Printing terms

  • Bleed
  • Print resolution
  • Gutter
  • Margin
  • PDF
  • CMYK vs RGB

…or skip all this and just make it on paper directly 👍 Making the one page zine with no staples is a great way to start.

Slide 35

Booklet printing

  • Use a template or make a mockup
    • Multiples of 4 pages
  • If you export your PDF by pages and have access to Adobe Acrobat on desktop, using the Print > Booklet function automatically reorders the pages into spreads that can be saved for printing/photocopying
    • No math involved

Print booklets using Acrobat Reader

  • Image: booklet mockups made with small sheets of paper

Slide 36

Sometimes making zines is about solving mysteries…

  • Image 1: Images of maids and cats with black backgrounds that overlap on other pages
  • Image 2: A Google search for the words “affinity pdf black boxes”

Slide 37

Where to get your zine made

  • Library, school, etc.

  • Self-serve places

  • Convenience store

  • Print shop

  • Image 1: Printed zine pages in the tray of a printer

  • Image 2: Close up of a black and white copy of “Here we go again” zine

Slide 38

What to do with your zines after you make them

  • Read them

  • Gift them to friends

  • Trade!!!

  • Donate to places like zine libraries

  • Sell them

  • Image 1: “Zine Library Ovah Here” sign with an arrow

  • Image 2: Habanera zine on a spinner at the zine library

Slide 39

Example catalogue item for habanera

  • Image: Cover and description of habanera from the library catalogue site

Slide 40

Zine community

  • Image 1: Canzine 2023 sign on the sidewalk during a sunny day
  • Image 2: Toronto zine library: a resource zine #2

Slide 41

  • Image 1: Zine Dream 2022 poster sign on the sidewalk during a sunny day
  • Image 2: Scattered zine on a coffee shop table
  • Image 3: Risograph overprint swatch

Slide 42

  • Image: zine fair attendees and tables located in the lobby of the Museum of Contemporary Art

Slide 43

  • Image: zine fair attendees gathered around a table with zines

Slide 44

  • Image 1: “Welcome to Canzine 2022” sign in a glass window.
  • Image 2: Slides for a presentation titled “How to run a sharity collaborative zine: tips & tricks!”
  • Image 3: Stale Cupcakes fanzine issue #1 March 2020 featuring Animal Crossing character faces on the cover

Slide 45

  • Image: zine tables and attendees set up in the main floor of the Toronto Reference Library

Slide 46

  • Image: a pile of zines with a variety of zines and shapes

Slide 47

Summary

  • Zines are a great way to express yourself
  • Simple to start
  • Good way to connect with others and your community
  • Make zines!!
  • Image: a pile of zines on the topic of Tadashi & Ainosuke, original characters, and hand-lettering. They are of varied sizes and colours.

Slide 48