Let's Make a Zine!
A brief & personal history of facilitating workshops, some favorite zine making tools, and why Whatcha Mean What's a Zine?? is the best book about making zines ever made.
I keep seeing folks sharing zine resources on substack, and I want to throw my hat in the ring with some of my favorite zine-making things. I have facilitated zine workshops since 2008 thanks to my beloved mentor and friend Adriane Herman's encouragement. She invited me to give a talk and workshop at Maine College of Art, and I was like, "What should I do a workshop on?" And she said, "You should do a zine workshop. Duh."
At that point, I had been making zines for others and myself for over ten years, but I had never organized a zine workshop. That February 2008 workshop kicked off ten years of traveling all over (the country! as well as Barcelona, Amsterdam, and London), giving zine workshops to anyone who would have me. Once I opened Outlet in 2017, the workshops had a home base, but I still occasionally fill up my trusty zine workshop suitcase and take the KBB Zine Show™ on the road.
Every zine workshop starts with folks getting warmed up and excited by touching, reading, smelling, and talking about the piles of zines I have brought in from my zine library to look at for inspiration. The library lives at Outlet and has over 4,000 titles. It is a 20-plus-year collection, and if you want to be included in the Official Outlet Zine Library™, send your zine to 2500 NE Sandy STE E, Portland, OR 97232, and we will give it a home!
Several years ago, I created this one-page zine template when Skillshare filmed a zine class with me in my studio. The template is instructional and motivational, and I hope it will assist you in creating your one-page zine. Print is Power!
Here is a photo step-by-step of the fold because it’s tricky. But trust me, after doing this ten or more times, you can do it in your sleep. In my zine workshops, everyone must make an edition1 to match the number of people participating so everyone can exchange and go home with their own one-page zine library. Sharing and exchanging are pivotal parts of the zine-making process.
Folks often ask me about good books for making zines, and I have one answer for them: Whatcha Mean What’s a Zine by art heroes Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson. It came out in 2006 and is filled with incredible illustrations, how-tos, and tons of history and inspiration to get folks of all ages into making zines. I think it’s out of print now, but many copies are floating around, including on Mark and Esther’s website! Fun fact, their daughter is Lili Todd and she makes incredible work as well.
And SHAMELESS PLUG, but Outlet sells a Zine Starter Kit filled with blank zines, stickers, collage material, prompts, transfer type, and your very own bone folder2. I have a TON more to say about zines, so stay tuned!
There is a lot of spring optimism in this last week of purchases. We got a replacement hammock (3.9.25) for the backyard because I didn’t take our current one inside for the winter, and, well, guess what? It gets gross and destroyed. My raised beds arrived (3.13.25), which are still in the box because it hasn’t stopped raining since they arrived. Hank got a zebra costume (3.12.25) for his school musical, and it was politely rejected. We also got some new shoes (3.14.25) at the Adidas employee store, and fortunately, they have been enthusiastically accepted.
Welcome to a new feature where I dig through my zine library at Outlet and share! I am keeping the Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson love going by showcasing some scans of one of my most beloved zines, Chuck Cheese Please: Insane but True, made by them in 2006. This zine features all of the qualities that I love about making zines. Here, let me make a list!
A zine can be about anything you want it to be about. In this case, your love for Chuck E Cheese.
Small editions allow for big-time customization! This zine includes a physical game token and many pages with hand-drawn whiteout drawings, spray paint stencils, and pen markings on the colorful photocopied pages. This zine is 10/20 in the edition.
Experimentation!
Historical facts!
Personal anecdotes!
I love a collaborative zine!
This has been a ZINE HEAVY edition of the KBBBLOG! I hope you enjoyed it, and see you next week with OPINIONS and DRAWINGS about the stuff I love!
🎈KBB
An edition means the number that you make of your zine.
BONEFOLDERS ARE ESSENTIAL!
Whatcha Mean What’s a Zine was my intro to zines! My uncle is friends with Mark and Esther and gave me the book when it came out when I was 16. It changed my whole world. I also took one of your classes at IPRC in 2014 when I was briefly living in Portland. We all made zines about snacks and I still have every single copy in my zine library. Now I have my own career built on zines, teaching workshops, and organizing zine fests in Southern California! Lili Todd has tabled at a couple of them. I haven’t been to Portland since 2016 but I look forward to checking out Outlet the next time I’m in town. :)
Esther and Mark are such treasures. I love that you have such an amazing zine library. I’m always thankful for folks like you that take on archival tasks like that while also personally contributing to the culture with your own work. Definitely love to see more of examples from the library.