📖Session 6: Tech Zines

August

1. What are Zines?

Zines, short for "magazines" are simple booklets of imagery or comics and printed for distribution. The printing is often low-cost, swapping glossy magazine pages for black-and-white photocopy or inkjet printing. More art-grade Zines may be printed via silkscreen or Risograph.

Zines have roots in Punk Rock and Art culture, but recently have become a tool to teach about technology.

How to make a zine – The Creative Independentthecreativeindp

A good primer on Zines

Examples of Tech Zines:

• https://shop.bubblesort.io/ BubbleSort Zines by Sailor Mercury

• https://wizardzines.com/ Wizard Zines by Julia Evans

• https://code-art.xyz/issues/ Code::Art

• https://blog.bigcartel.com/tiny-tech-zines-builds-a-community-around-art-critical-theory-and-tech Tiny Tech Zines

• https://techzinefair.org/ New York Tech Zine Fair

Also, given our Network is based in Tokyo, we must nod to the influence of Manga in educational materials. Ai Minatogawa (湊川 あい) created the illustrations behind a series of books on software and technology.

2. Concept

What are you trying to teach? What's your message?

• Use pictures to explain a data structure or algorithm

• Share tips on preparing for coding interviews

• Illustrate the beauty of mathematics and logic

• Tell a story about a historic woman in computer science

• Be creative! There are no limits

3. Crafting

Now that you have your idea, how to you make it?

Physical Resources

The most traditional way to make a zine is with REAL Materials. It's time for crafting. Don’t worry if you're not a skilled illustrator, it's normal for Zines to have a "raw" look, and you can mix and layer imagery from other sources.*

Basic supplies:

• A4 white paper

• Anything that makes black marks: e.g. chunky markers like Sharpie, fine-tip pens like Sakura Micron, Brush Pens, Sumi ink, crayon... whatever you have on hand

• Scissors

• Imagery to cut and remix

  • If your Zine is for personal use, magazines are a good source (Think tech magazines, Japanese bookstores often have some great stuff)

  • You can also print out imagery

  • See notes on Intellectual Property below for further considerations

• Glue (Ann recommends アラッビクヤマト which can be found at any Japanese convenience store)

• Stapler for binding

If you're joining us from outside Japan, please adjust as necessary: US Letter for A4, glue stick, whatever writing tools are available.

Advanced supplies:

• "Non-photo Blue" pencils that are invisible to photocopiers for initial sketches

• Tracing paper (or make your own)

• Correction tape for editing, or layering on white marks

• Washi tape

• Textural materials like decorative papers, half-tone patterns,

Go to Seikaido in Shinjuku and check out the Manga section if you really want to go deep 😍

Printing

Stop by your neighborhood Conbini and use the photocopier to make prints. Or scan, save as a PDF, and distribute digitally.

For those of you in Japan, we are lucky to have lots of retro tech like Risographs available to the community. You can also do silk-screen. As these techniques are more advanced, they are beyond the scope of our session, but we're just trying to give you an idea of the possibilities 😊

• Silk Screen developing and ink available at Uematsu in Shibuya

• Risograph: Hand Saw Press in Shinagawa

Digital Resources

Prefer to work digitally? Here are our recommendations for digital Zine creation:

• Draw on a tablet like an iPad or Microsoft Surface

• Use Canva.com to make a Zine

Digital Zinemaking On Canva (and zine resources!)TheContinuist

How to use Canva for Zine-making

Intellectual Property Considerations

If you'd like to create a Zine to share or sell with the wider world, be sure to use imagery and content where you hold intellectual property rights. Cutting up magazines might work for something casually shared with friends, but could cause legal trouble if shared online or sold.

Maybe you live in a country with a Fair Use or Parody Law that allows you to share copyrighted work under specific conditions.

I found a cool digital image, but I'm not sure who holds the rights

You can use https://tineye.com/ for a reverse image search if you are trying to find the original source of an image.

I need to find images where I have permission to use them

Check out the chapter on Imagery & Assets for a list of low-cost and free resources

4. Sharing

Now the most important part! Share your work with the world. Tell us what you made and we can share within our community 😄