Brain freeze & zine making

So you may remember a few years ago, I had a bunch of zines in my shop and I was having a blast making them.

Then I had printer problems. That truthfully haven't gone away. I can’t afford a replacement yet. I wanted all my zines to have these special borders, to be a square shape, etc. Everytime my printer has an update, it loses all the information of how to print my zine specs, and no matter what anyone does, it will not line up to print double sided, it will not line up the borders, everything printed terribly in zine format for me.

So that abruptly put a stop to my zine making. The absurd amount of time, ink and money wasted to fix the issues set me back and stressed me out so much.

I still drew out the ideas for more zines, but no one has seem them as I couldn't figure out a way to print them.

It’s hilarious, that for all the “thinking outside the box” that my neurodivergent brain does- I can easily box myself in with my problems.

I don't ask for help because I'm so stubborn with my vision in my head. I don't want to waste people's time and energy if there's a good chance I may not use their advice. I'm impossible, I am working on being not so stubborn.

I found online flip book options to display my zines digitally but they kind of defeated the purpose of the paper zine - it all felt backwards to me and what I'm trying to achieve- and again I stopped working on the zine angle.

So there had been no new public zines from me in over a year.

Fast forward to a week ago. My daughter brings home a tiny pamphlet from school. It was the size of her hand, brightly colored and folded in an accordion style. Printed single sided.

MY BRAIN INSTANTLY TOOK THAT DESIGN TO HEART..

I found a way around all my printing problems.

Zines don't have to be dual sided. Zines don't have rules but I put rules in place to create the vision I want to put out there. I couldn't let go of the idea that if my zine was not printed perfectly with borders etc, double sided and what not- I wasn't going to print them.

I know that if you're a zinester reading this, you are side eyeing my last paragraph. Yes I've seen the majority of zines out there. Yes a lot of them are really poorly made, and that it's about getting the message out, not the aesthetics.

What if I told you that this zine scenario has became a lesson for me in realising I held perfectionist standards still and how they blocked me from zine making. I've worked on my perfectionist standards in other areas of my life. I've more work to do still.

With my newfound freedom in printing zines without headaches- I got two out right away. I have SO MANY DRAWINGS, I can fill small zines up for days.

It looks SO good printed. My “Just Vibes” zine is 16 pages of my most colorful robot art.

I've got a few more zines on route now, I have one about crows and one about isopods and another transformer one too.

I'm unstoppable, until my brain stops me.

This series is all the art I did during the lockdowns. Things that comforted me when I was nervous. And a lot of it could still help today, as the pandemic hasn't ended.

I just love the visual of the images folded up like this. It's a great feeling to look at them, I draw so much that I forget a good chunk of what I’ve done over the years.

Ness is back to zine making!