Zines!

This year I went to the SF Zine Fest and the East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest. Though I’ve been interested in zines for a while, the idea for a Hit Points Lovecraft zine combined with just seeing a bunch of what the medium has to offer in my area got me inspired to more seriously try making my own. I like how they’re ephemeral and a bit punk rock, and how they attract such a diverse group of creators. And as much as I enjoy working on RPGs and the niche I’ve carved out in that space, I also really like the how zines are an invitation to do little publications about basically anything.

It also doesn’t hurt that my friend C. Ellis gave me her iPad Pro with Apple Pencil when she upgraded (Apple came out with a 3rd gen iPad Pro and 2nd gen Apple Pencil because of course they did), so I suddenly have a pretty powerful digital drawing tool. Granted so far I've mostly used it to draw little cartoons of cats, but still.

I went as far as to get a B&W laser printer and various other tools so I can print up zine booklets and assemble them at home. They now make printers with duplex printing so that they can automatically print on both sides, and having tried it out with the Brother HL-L2300D that I got, it’s honestly fantastic. Double-sided printing somehow always twisted my brain into knots—even more so for printing booklets—and this thing automates the process.

I already had a bone folder (a sort of knife-shaped piece of hard plastic that makes it really easy to make hard, smooth folds for paper, ideal for folding paper in half to make zines), but I had to get a long reach stapler (to be able to bind the folded zines in the middle with staples) and colored cardstock for covers.

I seldom get only a little bit inspired, and I’ve now put together three zine titles and put them up for sale on Etsy.

• Melancholy Kaiju: My previously released story game about giant monsters who feel kinda sad, in a convenient booklet format.
• Ewen’s Tables Zine: A collection of 23 especially silly random tables in a little booklet.
• Conservapedia Is Incredibly Weird: If you’re not familiar, Conservapedia is an attempt at a right-wing version of Wikipedia, and it’s even stranger than you’d think. Like, there's a guy who's made dozens of articles about how atheists are dumb and fat.

We’ll see how it goes, but I’m planning to also set up an itch.io shop for digital versions of these, and look into doing tables at some local events. I’ll keep you guys posted on how the whole endeavor develops, and I’ll be sending patrons digital versions of at least the game-related ones. I may send some physical copies out to $3+ patrons as well. Let me know what interests you! This whole Patreon thing is a work in progress after all.

I have entirely too many ideas for zines, ranging from putting stuff I made before in print to weird humor to more heartfelt stuff. Here are the ideas that I'm currently working on:

• A Life Day Miracle: About the Star Wars Holiday Special.
• All That Glitters is Palladium: A retrospective of Palladium books and the sheer weirdness of some of their games.
• Cats I Have Known: An at turns silly and melancholy history of the various cats my family has had, and the pair that my roommate and I are living with now.
• Choose Your Own Homura: A while back a friend of mine was planning to do a Madoka Magica fan book and asked me if I’d like to do something for it. I ended up putting together an extremely silly gamebook about Homura, which includes giant robots, cat ears, a harem ending, and Charles Barkley.
• Hit Points Lovecraft: Based on my novelty Twitter account, a collection of possible meanings of the HP in HP Lovecraft, with silly drawings.
• Kagegami High Student Handbook: A short introduction to Kagegami High, mostly just setting info in the form of a student handbook.
• “Losses”: A collection of Loss memes. For some reason.
• RPGs That Aren’t D&D: A short guide to non-D&D RPGs, intended to showcase some of the incredible diversity that the medium is capable of.
• Wookiepedia Gets Very Strange: A taste of some of the weirdest corners of the Star Wars wiki.

Is there anything you'd like to see in the way of zines? Any cool zines you've come across?