How-To Zines: Sharing Everyday Knowledge and Building Community

I was invited to be The Bubbler Artist in Residence at Madison Public Library in Madison, WI during January and February of 2020. “The Bubbler at Madison Public Library is a hub of creative expression amongst people of all ages through art creation and appreciation, engagement with new and old-school technology, and hands-on making.” The Bubbler Room is located at the central, downtown branch of the Madison Public Library, but The Bubbler provides programming to library branches and schools throughout the city. The Bubbler has a physical space, but more importantly it is a diverse and supportive team of “countless librarians, artists, volunteers, library staff, community partners, musicians, makers, tinkerers, curators, teachers, visionaries near & far, humans of all ages, & pretty much anyone else that has something they want to share with the Madison community.”

My residency was titled “Process Work: Illustrating the How-To, The A-Z, and the In-Between.” I wrote this statement about my plans for my time at The Bubbler:

“During this residency, I will collaborate with the community to create a series of illustrative works that examine everyday processes. I’ll be focusing on drawing the how in relationship to the why: exploring the how-to, the A-Z, and all the in-between. Libraries are accessible safe havens for imagination, community, knowledge, and empathy, and can act as a space where not only come to learn, but also to share what we know with one another. We are all experts in something. What can you do, almost without thinking? What can you cook without following a recipe? Can you fix something without the assistance of Google? Do you have a formula for creating the perfect road trip mix? How do you build the best snowman? Do you know all the best spots in your neighborhood?”

I wanted library patrons to tap into their inner-genius and find ways to draw what they know. As Artist in Residence at The Bubbler, I offered a series of public workshops. My workshops were designed to invite the public to explore ways to communicate and pass on everyday skills and knowledge via accessible, informational formats like zines, comics, and animated GIFS.

I planned for this residency to be a time for prolific drawing — I am an illustrator and a maker, after all. I thought that I would be drawing comics and posters and zines based on all the peculiar suggestions people would give me and all the thought provoking conversations we would have around their daily habits. What I didn’t anticipate was that my focus would shift almost entirely to what others were making in my workshops or when dropping by my open studio hours at The Bubbler. I was new here. I hadn’t lived in Wisconsin since 2011, and I’d never been a resident of Madison. I didn’t know this community, and I thought I was going to become familiar by drawing people that were part of it. Instead, I got to learn about people by watching what THEY made, and zines were a formative part of that experience.

Why How-To?

In my practice, I illustrate objects and processes of the everyday to reveal an understanding of identity and community. As author Annie Dillard said in her book The Writing Life, “the way we spend our days is, of course, the way we live our lives.” By paying attention to the details of daily routines I find meaning in the seemingly mundane. The way we live our lives is ultimately a record of who we are. While my interest in the everyday began as a way to explore and define my own identity, I recognized that by asking people to share their daily lives with me, I could better understand our identities in relationship to one another. In short, I could find community.

“All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life. Where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.” -from It Chooses You by Miranda July

Why Zines?

Zines lend themselves to the act of exploring and presenting the specific peculiarities of our daily lives because of their nature as an adaptive and relatively accessible format. Tangible and shareable, making an object out of your own story and your own words holds a lot of power. What you think, who you are, what you do is no longer an invisible collection of moments and thoughts but a physical object that lives in the world, documenting you. More purposeful and curated then a diary or sketchbook but with less outside input than having a book published, zines can be used as a playground for a wide variety of stories.

In the book Girl Zines: Making Media and Doing Feminism, Alison Piepmeier’s essay “Why Zines Matter: Materiality and the Creation of Embodied Community” describes the way her students “have been inspired to become part of the zine community because of physical encounters with actual zines.” While in residence at The Bubbler, I could facilitate that experience for library patrons by directing them to peruse the The Bubbler Zine Library, pictured here. Like Piepmeier, when I teach about zines I see the spark ignite when a student holds and reads a zine that they identify with. In direct opposition to the moment when viewing a work of art in a museum, unable to touch the work and feeling both intimidated and awestruck by the genius of so-called masters, when someone holds a zine in their hands for the first time, they “seem to feel personally invited to enter into the zine discourse.” Piepmeier finds evidence of this welcome invitation by the number of her students that went on to create their own zines. The sooner someone can participate in the zine-making process, the sooner they become an active member of the conversation and can understand the importance of their contribution, no permission necessary. Piepmeier writes about the community-building possibilities created through zine making by saying that, “in a world where more and more of us spend all day at our computers, zines reconnect us to our bodies and to other human beings.”

My introduction to zines was through the indie-comics community, enchanted by creamy paper and fluorescent layered risograph prints and professional bookbinding. These zines with a higher production value were so inspiring, but with these as my only example I encountered a real barrier in producing my own. How do I set up a file for professional printing? Where do I get a zine printed? Why spend money on printing costs if my drawings and writings aren’t the absolute best thing I have ever made? The details felt overwhelming, and as a recovering perfectionist it hindered my ability to finish making a zine.

This experience is at the forefront of my mind when I introduce and teach others about zines. My goal is to show them that the possibilities for zines are endless, from a meticulously designed risograph printed and saddle stitched booklet to a cut and paste Xeroxed collection of sketchbook drawings to a belly-bound stack of postcards. A zine can be made with one piece of paper or many, and The Bubbler Zine Library includes zines from across this spectrum. With access to a range of examples, my next questions were: how do I take people from inspiration directly to making? What can I do to remove as many barriers as possible when approaching the zine-making process?

Why the No-Staples Zine is My Favorite

The no-staples zine has become my most-used zine format. I love this format as a teaching tool and I love making them. The no-staples zine requires only one sheet of paper, a pair of scissors, and a tool for writing and drawing. Filling six small pages isn’t an overwhelming task for a first-time zine-maker. Unlike a half-page zine, you don’t need to own a long arm stapler to put a no-staples zine together. One-sided copies are easier and cheaper, and this format doesn’t require any knowledge of booklet printing. No-staples zines are small and portable and easy to share and trade. Going from a single sheet of printer paper to a whole book with just one piece of paper and a scissor can be a truly transformative process for a first-time zine-maker. The possibilities! The opportunity! It is humbling to watch people find excitement in the power of making their own platform.

The no-staples zine format has, for me, become like putting on a favorite worn-in t-shirt. It’s like replaying your favorite song; the melody is so familiar, and you can feel the rhythm in your body even when the song isn’t playing. I start to think and break things down and write an arc in six parts. The formula of six pages doesn’t feel constraining, it feels familiar and comfortable and like I can say whatever I need to say inside of it. People respond well to patterns, so rather than producing limiting barriers to creation, familiarity with the structure of the no-staples zine can lead to more original storytelling and inventive use of the form.

An Argument for Using Zine Templates

The constrained comics movement, including the French group OuBaPo, uses formal constraints to push the boundaries of the comics medium. Conceptual artists such as Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, George Brecht, and Yoko Ono laid out constraints with sets of directions in their instruction-based art works. I have often used constraints in my work: boundaries, guidelines, structures, and style choices. For me, setting constraints is just a way of helping me make decisions. I can breathe easier and be a more prolific maker when I am not paralyzed with decision fatigue.

The zine format is something that can be stretched and manipulated and undone and put back together. That is an exciting process for people comfortable with making and with being creative. For those that don’t believe they are drawers or artists or makers, a formula and a structure can be a real path to success. The only constant in my potential audience was that they would all be library patrons. The concept of creating zine templates came to life through conversation with Bubbler Program Assistant Carlee Latimer. How do I ask visitors to engage in making when I am not there to guide them? Templates allow first-time zine-makers to experience that satisfaction of finishing their first zine with significantly more ease. The most difficult parts of the process are made simpler with a template, like the big question: what do I write or draw on this page? The answer can be as simple as responding to a prompt.

I created three templates for visiting library patrons: a no-staples zine template, a how-to zine template, and a how-to comic template. These templates were a way for the public to interact with my residency concept even when I wasn’t at The Bubbler to make zines and draw alongside them. The drawing and writing prompts are a jumping off point, a place for library patrons to start thinking about how they might break down everyday processes into simple steps all their own.

The Overture Center for the Arts, located across from the street from the Madison Public Library central branch in downtown Madison, hosts the annual International Festival every February. As part of the festival and as Bubbler Artist in Residence, I hosted a drop-in zine-making workshop where festival attendees could stop by The Bubbler room and make a zine that told the unique story of their cultural heritage. The template for the cultural heritage zine was titled All About Us, and gave space for the author to respond to the following prompts: This is what my family looks like; this is where my family is from; this is what my family sounds like; this is my family likes to eat; this is how my family celebrates; and another interesting fact about my family. While this zine was not a straightforward how-to zine, participants were guided to consider the traditions, processes, and everyday rhythms of their family habits.

Using Zine Templates in the Classroom and Beyond

Quincy Millerjohn, a technical education teacher at Middleton High School in Middleton, WI used the How-To Zine Template when his school transitioned to virtual instruction in March 2020. Students used the zine template to illustrate technical processes. Millerjohn made this example, “Wake Up: A Guide for French Press Coffee.” The Bubbler also included my How-To Zine Template as a free pdf download in Bubbler in Your Bubble, a list of online resources for at home making.

I have also used the no-staples zine format in both foundations and upper level drawing and illustration courses. While I haven’t had the chance to incorporate templates into any lessons at the college/university level, I imagine they would be a useful tool for introducing zines into your curriculum. The no-staples zine format and zine templates are tools to help students get to the making process right away, during class time. After introducing the concept, history, and examples of zines, the constraint for making can shift from a template that you, the instructor, have created, to the format of the zine itself (i.e. half-page zine, accordion zine, postcard zine, etc.) Additionally, there is a lot of potential for using a combination of constraints and zines in longer-term projects. Students could be tasked with creating an entire collection of zines. Depending on the production quality you’re looking for and the resources available to your students, this could look like a collection of 3–5 zines made over the span of several weeks. The no-staples zine format would lend itself well to a 30-day project where students create one zine a day for 30 days. Students would build skills in project planning and organization, composition and design, writing and storytelling, printing and registration, bookbinding, creating and utilizing digital print files, and much more.

Reflections and Future Iterations of This Project

Visiting library patrons that stopped by were able to find community with me when making their zines, but I wish there had been visual evidence of all the other zines that were being made. A few zines were left behind as contributions to my residency, but most people took their single copy with them. My zine templates aided in the process of thoughtful creation, but lacked the element of physical reproduction. I could take photos to document what someone made, but I didn’t scan or make copies of zines before visitors walked away. Firstly, my intent was that people would take the time to claim and examine processes of their daily lives in order to find significance in the seemingly mundane. Secondly, these zines were meant to be filled with everyday knowledge that we could freely share and trade with one another, but the process I established during my residency only allowed for one copy of the zine to exist. Visitors were easily able to participate in the creation of zines, but I didn’t necessarily follow through on engaging them in the act of reproducing and sharing their zines.

I’ve also reflected on the fact that while I was asking people to come to The Bubbler and share about their daily lives with me, I wasn’t returning the favor in drawn, written, printed form. We would engage in conversation about zine-making and the intricacies of a morning routine or the technique for frying an egg, but the exchange of vulnerability in sharing personal stories wasn’t balanced. They were committing their lives and thoughts and knowledge to paper while I was not, opting instead for the role of educator and observer. Perhaps future iterations of this project includes me handing over a tangible piece of my story — a completed version of a how-to zine template — before requesting someone else does the same for me.

This residency concluded at the end of February 2020, and two weeks later Wisconsin issued Safer at Home orders due to the spread of COVID-19. While reflection on this project has come slower than anticipated, I do intend to create additional templates with more specific categories (like food, craft, hobbies, movement, clothing, relationships, life hacks, etc.). I plan to find new ways to make zines with more people, and continue looking for the importance and significance in everyday mundanity.

Presented at SECAC 2020 virtual conference as part of the Self-Publishing as Social Practice panel chaired by Ellen Mueller.