#how to zine

[oleandrsstudio]

Today's #zine #review is of "Pocket Guide to Medical Self-Advocacy: Tips to Help You Help Yourself at the Doctor or Hospital" by Mick Moran @micklikestype!

Getting medical care should be easy. It is often difficult. This zine is a useful guide with advice on how to navigate healthcare visits. One part that stuck out to me was some example wordings for how to maintain boundaries during a visit, wordings like “Since we have limited time together, I want to make sure we have a chance to talk about the issue I came in for, which is…” (direct quote from the zine).

This is a piece I want to share with my mom. It is very useful and was easy to read.

#zinereview #disabilityzine #spooniezine #howtozine

[inky-thoughts]

When do you invite the guest artists? after contributor apps so you can see if they applied before inviting them?

To be honest, I haven't worked on zines with guest artists, and I'm sure there are several ways to go about it, so take my advice with a grain of salt here. I also want to preface this by saying that I'm not 100% sure what you mean with guest artists so I'm going with "artists that are invited into the zine and don't need to apply to it" so sorry if that's not what you meant.

In general, guest artists or sometimes also called feature artists are people you *really really want* in your zine. They usually are curated for a reason, typically because they fit the vibe of the zine so well, or because you want to collaborate with them specifically (maybe you're friends or you look up to them, whatever the reason really). In either way, I would find it more adventageous to ask them once the concept and planning has been done and the mod team stands, not after all the other contributors are settled on. Especially if you have a printed zine, you have limited spots/space in the zine. If you settle the guest artists early on, you know exactly how much capacity you have left for normal applications. This also means you can select the other contributors based on the vibe/aesthetic of your guest artists.

There's also a second layer to it: if you publicly announce your guest artists before you open up regular applications, your guest artists might actually help you promote your zine and motivate others to apply to it so they get the chance to work alongside the guest artists. Of course there's an off chance that some people wouldn't apply specifically because one of the guest artists for whatever reason, but again I find that chance to be rather minimal.

I find it also leaves a bad taste in applicants' mouths if they get a rejection but later on find out "this person was specifically asked to join the zine after they didn't even put interest into it, unlike me" so generally, I would advise against asking people after they didn't apply. That feels just rude towards the people who were genuinely interested and didn't make the cut.

Of course that's just my two cents so if anyone has more experience with it/an opinion on it, feel free to add onto it!

Hope this helps?

[supercorpzine]

Hi! I'm curious what program you used to put the zine together? Did you use Abode InDesign? Do you have any tutorials/resources that you would recommend for learning whichever program you used? Thanks!

Hey there, this is Grace! Sorry for the delay I was out of town when we got your message.

Both I and Monica, who was the art mod before me, and Batten who tagged in on assisting with merchandise in later volumes, used Adobe InDesign. We didn't list any particular programs in our How To post (didn't want to assume skill level) but if you are hoping to have lots of text or go to print, InDesign will be your industry standard program for that. There are non-adobe alternatives, but I personally didn't use them because they often don't offer the tools needed for print production or meet my needs for a design program. This may be different for you! We unfortunately don't have any strong recommendation for a free program to try, but we do know of Gimp, SketchUp, and Adobe Spark. Take your time trying out different programs to see which one better fits your needs. If you can get InDesign free from a friend that may be worth it.

Should you choose to brave InDesign, Adobe's resource page for tutorials and trouble shooting will be helpful. They also have a forum community where you can connect with others and ask questions. You could also check out the reddit page if you would like to have another community option! A quick search on YouTube also yielded a bunch of different tutorials, so you'll just have to pick and choose which ones would work best for you for the task you're facing. I apologize I can't really give you more specific answers on InDesign tutorials, it's a large program (as are all Adobe programs) so I would suggest just learning about the pieces and parts that pertain to what you're trying to achieve!

[mochiwei]

Hi, love your art! I've been following you for a while and I've always wondered, how to you find zines to apply to? You seem to be very involved in the type of projects that I'd love to give a shot at myself! But I only find a few here and there (and recently did my first zine contribution, happy about that!) So I was wondering, what are some good ways you'd recommend to find more zines to apply to? Thank you and once again, love your illustrations!

Hi Anon,

Thank you for your message!

I find zines mostly through the artists I follow on social media. Since I draw a lot of Zelda fan art I also follow other creators who love Zelda as well. Then those creators promote zines they’re modding or are involved in and I apply when the applications are open!

I also follow a lot of creators from different fandoms and when they post about their zine projects I throw my hat in as well. I’ve applied to Adventure Time, Pokémon, Ace Attorney, The Batman, and of course Zelda zines that way.

In the beginning I got a lot of rejections but I kept drawing what I liked and built a portfolio from there! I did challenges like Drawtober and Linktober which really helped me build a stronger portfolio for zine applications.

All in all, to find zines I would suggest searching for keywords like “applications open” or following creators that frequently mod zines. There are also zines that publish an edition each year with different artists and have open applications periodically!

In the meantime keep creating and have fun!

Happy searching!

[swampybogg]

[heartorbit]

happy halloween! 🎃🐈‍⬛👻🐇

[fernsnailz]

she's so cool

[luposlipaphobya]

Falling in love with an outer god

(Just wanted to imagine what it’d look like if Mel took a draconic form in front of Lazuli. I guess it’d be more voidy and nightmarish in game cause of the Fallen Aasimar of the Awful Deep thing, but let’s just say that Mel could also be related to a golden dragon who was also Pelor’s favorite so… 👀 I wanted to try a fairytale/medieval vibe here, kinda happy with how it turned out! Melisande belongs to @the-nothing-maker ❤️)

[panstarry]

my final from last semester that i made into a zine. cooked this one up in a couple hours before the critique (the ink was still wet!), so it's very raw and kind of sloppy but the sentiment is there. i love you trans people of color. we are the backbone of this community 🌟

[oleandrsstudio]

Happy Nanowrimo! If you’re participating this year, please let me know how you’re doing! I’m sending good luck your way!

Today’s #zine #review is of “How to Hug A Tree” by Ella Lim! This is number 2 of the series, for some reason I didn’t buy number 1.

I love zines that look professional like this, they have an element of playfulness that make them fun. This one looks at the physical act of hugging a tree with a serious tone and clear instructions. I tend to be an indoors kind of person, so I liked this handbook for appreciating nature.

#minizine

[wishing-well-art]

My piece for the @trafficzine 5th edition! It was such an honor to have my piece alongside so many other amazing artists in this fandom, and it's especially special since Secret Life was the first life series I watched!

I'm so proud of this piece, the mounders have my whole heart... See if you can name all the little mounders moments I put in the panels :]

Alternate versions and sketches below the cut!

Top two are sketches from when I was laying out how I wanted the final thing to look like, bottom left was the first draft of the piece until I decided I wanted more little references to other Mounder's moments across the piece, I still love it; and bottom right is the lined version of it when I was still struggling with color and figuring out how the sparkly parts were meant to look.

[inky-thoughts]

When are page artists allowed to post the full piece of their zine artwork? After pre-order?

Yes typically it's after pre-orders are complete or sometimes after zines have shipped but I've also worked on zines that allowed us to post the full illustration as soon as pre-orders went live. It's completely up to the zine and what they think is more advantageous, but from a marketing perspective I would say after pre-orders are completed is your best bet to entice people to actually buy the zine.

Have fun & thank you for the ask!

[celerydays]

🤍 Monster AU(?) Horror movie/actor AU(?) drawn for the Le Blanc zine in 2023 🤍

I thought it would be super fun to go for an old school, kitschy horror movie poster vibe with a werecat!Chat Blanc -also I may or may not have just come out of a huge monster romance reading binge at the time huhuhu

[kazehita]

Happy new years ✨

for @hotguycalendar 2024 :]

[hinamie]

so just know, I'm healing / even though it don't feel like it

insp

[kkoct-ik]

yttdisms now im moved in