Have you ever produced a 'zine?

In particular, a paper based publication (although stories of e-zines (if such things exist) are welcome) (WOW - double parentheses, it was like a bit of a nested Excel formula!).

Anyway, reason I ask is I am midway writing one that I want to make available on-line and physically through a football club shop. My questions are - how often did you produce editions? How many pages were they? How did you produce them - was it on Word or did you use something like Microsoft publisher? How did you print them - was it just at home or did you find a specialist printer?

Stories, experiences and advice would be most welcome.

@_Em

I knew I’d seen a site from a user that had 'zines on and couldn’t for the life of me remember who it was. Thanks!

Frequently. They can’t stop me. (Nobody has tried yet).

I type up the text on word, then hand cut and paste it mostly. Occasionally I’ve used InDesign.

I used to get them printed at a cheap place I knew, but once I no longer had access to that, I bought a laser printer.

I have also run many zine fests.

Tried starting one but was too depressed to get anywhere really.

If you wanna see the various ones I’ve produced over the years, here is the full catalogue:

http://www.emmafalconer.com/zines/

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Ah - good stuff!

Presumably you include plenty of illustrations? I was wondering how to work around this, because inserting photos and pictures into Word and then formatting the writing to fit is a ball-ache. This could be an answer.

Thanks :slight_smile:

Yes, I use a lot of patterned backgrounds and images. This kind of thing:

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This looks pretty awesome…

Order incoming!

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Today’s actually the last day I can take any orders until September, and I’m limited to the things I happen to already have copies printed of until then- I’m visiting family in France from tomorrow, then going to Germany for work for 3 weeks. So it’s 25% off today:

Cool - I’ve placed the order, but don’t worry if you can’t despatch until you get back.

Don’t worry- it’s going out today!

You a fan of DWJ then?

my friend did a few editions of a zine and i sent her some drawings i did and took them to bars and stuff round the northern quarter to leave a few near their doorway or whatever. think she just printed them at home tbh. they were meant to be quarterly i think but she only did three. they were dead good tho

This sounds really cool - I’m fine with all the wordy stuff, but illustrations is more difficult. I don’t want to rely on photos with stupid captions, but my arty skills are utterly lamentable.

I’m curious about her - of course, I know Howl’s Moving Castle through Studio Ghibli and since watching that for the first time have always wanted to find the time to learn more about her work.

I def def recommend her books. She has a lot though.

Through doing the zine I ended up being invited to her funeral. I think I was one of the last people to interview her before she died. Sadly I didn’t finish the zine before she went though.

The family had a private service (that I didn’t go to), then they had a public memorial a little later in Bristol with talks from her friends/people who had worked with her. It was kind of half funeral, half academic conference.

The book of Howl’s Moving Castle is the same in spirit/characters but a lot of details are different. The secret bit of the changing door opens up to suburban Wales for a start. (Also Howl is welsh)

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I’ve written for a couple of football fanzines. Don’t sell it in the club shop it goes against the culture. If you’re not stood in the pissing down rain shouting “new xxx out today, xxxx fanzine” and getting weighed down by pound coins then spending the money before you’ve seen anyone to give it to and end up having to nip to the bank before the next match to get the money you owe and repeat the cycle all year.

Ha! Reminds me of a Jonathan Wilson anecdote, this, of his time selling a Sunderland fanzine outside Blundell Park one winter afternoon / evening.

This, too, is a football fanzine, but the intention is that all the proceeds go back into the club - hence selling it through the club shop and online shop. My time on matchdays is generally spent doing multiple other jobs, so standing in front of the turnstiile in the pissing rain, whilst an attractive prospect, is a no-go unfortunately.

@penoid - come back to us :cry: