At the 2024 Watson Conference in Louisville, we worked with a group of 20+ colleagues from across the field at workshop we called “Aca(diy)mia: Making Zines, Remaking Worlds.” Some of our discussions led to a desire to have more resources collected and gathered so this represents a gesture toward that goal.
Ordering zines
- Quimby’s — Famous underground bookstore in Chicago that carries thousands of titles.
- Antiquated Future — Distro out of Portland, OR.
- Brown Recluse Zine Distro — Seattle distro that specializes in POC zines and radical politics.
- Wasted Ink — Distro, shop, and primary host for the PHX Zine Fest focusing on marginalized voices.
- Atomic Books — Another great underground bookstore specializing in weird stuff.
- Blue Stockings — NYC activist center and bookstore.
- Printed Matter — Book art and edgy zines out of NYC.
How to make
Books
- Stolen Sharpie Revolution by Alex Wrekk (originally 2005, currently on 6th edition)
- Make a Zine! 20th anniversary edition by Bill Brent and Joe Biel [you can borrow the 1997 edition over at archive.org]
- Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine?: The Art of Making Zines and Mini-Comics by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson (2006) [you can also borrow from the Internet Archive]
- “How to: Zines” by Ariel Bassett (2016)
- “A Beginner’s Guide to Making Zines” from Vice (2018)
- “Ten Tips for First Time Zinesters” by Spill the Zines (2011)
- “An Introduction to Zines” (pdf) by The Public Studio (2013)
- “How to Make a Zine” by Rookie (2012)
- “How Do You Do: A One-Page Zine” by Kickstarter (2015)
- “How to make a quarter-sized zine” by GoofyGeek (2020?)
- Electric Zine Maker — open source freeware for making your zine in a unbridled, wacky digital interface. thanks, alienmelon!
- Seashore — free, powerful photo editor for Mac OSX
- Glimpse — another free photo editor
- Zines! A Primer mini-zine (pdf) by Syracuse In Print
- Digital templates for mini-zines [docx] [pages] [indd]
- Flipsnack — free flipbook-style publishing tool
- Issuu — another common magazine-style digital publishing tool
Classes, workshops, assignments & lessons
- Repository of classes & workshops: Barnard Zine Library. Several different lesson plans, videos, and other resources, with classes and workshops ordered from newest to oldest.
- Lesson plan: “Zine Workshop” by Aisha Conner-Gaten (Community of Online Research Assignments), written for a First Year Women’s and Gender Studies class. Includes a great powerpoint on the history of zines.
- Assignments: A sequence of three assignments (2 minizines and 1 open) that Jason Luther uses in his first unit in Self-Publishing, an elective offered to Writing Arts majors at Rowan University.
Videos about zines
- “But I Love the Zine” by Fiona McDougall & KQED about the San Francisco zine scene (2019)
- “Shopdrop + Roll” by Laura Houlberg & Nicole Betancourt — about Portland OR’s Independent Publishing Resource Center (2013)
- “Zinester: The Art of Individualism in the Era of Mass Media” by Jake Carroll, featuring the Denver Zine Library (2014).
- “Zines: The Power of DIY Print” by Belinda Cai (2015)
Libraries & archives
- Zinelibraries.info. Tons of resources about zine culture and zine libraries (digital or irl), including an important and radical code of ethics.
- Barnard Zine Library. Emphasis on zines by feminist, queer, trans, and BIPOC makers. Lots of amazing resources here.
- Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP). Incredible collection out of Milwaukee.
- Zine World. Select back issues from this network zine from 2005-2012.
- Maximumrocknroll Archive. Incomplete archive of back issues from the most famous punk zine of them all.
- Punk Planet Archive. 56+ GBs of pdfs at the Internet Archive from this Chicago institution.
- Circulation Zero. Collections of Slash (LA), No Mag (LA), Damage (SF), Dry (NYC), and Boston Rock (Boston).
- Sprout Distro. Anarchist archive hosted at archive.org.
- Solidarity! Revolutionary Center and Radical Library. Collection of zines from “a non-hierarchical collective for the purpose of sharing and distributing information.”
- FANAC Fanzine Index. Collection of sci-fi fanzines since 1930.
- Digital Comic Museum. Public domain, golden age comics for the taking.
- Vice Versa. Some scans from the first queer zine from the 1940s.
- Anarhiva. Romanian zine archive.