If you ask me, February is the perfect time to get creative and make something, because — let’s face it — who wants to be outside, precariously slip-sliding and ice-skating to their inevitable doom? No, no. Better to stay in with paper and pens, where the greatest danger you face is a potential paper-cut or letting your tea get cold!
This month, your #megababemission is to make a mini zine!
WHAT IS A ZINE?
A zine is a handmade booklet that can focus on absolutely anything. You can fill it with poems, photos, collages, illustrations, or a delicious combination of the above. They started in the 1930s when fans of science fiction started to create, print and distribute their own works. They were called “fanzines” — an abbreviation of “fan magazines” — and the word was quickly shortened to zine. Zines had a massive resurgence in the 1970s thanks to the punk rock movement, and then again in the 1990s thanks to riot grrrls!
There are no limits: a zine can be anything. Make it on your computer or do the whole thing by hand. It can be creative, political, whimsical, angry, surreal… Do what you feel!
A FEW SUGGESTIONS AND IDEAS
Love and ink-stained fingers,