#Title

ALT LIT

How to make incendiary literature
KATERINA DON
Zines are a new name for an old thing. They are the revolutionary pamphlets of the 1930s, and the underground student manifestos of the ‘50-’60s. They are a distant relative of the tattered choti mags. There are many other examples from around the world of self-published, self-distributed, and often dangerous reading material.
In the context of our scale-obsessed, globalised market value system, zines are a very niche subculture. And today they are relevant in a very new way as a form of escape from surveillance, censorship, capitalist authoritarianism, and targeted algorithmic erasure—phenomena that threaten creativity and freedom of thought.
Zines are a way to create and share but stay invisible to the pervasive information harvest. Even if you said no to web cookies, every word, reaction, and eye movement made with and on a digital device is used to make you a clearer target. Can you tell that there is a tone of paranoia in my voice? Yes, because this article should have been a zine.
So, here is a simple instructional guide to creating your own zine in times of peace, war, or armageddon. Note: You will need a photocopier to multiply and distribute, so try to make your zine before the power goes out. There are alternatives to the machine, which I will mention at the end, but they are slightly more labour intensive.
WHY ZINES?
Fits in to your pocket
No binding needed
Easy to reproduce
Easy to slip into people’s pockets, unnoticed
Stands up to be a pop-up exhibit
HOW TO MAKE ZINE(S):
*Note: When folding, crease well.
1. Fold the page in half horizontally
2. Fold the page in half vertically
3. Fold the page in half vertically again
4. Open the page and fold it vertically
5. Cut (or gently, rip) the centre crease the length of one square, this is your central slit
6. Open and fold horizontally again and push open the slit and press the two ends together*
7. Done! You have made a zine
*Alternative ways of folding exist and you can experiment to find what works best for your issue.
Pagination—which rhymes beautifully with imagination—is the page order of a publication. Most material has a front page, a back page, and inner pages. Let’s call this the status-quo pagination. Challenging the status quo pagination means exploring other ways of thinking about and working with page structure and sequence.
In the case of your 8-page zine with the central slit—you can get pretty wild with it. You can choose to respect the ‘front-inner-back’ order or have a run-on story with no end. You can open the zine up into its original single sheet state, flip it over to have two sides of the story. You can treat the inner side as a completely different thing. Or stand the zine up by opening up the centre cut to give a sneak peak into the flip side.
In format and philosophy, the zine allows for an unchecked creativity. Mary Poppins famously declared: “First of all, I would like to make one thing clear: I never explain anything.” Similarly, the zine is absolute; it does not have to seek the approval of an editor or a publisher. It is in and of itself, just like you.
But there is an honour code—to fact check; to spread information that is helpful and hard-to reach; and to refrain from stealing or appropriating the work of others. There is no zine police or censor board to tell you where the line is and threaten with punishment if it is crossed, but there is a self-regulatory culture and benchmark of what is and isn’t acceptable.
SOME THINGS TO CONSIDER AS YOU MAKE YOUR ZINE(S):
1. There are two schools of thought: One, pro-digitisation/pro-ephemera, and the other (which I belong to), believing that information has a lifespan and should not be doomed to live forever. Zines should expire, like butterflies, bonfire logs, milk, medication, humans. And being terminal adds a gravitas to the zine and the moment in which it is made. Once the moment is gone, the information may be outdated, not age well, be decontextualised and made redundant. If you want something to live on, this may not be your format. But zines can live on, however—in other zines.
2. Zines are your own personal communication channel, but you can choose to be unseen. You, the maker, choose to be yourself, anonymous; use a pen name or Insta handle.
3. The topic should matter to you a whole lot. And it should challenge something enough that you worry that it would never see the light of day as an institutional publication. 4. It does not have to be pretty. But it does help if the handwriting is easy to read.5. This is a slow-burn. There are no word limits, no moderators, no instant gratification apart from the joy of making, no reactions to worry about.
6.You need to give it oxygen and share it. Copy it and you drop it in washrooms, libraries, slip them into books and leave them on coffee tables.
7. Your original and your copies will be different; the copies will be black and white.
Now that you have made your zine, you have been a writer, a layout artist, an editor. Now it’s time to be a printer and distributor.
To multiply the zine, use your office/library photocopier while no one is watching. Or take your zine to the print shop, any neighbourhood shop where you don’t mind spending some time. Make sure to distract your photocopier-mama from looking too closely at your material.
PRINTSHOP TIPS:
1. Choose the right paper. Standard weight is the most economical and works well with high-speed copiers. If you are using coloured paper, choose light tones so that the ink pops more.
2. Check that the contrast and brightness is set to your liking on the machine.
3. Check the margins (you may need to zoom in or out on the machine).
4. Give the ink time to set before folding.
5. Give yourself time for folding, use gloves to keep from staining your fingers.
6. Quantity depends on your plans, but starting with 50 is good.
7. Make sure to save your original for making more copies in future.
8. If the power is out or you have no access to a photocopier, there are several analog ways of multiplying your zine: Call your friends and copy by hand; use plasticine block prints; screen print.
Now that you have your zine multiplied and folded it is time to distribute. You will need to find locations that resonate with the theme and topic of your zine. If it’s an educational zine about tax filing you may want to be dropping it in the tax office or at the bank. If it is a girl-zine about sex-ed for newly married couples, the marriage registrar is a good seeding ground.
Hope to stumble upon and be ignited by your zines soon!
Katerina Don is the curator of HerStory Foundation, and together with Shoma Sharmin and Zaima Hamid Zoa hosts Sister Library Dhaka.