How to Do a Zine
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| Title: | How to Do a Zine |
| Creator: | Cheree Cargill and Mary Urhausen |
| Date(s): | spring 1991 |
| Medium: | print, also online |
| Fandom: | many, but has a Star Wars focus |
| Topic: | creating a print zine |
| External Links: | online here |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
How to Do a Zine is an article in Southern Enclave #28 by Cheree Cargill and Mary Urhausen.
Topics covered:
- Deciding to to a Zine
- Getting Contributions
- Advertising Your Zine
- Creating the Fanzine
- Printing, Collating, and Binding
- Finances and Other Matters
Excerpts
I'm tempted to be facetious and say: Just take a big roll of hundred dollar bills, stick them up a bodily orifice, and set them on fire ... this would be cheaper and considerably less stressful to your body than putting out a zine!
If you are a member of a fan group, you night have access to a number of writers and an equal nutter of artists to illustrate their stories. Of course, then, the editor can get into the trap of being forced to either print really crappy stories and/or art for friendship's sake, or into the equally painful task of telling a friend that their stuff sucks. Sometimes the editor will tread a middle ground and just tell his/her conscience to shut up.
Long ago and far away, zines were typed up on am thing handy. I did early issues on a $10 garage sale Royal electric with the space bar rigged with a rubber band. When that wore out, I did an issue or two on a little Smith-Corona manual. From there I advanced to the IBM Selectric at work, sneaking my typing in between actual work. Then I began working on genuine word processing and computer systems, my zine production went right along and all my zines since about 1980 have been produced that way. Computers have proved to be the handiest things since sliced bread, as far as zine editors are concerned. A story can be typed long before the art comes in, proofed, corrected, formatted, re-formatted, sized up or down—until the editor is satisfied with the look and placement of the material. With the advent of laser printers,' typeset-look zines are becoming commonplace.