Why Make a Zine?
By Craig Atkinson.
I came back to zine making in 2017. I’d been blogging for a couple of years, and it was going well, but there was something missing. I found I couldn’t fully express myself on the digital page.
Sure, I could add a few cool interesting angled photos, and comb through the writing to improve its flow, but there was always something missing. Together with that feeling, I knew if a blog wasn’t posted at the right time for the best possible traction, it would most probably disappear into the web. Blogs were losing value. The popularity of YouTube was increasing and more and more people were interested in the content of a blog, presented in a video format.
I wasn’t blaming anyone for this, but I wanted to find a way to give value to my readers. I wanted to give them something they could keep. Give them some value for the support they were showing me. Then out of the blue I had the idea to make a zine.
I was first introduced to zines in roughly ’97. I was playing in a punk band and the lead singer/guitarist showed me a zine he was reading. It was a ‘Cometbus’. He said he wanted to make zines too, so he began working on one. A short time later we began making a band zine.
I only contributed once or twice, as I wasn’t confident with any art I created back then, except for what I did on the drums or skateboard. But I helped out on the other aspects of creating a zine, the copying, folding, stapling, and selling. Actually all of the zines that we made were available on our merch table every time we played, along with a bunch of other DIY stuff we produced, including our CD.
A few years after the band broke up I went traveling. Looking back, I wish zines were a part of my life at that stage, but generally they weren’t. However, Cometbus zine solely continued as a connection to the zine world.
(Cometbus began as a scene zine. In it you would find local band information from the East Bay area. Then as the zinester started to travel, it evolved into stories of friends and the road. The last handful of issues have been focused on punk, zine, music, and DIY culture.)
Cometbus was not only my first connection to zines, but reading his work gave me permission to write. It gave me that, ‘if he can do it, then so can I’ feeling. And not because of his quality, but because of everything his writing stands for.
20 years later in summer of 2017, I took my minimal computer skills, bag of creativity, and got to work to produce something I would be proud of, but also something I could afford to make. It ended up being a 16 page, mini zine, cut down, folded, and glued from a B4 (37cm X 26cm) piece of paper. Printing it at the local convenience store only cost me 10 yen (10 cents) per copy. You can check out a video of how I make it here:
SIDE NOTE: I have a friend who believes in using the right technology for the job. This might sound obvious, but to elaborate, picture a fax machine.
Many of you reading this probably have very little experience with one, and immediately think they are an outdated technology, by which you’re not that wrong. But here in Japan they are still used in a vast majority of offices. I often use one myself for one of my part-time jobs. And they work for the purpose that I need it for. Japan likes to have things documented on paper. I am required to keep a weekly working record on paper, which is signed (Hanko stamped) to confirm the work I’ve done for that day. Then, on a weekly basis I have to fax that to my employer’s office where it is kept as a record. Now you might say this is ridiculous, but let me refer you to a few lines up above, ‘Japan loves paper documents.’ By using a fax machine, 2 parties have a signed hard copy confirmation in case any problems arise.
That’s just one example of using a technology that works for the task. It doesn’t have to be the latest, just the one that works.
Full circle.
Why come back to blogging if you believe so much in the zine medium?
Simply because I can now see where they support each other. Like I said at the beginning, I struggled with the limitations of blogging, and wanted to create more than just the text of a story. Working hand in hand, blogging gets the zine community out to people unfamiliar with it. The blogs can also open doors to people who feel limited in the digital space like I did.
There are a few other reasons why I went back to zines, but let’s explore them another time.
