Thread by @cazwis

There’s a lot of Zine talk on twitter recently so here’s a little thread about how zines changed my life:

I started making a Zine as an art student called A Profound Waste of Time. It was a way of expressing myself, and a little soapbox from which my ideas, drawings and opinions about videogames could be shown to people. This was 2015.

Things were looking pretty dire for games culturally at that time. There was a lot of negativity in the air, and I was really sad and frustrated. I wanted to make something positive that reflected how beneficial and inspiring games can be.

Zines have a lot of links to creative frustration actually, they exploded in popularity around the 1970’s and 80’s, when the Punk movement was growing. In an age before the internet and with photocopiers becoming super accessible, they were the perfect medium for punk expression!

People used to cut out clippings of reviews, song lists, lyrics, information about venues and upcoming gigs, and made zines of them and shared them at clubs. It was the ideal way for this counterculture movement to spread out, and helped it grow exponentially.

The key thing these zines all shared is that they weren’t glossy, finished commercial products, some of them looked like shit, and that’s okay! If you make a Zine, the only thing you need to make it valid is to make it EXIST - it’s a complete free for all, and so liberating!

Anyway, I was lucky enough for my zine to be featured on @destructoid, from which it got a bit of attention and loads of positive feedback. I was so proud! A year later I did another version of the zine that was bigger and had other people from the community writing for it.

Before I knew it I had already started networking and meeting likeminded people because of my zine making. Having something physical to show, a crystallisation of your hopes, opinions and tastes... it allows you to meet kindred spirits so to speak, and really show your values.

Did you know that a little company called Game Freak started as a zine? Satoshi Taijiri started it to collate and discuss game info. Through it he met a young artist called Ken Sugimori, and together they worked on the zine and had the idea for a game about ‘capsule monsters’...

It’s amazing to think that the biggest intellectual property on the planet, an actual worldwide phenomenon, started with paper and glue and a photocopier. Zines build empires kids.

Shortly after graduating I did a kickstarter to launch @APWOTmag, and was able to get so many incredible people to take part in it, like @tha_rami, @ashly_burch, @tobyfox, @YachtClubGames and more! It was like a mad dream, but it wouldn’t have happened without that first zine.

My life is now so radically different. It’s been 3 years since I graduated and @APWOTmag has opened so many doors for me. I owe my whole career to it, along with the entirety of my adult friendships, which have been the most fulfilling of my life so far.

So what I say to you, dear reader, is get out there and make a zine! You don’t need to have any money, just paper and scissors and a pen. Don’t wait for someone to give you a platform to express yourself, make your own! You don’t need the validation of a publisher to get started.

Make it about literally anything you want, fill it with whatever, make it yours, and then share it with the world.

This thread is essentially the cliff notes version of a talk I’ve given a few times now. If anyone’s interested I can post a more full version sometime.

Anyway, sorry to ramble, I’ll leave you with two wonderful quotes from @tobyfox in the first issue of A Profound Waste of Time, because I feel they’re super applicable here.

And remember, it doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be yours. Happy making!

Oh and I forgot to say. Check out the mag! apwot.com