Tab@&^@k!#

A new zine is in the works! A humorous illustrated list of rants concerning biking in the city of Montreal, along with a list of rather useful road rules to know/remember. Unless I change my mind, it will be titled “You know what really grinds my gears?” or “Get Out of the f*%&*ng Way! aka bike rants and rules”. I’m looking forward to making this one!

Meriones Unguiculatus

Rummaging through my old belongings the other day, I stumbled upon a little surprise, something that made me realize I had created a zine long before I even knew what zines were! It was a time when I owned way too many gerbils; I had decided to make a booklet to go along with every gerbil pup that I sold or gave away. Over the years I lost the website I had created alongside it, but one booklet remained in my possession, resurfacing just now. I had completely forgotten about it!

I don’t own gerbils anymore and don’t know if I ever will again, but I am excited at the idea of recreating this booklet into a proper zine. It’ll be my first half-size zine and should be up for print in the next couple of weeks.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy!

This next zine in the works has been on my mind for quite a while but it’s got a stick stuck in its wheel. Maybe it’s because it’s a rather personal zine as it goes over things like social anxiety, something I battle with. Maybe it’s because I don’t know how to write cool-headedly about all the absurd things we find in our societies engulfing our daily lives. I guess I just don’t know what approach to take. This zine means to cover some really important topics for me and I want to do it right.

I’m hoping to have it finished before the Anarchist Bookfair (May 24th and 25th), just before I leave for Iceland. BTW, you wouldn’t happen to know who created this image, would you?

Icelandic For The Curious

I never had plans to make an Icelandic zine, it just kinda happened after I found myself helping linguistics students learn the language at a school I didn’t go to. And while I know it’s an unusual topic in the zine world, it’ll be a refreshing one.

Covers the basics of the language (from proper pronunciation to numbers to common phrases) and includes a bunch of interesting facts about Iceland.

32 (8 double-sided) pages, black & white. 3$ in person, plus a bit more for shipping.

Zine Fever is Back

I suddenly find myself with two new zine projects in hand. One’s almost finished after a few intense days of work, called “Icelandic for the Curious”. The other’s kinda stuck in the mud at the moment, but it’s on being happy and it’ll be awesome when it’s done. And when both of those are done and I get some courage in hand, I’ve got a Very neat idea for a little zine… the subject will not to be announced until it’s done =P. So yeah, “Icelandic for the Curious” will be out within the next week.

Sjámst!

Paper Rainbows

I chanced upon the thought that, while zines printed IN color is super expensive, zines printed ON colored paper is barely more expensive than white paper (costs me 2 pennies more per double-sided sheet). So I turned my cat zine into a rainbow.

I don’t yet have a great resource of print shops and prices in Montreal, but I’ve been to a few and so far my favorite place is DPrint at Concordia university. The staff there is real nice, the prices are great (14 cents per double-sided sheet plus includes folding and stapling!) and their selection of colored paper is great.

On another note, I got this awesome raven patch by a man at the Marketplace fair, under the name Dog Ear Prints. With Christmas coming along, now’s the time to get in touch with other awesome local artists at craft fairs. I’ll be vending at Le Milieu Friday 29th and Saturday 30th 2pm-8pm. Le Milieu is a fantastic little coop near Beadry metro station (1251 robin) that you should check out if you haven’t yet been to it.

Zine Fever

The past few days have been quite exciting and sleep-deprived for me. I created 4 zines in the span of two months, one being a last-minute mini zine that was finished at 5 in the morning on the first day of ExpoZine, in hopes of sharing a table with others to get my stuff exposed. I got to sell a bunch of zines and made some nifty trades with some pretty awesome people. ExpoZine is a pretty darn awesome event and you should definitely go to next year’s if you’ve never been.

On to the new zines. The third one is called Cookin’ Up A Storm and includes a whopping 75 healthy recipes in a whopping 84 pages. Most recipes were created by me. It’s also the only zine I’ve created completely digitally (plus the text is readable but a little blurry) so I have to admit I’m not very proud of this one. I plan on fixing it up and making an old-school version of it eventually. I do have a few of these printed though, selling them cheaper for their size at 3$ a pop.

My last-minute creation was a fun adventure of realizing that I haven’t lost my drawing skills that I abandoned long ago; it’s a mini zine called How To Keep Your Cat Happy. Every page has a humorous tip accompanied by a slightly trippy cat drawing. I’m selling them for 1$ each. I almost sold them all at ExpoZine so I’ll be making some new ones this week, hopefully on different-colored paper.

I’ve got plenty of zine ideas in mind but I need to focus and prepare myself for all the craft fairs coming up in the next month. First up is McGill´s Market Cooperative Fair happening this Thursday November 21st from 12pm to 5:30pm. I’ll be selling my zines there along with one-of-a-kind jewelry and accessories.

Confessions Of A Chocoholic

My second zine is done! Confessions of a Chocoholic is all about chocolate; it’s history, terminology, recipes and personal anecdotes. It’s 32 pages (8 double-sided pages in black and white, potentially with a colored cover), available for 3$, plus a bit more to have it shipped.

This makes space for my next zine idea to come into light. More on that soon!

Eating Trash and Loving It

It’s finally done! I procrastinated putting the pages together and printing them out because I’ve never done this kind of thing before, but it’s gone surprisingly well. Eating Trash and Loving It: A zine on the pleasures of eating cheap and living well is 10 double-sided pages in black and white, available for 3$, plus a bit more to have it shipped.

I gotta say I’m quite proud of the way it turned out. I’ve already started working on my next one, Confessions of a Chocoholic. That one should be ready for print in two weeks.

Getting Started

I’ve always been interested in creating zines but it wasn’t until I started living with a talented zine-making gal that I got inspired to just got for it. It’s by doing that we learn. Besides, there’s no real rules for zine making; that’s part of its beauty. Don’t know what zines are? Here’s a 101 on the topic.

After months of collecting pretty photos and eye-catching magazine clippings, I’m excited to get going with all these ideas in my head. I decided to start with “Eating Trash and Loving It”, which focuses on dumpster diving and other ways to eat well but cheaply.