Experimenting with Making Zines

This might be fun for you to try.

The other night, inspired by writer and artist Austin Kleon, I tried making a “zine” to give to my wife on Mother’s Day.

Zines are little homemade magazines that can serve as greeting cards, notes of encouragement, mnemonic devices, explanations of deep thoughts, or whatever a person might choose.

My Mother’s Day zine didn’t go well.

And why was that?

First of all, I proved to be very slow in understanding the simple instructions Kleon gives in his video on creating the pages for one’s zine from a simple piece of 8-1/2” by 11” typing paper. My waste paper basket quickly filled up with a stack of paper with bad folds and bad tears.

When I finally got a properly folded and torn piece of paper, I realized I had no idea what I was going to put in my Mother’s Day zine. Suddenly, I remembered the caption of a picture in Charlie Chaplin’s autobiography in which the comedian noted of the moment captured in the photograph, “Building a set with absolutely no idea in my head.” I’m no Chaplin. But, inspired, I decided to attack the small blank spaces of my zine without an idea in my head.

I began by reducing and copying a favorite picture of my wife and putting it on the front page of my prospective zine. So far, so good. I then pulled out some of my brush paint pens and tried to create some interesting background coloring, along with block letters spelling out her name at the top of the page. I’ve retrieved it from the trash to show you how lame it was.

As you can see, I wasn’t off to a great start. I didn’t want to produce a great work of art, but I didn’t want nonsense either.

(The little “Yep” stick figure on the front page was, by the way, inspired by cartoonist and artist Paul Palnik. Decades ago, when Ann was coordinator of the Artists-in-Schools program of the Great Columbus Arts Council, Palnik was part of the program. After he presented programs, he would send confirmations of his presentations, along with expense and mileage vouchers to Ann via the mail. Every envelope he sent to her was a work of art, covered with people saying things like, “Yes, indeedy do.” In fact, Ann gathered a bunch of these amazingly-decorated envelopes and put them in a frame that still hangs in our living room today.)

On Monday night, I tried my hand at another zine…this time with the idea of creating something for a little child in our lives. I started out well, although I need to work more on my printing if I continue to insist on doing my own lettering in the future. But it may have been too ambitious a project, as you’ll see in the short video I did below. It’s meant to be an encouragement to you to try your own hand at zines.

So you get a better idea of what zines can be, here’s a link to Austin Kleon’s very short video on the subject.

Here are a few stills from my latest aborted zine project. But I definitely intend to keep trying. I thought I might like to make a zine and copy it to give to the young ones who hear and read it the next time I’m called upon to do a children’s sermon during worship. As Kleon explains in his “how to” video, since all the printing goes on one side of a piece of paper, you can unfold the completed zine, lay it down on a copy machine, and make multiple copies to give to anyone.

If you try your hand at a zine, let me know how it all turns out. Send pictures!