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Guide To Zine Making

Guide To Zine Making
Zines are self published materials with short print runs. Zines can be about anything from your favorite band to what you did on your summer vacation.

The world of Zine making is a largely underground. Zines are a perfect way to express ideas or feelings that are not fit for the main stream due to their personal content or unpopular ideas. Zines are the fastest way for writers and artists to produce self published works.

This guide seeks to give aspiring Zinesters not only tips to produce their first zine but gives some background on zine culture and how to get their zines out into the world. 

Here is a 10 minute mini-documentary about zine making called Cut and Paste:

 
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Step 1A quick history of zines

A quick history of zines
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The boom of self published materials can trace to pre-1960s science fiction fan mags or fanzines. These fanzines allowed amateurs as well as professionals to publish their own science fiction content and share it with one another.
In the 1960's and the increase of political activism we saw an increase in self published political papers. This tradition of political self publishing continues today.

Starting in the 70's there was an increase in zines coming out of the punk movement. These zines were much more harsh in looks then their predecessors and took on the photocopier as the holy grail of publishing capabilities. Earlier to publish most people had to know the basics of offset printing layout. With the utilizing cheap copy machines, people could have an idea, put together a booklet and pass it out the next day. This allowed the punk movement to spread ideas and to promote new kinds of music. These ideals pushed into the 80's and resulted in the zine culture we have today which involved thousands of different publications and whole festivals dedicated to the creation of zines. The zine movement was an important part of forwarding the riot grrl movement of the 1990's.

Source: http://www.zinebook.com/resource/perkins.html




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9 comments
Jun 13, 2010. 6:55 PMmmdcrass says:
Thanks!
Jun 12, 2010. 3:37 AM92033 says:
Only one 'constructive' criticism. Why didn't you check your AUDIO before publishing it? Can barely hear the verbal commentary. This takes me back to many pleasant memories. In the 1960's I published a 20-page monthly Magic periodical using electric mimeograph machine with silk screen. Copies were sharp as offset printing. Used electronic stencils on a stencil cutter from typed, cut & paste, artwork,etc. In the '80's also published a 10 page Newsletter from cut & paste typing on a 12x18 inch copier machine for Hypnotists. As a grade school kid I had fun making one issue single copy booklets & stapling at spine by folding the pages so staples would be centered. Great fun.
Jun 11, 2010. 12:45 PMdungeon runner says:
Arrgh, I was gonna make an 'ible just like this! Guess I got beat to the punch. This is a really cool instructable, I been doing zines on and off for years. Your tips and suggestions are really well put together. I wish I could have had this when I was just starting out. I have been doing a perzine called The Shepherd's crook" for about a year. It's an homage to my last name, Shepherd. I have also done a few one-offs, one of which was ironically about zines :). -Y
Jun 12, 2010. 8:18 AMdungeon runner says:
I'm working on it. I don't know where to start distributing if I did in in print, but I think I'll try and distribute them as PDF files. If I finally decide I'm worthy*, I'll post a link somewhere on instructables. -Y * I have some pretty bad judgemental anxiety, so this might take a while.
Jun 12, 2010. 7:14 AMcarsoncool says:
Sorry, i meant help, not health
Jun 12, 2010. 7:13 AMcarsoncool says:
Hey! Thanks so much for the health! Im looking to be a young Author and im now writing a zine. I'll post it when im done!
Jun 11, 2010. 5:04 PMChrysN says:
Zines are great, I've picked up some good ones over the years (I really like cookbook zines). Great instructable!

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