Thinking About Zines

More folding, more blank space, and some tiny portraits

Scaled down copies of portraits and other elements from 2020, fodder for a zine. A. Cowen

Notes are notes. Zines are zines. It might seem that simple, but I think there is some interesting crossover, a bit of packaging that changes the label, adds lines of demarcation, makes one more mainstream and one more edgy. So, here we are, with a bit more folding, more blank paper, and zines.

(Click here to skip the intro and jump straight to the zine talk.)

“I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.”—Georgia O'Keefe

Happy Sunday! I don’t even know how it’s already time again to write. Is it my turn? Maybe I missed your letter in the mail? Maybe I had my notifications off and didn't realize you pinged? Maybe I had good intentions? Were there seven days between then and now? Has it been three weeks since I printed those forms I still haven’t returned? Has it really been 100 days since I finished the 100 Day Project? Has it really been spot on a year since I contemplated a still life on a wall as my oldest started graduate school?

Trash night comes with maddening regularity, Alexa reminding me at 4PM every Thursday, “Don’t forget to take out the trash.” Would I really forget? I set up that reminder months and months ago, but why? I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten to take out the trash. Maybe I did it when the days were shortening, and I wanted to be reminded to stop working long enough to take out the cans before dark. It's hard right now to think of those shortening days coming, or of the days of sunset dog walks a few years back. Alexa reminds me though, every Thursday, that another week has passed.

I don’t have a whole lot this week. My temptation is to say that I just don’t have it in me to make beautiful things right now. That’s the easy explanation, but I don’t really believe that.

Through it all, through all the years that led up to this summer, I’ve been able to write. I’ve been able to take the sound of unseen parrots overhead or the flash of green on a mural, a ginkgo on the ground, the glint of gold on the houses in the distance, and find the beauty, find the glimmer, find the sparkle. Being able to weave meaning and wrap it up with yearning, with hope, with gratitude, and with faith, however disbelieving, even when overwhelmed or disillusioned or frightened, kept me tethered. The process has always been about staying balanced, staying anchored, whether sinking or rising. More often than not, the weaving and sharing of words has afforded peace, a willingness to give in and over to the mechanisms of the world.

I recognize that I am alternating between too little and too much, but I haven’t lost my interest in juxtaposing random threads, folding ideas, shifting lenses, and connecting dots. This is how I breathe. This is how I wander. This is how I look forward and look back. Even now, I am repeating the motions, movements I have practiced for years, listening for the cadence, the rhythm of words, the echo across water, looking for the bounce of light in the trees.

The problem is that every time I write, I cry.

When I come back later to start shaping and chiseling again, to weigh how much truth I want to leave on the page, it is always with renewed conviction, determined to prop things back up, ink the lines, burnish the edges, follow the branching paths, pick at the peeling wallpaper, and shine a light. I want to look under the surfaces. I want to make connections and fill in the backstory. I want to understand the texture of these days. I need to build structures and then pull just glimpses into this weekly letter for the one or two who will read and find themselves mirrored in this process, in this constant shifting in and out of understanding and acceptance, of hope and anxiety, of strength and doubt.

Whatever is going on with me is not necessarily what you imagine or what you picture. There is no perfect overlay. I don’t believe in cookie cutters and one-size-fits-all things. I know that there is too much to explain, too much backstory, too much to sort out and piece together to make sense of the now.

Why do people talk about the weather?

I am worried that I don't know the boundaries between how some things feel and how other things feel. I am worried that I am not feeling enough, worried that I am alternately filled with emptiness and fear and hurt and anger, with the staggering weight of regret, of things and time and possibilities lost.

I didn’t leave the house this week. I’m avoiding the basement. I’m not answering the phone. There have been a thousand ants in the living room. It’s been way too hot, and the curtains are closed, which boxes me in. The grocery delivery was several hours late, and they left all the bags on the driveway in front of the garage in the dark. At least a dozen things were missing, and we ended up with someone else’s red and green peppers, two gallons of Lactaid milk, five really stringy ears of corn, non-dairy cream cheese, a container of fresh thyme, and a head of cabbage. I don’t know what to do with any of that.¹

Where I landed again this week, after writing something simple about a word game left me in tears, is with folding. I talked about folding last week. It seems like a bad sign to be back in the same creased space this week, but after making that little puzzle note, I was thinking again about zines.

Thank you for reading.

Amy

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Circling Zines Again

I’ve been talking about zines for decades. It feels like I've always wanted to make zines. The problem has always been that I just don’t know what to put in one. It seems counterintuitive. I always have too much to say. How can I not fill the pages of a zine? I should have books. Lots of books. But I get stumped by a zine?

This is another instance of too little or too much. It is too easy to overthink. I am too indecisive. I don’t want to choose. My internal critic is too loud.

With only 8 or 16 pages to fill, what's right? What’s worthy? What’s worth the time? What’s the balance? What’s the why?

I could fill a dozen zines, but would they have meaning? Is there a point? I’m a stickler for projects being grounded in personal meaning, or I don’t do them. I expect authenticity from myself. So if I’m going to fill a zine, it has to be something I am invested in, something I care about. It has to be something that matters (to me). It needs to be amazing.

What would happen if I copied and shrunk sample pages from my journal? They wouldn’t be legible (which is a plus because people are too nosy as it is), but the overall flow of the pages would show. But which 8? Which 16? Out of hundreds, how can just a few stand alone?

Lots of ideas come to mind when I stare at a piece of paper that will be or has been folded into a zine. But the limited space stymies me. I am not one to overthink a first page or a last page in a sketchbook. But the few pages of a zine?

I might need a magnifying glass. And if that’s the case, why bother?

One of the kids across the street makes comics and exhibited at the SF Zine Fest last weekend. I didn’t go, but I thought it was awesome that he was there manning his own table with his comic book zines, the newest one about an evil baguette.

I think back to all those years when my oldest made comics, when the stories were alive with imagination and sound effects and plots that didn’t have to make sense.

Tiny Pages; Tiny Portraits

The last time I really sat down determined to fill a zine was in 2020 as part of my 50 Before 50. A zine was on the list. I had the same “what should I put in it quandary then, too. When I finally got ready to do it, I thought I might document the list itself in a zine. But I was working on a series of portraits at the time, and I thought I might use them in the zine. I xeroxed a few and shrunk them and printed them out. They were really cool small like that. I saw potential in a zine that gave voice to the portraits, to the transition the year and the list represented.

I didn’t even glue anything in place. I just moved things around like black and white Colorforms. (Sometimes, that is enough. Sometimes, we just need to move things around.)

Even now, finding the little pile of mini prints from that year, I am inspired. I know there is something here for me. My portraits may not ever matter to anyone else, but they speak to me. They have something to say, and I am always pondering them, wondering about the unspoken words.

Copies of drawings from 2020 scaled down. Fodder for a zine. A. Cowen

Folding Space

I didn‘t fill pages this week, but I folded paper. And I watched the folding. And I thought about the folding. And I thought about the why. As I ran my bone folder over the paper and watched it flatten and heard the bit of crumple that it makes as the fiber gives way, I thought, “It’s all about the touch. It’s about this tactile experience right now of the folding.”

It is about moving my hands. It is about doing something that is at once concrete and infinite. It’s about watching things move in and out of position and turn upside down and re-orient themselves. It is about things lining up. It is about the puzzle of space.

Embrace the Imperfection

After deciding to focus today on zines, and to fold a few, I watched a number of videos in the background this week. I watched young people talk about making zines. I laughed as they talked about the whole point being the imperfection and the lack of polish, and I wondered if part of my problem is my inability to let go and embrace that.

I did stumble across the word perzine though, and I really like that. That was a new word for me, and that is, of course, exactly where a zine from me would end up. A perzine is an autobiographical zine of sorts, a personal zine that is rooted in diary and memoir and self reflection.

Fold Your Own

I encourage you to take a piece of paper and look up a video and fold a zine from a single sheet of paper. The process is super simple. You can make:

• An 8-page version (six inner pages, a front and back cover, and a reverse side)

• A 14-, 16-, or 18-page version that gets zig zag folded (the number of pages depends on how you do or don’t wrap/glue the covers in the end)

• A thin fold-out 8-page version (six inner pages and a front and back cover) (made from a half sheet)

Obviously, the 16-page zine has smaller pages than the 8-page zine, but I really love the format.² I also am intrigued by the simple fold-out zine. It doesn't have the same "book" format, but it uses all the surfaces and doesn't have any extra bulk, which I appreciate. I've been wondering about stacking those .

My perfectionism does get a little bit tripped up by some of the elements of these folded booklets. But there are options. Adding a wraparound cover is something to consider. Adding a wrap-around belly band can be a charming touch. You might want to glue or tape certain pages together to eliminate some of the openings. Or you might enjoy that the whole thing can unfold to reveal a poster or a letter on the back. You might experiment with landscape zines instead of vertical zines. I do wonder about little groups, little stacks, and little booklets. There are so many possibilities.³

You should try one. Fold an 8- or 16-page zine. What would you put inside? Don’t overthink it. Give yourself a theme and start filling.

Assorted hand-drawn elements copied and scaled down for possible use in a zine. A. Cowen

Illustrated Journal, Week 36 of 2024

I’m not going to show you lots of photos of blank folded paper this week. I experimented with 8- and 16-page zines folded from a single sheet. The process is simple. But it was tactile.

I will show a bit of my illustrated journal from the week. I work in my journal at least a little bit every day, adding to pages for the “week.” There are always things I particularly enjoy in the process week to week. It is a process that I encourage you to be flexible with.

Portions of illustrated journal pages for week 36 of 2024, unfinished. A. Cowen

Your illustrated journal won’t look like anyone else’s. It shouldn’t. It should be of and for you. Give yourself the grace of committing to a journal that doesn’t have to be anything specific, doesn’t have to be for anyone else, doesn’t have deadlines, and doesn’t have to look the way anyone else’s does.

Fill space because filling space, like folding, is tactile. It is mindful. When we fill space with our hands and our pens and our ink and our brushes and our paints, we soothe something down deep in our brains.

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“I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.”― Georgia O'Keeffe

Weekly Bits and Pieces

• Prompts for Illustrate Your Week - Week 37

• Diary List Comics / 52 Weeks

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Made It?

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your comments. Let me know what stands out for you, what you think after reading, or where we connect.

The reason I had a bone folder handy last week is because I've been thinking about making a sketchbook, which will be yet another bit of folding, something bigger and more intentional. A reader mentioned making books in the context of trying to find words, and I am reminded how so many of us cycle along similar paths even when they seem to be untrodden, even when they feel lonely, even when we are protective of them. It should not be so hard to make connections, to talk, to write, and to support one another.

At the end of all of this, what value will there be in not having taken the chance to make and nurture connections?

As an aside, I watched The Great Pottery Throw Down over the last two weeks. I’m late to the party, I know, but this show was wonderful. Several of you recommended it to me mostly because one of my sons is very into pottery. As someone who has never been interested in the cooking one, I didn’t expect to be all that interested in the pottery one, but I loved it. I’m so impressed, too, by the camaraderie of the potters, the overall good nature and supportive feel of the challenge. I’m sad to be done with it. (Only five seasons are available in the U.S.) Maybe I should try The Great British Bake Off again?

When my son came home from class on Friday, he recounted a conversation he had with an older man on the bus. The upshot of the conversation was “don’t go into porn.” It’s a total non-sequitur, but it made it into my pages this week as “something heard.”

Yes, I am using the Lactaid milk in my coffee and, of course, I can’t tell the difference.

• What will go in your zine?

• What project do you have underway for September?

• What one or two songs would you put on a September playlist?

I am grateful for readers like you.

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Note: All photos, diagrams, and images in this post are original. © A. Cowen. All rights reserved.

1. Okay. Yes. But I don’t want to. I imagine someone else got a few bags of highly processed foods they won’t eat. They also got my spinach, and I really needed that. I needed the bread and Havarti, too.

2. I am using legal-sized paper for my zine exploration, so there's a bit more room overall.

3. Yes, I am toying with whether or not I would do this digitally. I think it might be a hybrid, a combination of using my paper-based work and digital. I have also been really itching to do some collage this year, especially inspired by how drawn I am to the work of Duane Toops.