I contributed a short piece that describes my zine making process to this zine about zines. A trade publication of sorts. Billy Zines edited it and you can now get it at his etsy shop. Neat!
Do you like reading zines about zines? You know you do!
flotation device 14
I made a new zine. Who knew it could be done? This one is about a band I used to play in and a store I used to work at. If you want one. Get in touch.
interviews with zinesters – karl erickson and gretchen larsen
Note – I am slowly going through and cleaning up my folders on our hard drive. I just came across a bunch of old interviews I did with people while I was a journalism student at Columbia College Chicago. I think this interview is from an article I was working on for a magazine writing class. I am not sure. I only vaguely remember working on this project. You can tell from my repeated questions that I had some thesis that I was trying to cover, but I can’t remember what it was specifically. I think they are from 1999. At that time, I was a dumb kid, so I probably didn’t appreciate the time that these people took to answer the questions. But I do now. Thank you very much to Andrew Scott, Dan Sinker, Matt Cordell, Karl Erickson, Gretchen Larsen, Julie Halpern and Katherine Raz. If you are one of the interviewees and want your interview taken down, please let me know. I am putting them here for posterity and nerdy archival reasons.
Karl Erickson and Gretchen Larsen – Cakewalk
Why did you start Cakewalk? What made you decide to do it? Was there some event or some thing that made you want to do it? What were your goals? What did you hope to accomplish? Do you feel like you’re filling a void in Chicago’s zine scene?
Karl Erickson: Mari Eastman, Elliot Joslin, Liz Mayer and myself started Cakewalk a few years ago. Mari, Liz and I all worked at another art magazine and, I at least, felt a bit of dissatisfaction about content. Not that that magazine was doing anything wrong, they were and are serving their audience just great. But I wanted to see different stuff and I wanted to have more of a decision making role. Plus, I thought it would make me look cool. I’m really not sure why anyone else has joined on, other to bask in the warm glow of the Cakewalk machine.
Gretchen Larsen: Yes, the glowing machine was definitely a draw, but for me it was an opportunity to do some cool design. We all have a very similar aesthetic, attitude and sense of humor, so it’s way more fun to produce something with your good friends than for your no-good, unimaginative boss.
KE: But what I think what really started it was that Mari and I were having an unsupervised, over-caffeinated day and decided to do it. Our goals are to, from my point of view, continue to have artists and people interested in art talk about this interest and their other interests. It builds a sense of community and, I hope, allows people to get to know each other outside of more professionally orientated magazines. I like to see people talk about whatever in a more informal, but still critical way. Also, the more strange drawings we can publish, the better.
As for filling a void in the Chicago zine scene, I’d say sure we do. I only know of a couple other art magazines in Chicago and each has their own flavor.
How long ago did you start Cakewalk? Is it your first zine? Were there other zines, are there other zines that you work on?
KE: I think Cakewalk started in 1998, but it may have been 1997. It comes out very sporadically. All of us have worked on a variety of magazines.
How large is your operation? Do you employ anybody? Is it mainly just you? How do you feel about that?
KE: We have a revolving cast, but there is a 5 or 6 person core (Steve Anderson, Mari Eastman, Gretchen Larsen, Liz Mayer, Josh Rothkopf on drums and myself.) We don’t pay anyone, though I have used some of our advertising money for bus fare. I would love to make money and pay people, but I’d also like to be Hugh Hefner.
GL (Designer & Karl’s girlfriend): The hell you would!
Is everyone friends? Is it larger than when you started?
KE: We are all friends and the great thing is that we get to be friendly with the writers and artists involved. It is larger now in that we actually get around internationally. People are always saying Oh, I saw you in Singapore or UNICEF was including issues in a drop. Kind of surprising, really.
Do you think of your zine as a Chicago art magazine or an art magazine that happens to be in Chicago? Why?
KE: Definitely an art magazine that is based in Chicago. And not even that too much, as our writers are from all over, Mari is in LA. There is so much complaining in Chicago, particularly in the art scene, that we don’t get enough attention, blah blah blah and one of the things I think that Cakewalk does is just ignore the idea of regionalism. If it is good (or not good but we are interested in it) then it is in. This brings the world to us and us to the world.
Do you feel that there’s a sense of community among Chicago’s zinesters? Is it a strong community? Weak community? Do you feel that you’re part of it? How would you improve it?
KE: I really don’t know if there is a community among zine producers. If there is, I don’t feel part of it. That said, the folks at Quimby’s are very nice and supportive and I imagine are a focal point of the scene. Cakewalk is more centered in the art world then in a zine world, if there is one, so most of our contacts and sense of belonging are there. It would be interesting to hear how everyone else gets their magazines out in the world and into the hands of those who thirst for their brand of knowledge. But I hate group meetings. If somebody asked me to be part of the zine scene, I would say sure.
GL: I can’t say I really feel like we’re doing “‘zine” in the proper sense anyway. I’d say, rather, the “independent publishing” scene in Chicago has been pretty great, but I don’t know if I often feel part of a scene either. We all just sort of do our own thing and maybe run into each other every now and then. Karl mentioned Quimby’s, Supersphere.com has picked up a few of our articles, Punk Planet has given some good advice, Reckless Records has been super nice to us – anyone interested in printed matter, really – which may or may not qualify as a community. The reaction has been pretty positive and most people are like This is cool, can I mention/sell you in my ‘zine/website/bookstore/shout from the rooftops? Everyone has been very giving and sharing and they play nicely with others.
Are you happy with how Cakewalk turned out? Is it what you had envisioned when you started it? How would you improve it? Where do you see yourself and your zine in five years?
KE: I am pretty happy with Cakewalk. I think it is great because sometimes it doesn’t make any sense and confuses me and sometimes it does make sense. I love our covers. I think Cakewalk has an internal logic that we just haven’t figured out yet. Oh, there could be all sorts of improvements. We could have more money, we could become “legit” and be business-y and probably have people give us money and it could be in color and have more than a thousand issues printed and people would turn stuff in on time and I could be super organized or hire organizing monkeys and actually present more new ideas to the world that make people think. In five years. Good God. If we are still around, it should be quarterly, at least, we should not be doing it from our mother’s basements or “borrowing” office supplies from other jobs, and have a nice website like McSweeneys.net and we should be able to impress people by saying I work on Cakewalk. And have meetings in hot tubs.
GL: It would be dreamy if we could make enough money to do it for a living. But it would probably take more than five years for that to happen. I could see it continuing casually as we have for another few years. Maybe more color, better print quality. But I can’t see the feel-good factor ever changing, I think that’s our biggest asset.
Is there a step by step process that you go through in putting together your zine? What is it? This includes everything, from brainstorming to final product and distribution.
KE: Kind of. First we talk loosely about what the magazine should be about. Then we take this loose idea and present it to different writers we are interested in who might be interested in us. Then we start to get in a few article suggestions and that usually spurs on other article ideas. Sooner or later we end up with most of the articles we need and we go about designing it. We usually have an internal theme that we work with that doesn’t really have anything to do with the article themes. For instance, last issue, a lot of the articles dealt with rebellion and the artists place in our society. But we decided that the internal theme would be all you can robot. Before that, it was country western. This just gives us the structure we need to have a cohesive design. So after it is all designed we send it out to be printed. Then we get it back, send some to our distributors, who take it and do something with it, I am not sure what. They don’t tell us. The rest we self-distribute, putting them on consignment and sending them to friends around the world. Probably the easiest thing to forget but the most important thing to do is send issues to people who are in the magazine or who have helped you out.
Has it changed since you put together your first issue? Is it smoother now? Is it always evolving or do you have it perfected?
KE: It is far from perfected, though we are moving away from doing the editing and designing at the same time. That is a recipe for pain. So, it is smoother.
interviews with zinesters – andrew scott
Note – I am slowly going through and cleaning up my folders on our hard drive. I just came across a bunch of old interviews I did with people while I was a journalism student at Columbia College Chicago. I think this interview is from an article I was working on for a magazine writing class. I am not sure. I only vaguely remember working on this project. You can tell from my repeated questions that I had some thesis that I was trying to cover, but I can’t remember what it was specifically. I think they are from 1999. At that time, I was a dumb kid, so I probably didn’t appreciate the time that these people took to answer the questions. But I do now. Thank you very much to Andrew Scott, Dan Sinker, Matt Cordell, Karl Erickson, Gretchen Larsen, Julie Halpern and Katherine Raz. If you are one of the interviewees and want your interview taken down, please let me know. I am putting them here for posterity and nerdy archival reasons.
Andrew Scott Sobstory
What made you start your zine? Was there some incident or some thing that happened that made you want or need to make a zine? What did you hope to accomplish when you first started? What was your mission?
Throughout highschool I read Maximum Rock n Roll religiously. I loved punk rock, I identified with it and was so inspired by it all. I bought the records, the zines, and attended the shows. The next step was to start contributing to this scene that meant so much to me. But after three failed attempts to play in punk rock bands, I decided that maybe a zine was a better option. So rather than scream my thoughts through a microphone, I decided to write them down and xerox them. A zine was a creative outlet that I could do entirely on my own. Then later on it turned into an addiction, I had to make zines to keep my sanity. It was a relief to empty out the thoughts in my head and put them on paper. Like John Lee Hooker said Let that boy boogie-woogie, cuz it’s in him and it’s gotta come out.
How do you feel about Chicago? How long have you lived here? Do you think of your zine as a Chicago zine? Do you feel like there’s a sense of community among Chicago zinesters? Is it strong? Weak? Do you feel part of it? How would you improve it?
I’ve lived in Chicago basicallly my entire life except for the one year I spent in California. I grew up about 25 miles west of the city in Dupage County, but moved to the city six years ago. I’m not too fond of Chicago, but at the same time I love it. Every year I vow to move away, but something always keeps me here. Chicago is my home, as much as I curse it, this city fuels me. Chicago is filled with real people that have real problems. Walking down the street you can see it in their eyes, I’m sure they see it in mine too. It’s not easy to live in this city, it weathers a person, but I think that’s what gives it it’s character. It’s all surface level, what you see is what you get in this town.
Sobstory is inevitalby a Chicago zine, because that’s where I reside, but I think that people everywhere can relate to what I’m writing about. It’s about experiences and life. Like how people understand love songs in every region, we’re all humans right?
If there’s any sort of a zine community in Chicago, I’m not aware of it. I know a few people that do zines, and we’ll talk about printing methods, or other insignificant issues. We’re not really helping each other produce our zines.
When did you first start making zines? I know you did Kumquat before Sobstory, when did you start that? Why did you switch over to Sobstory? Do you think of your zines as personal zines?
I started Kumquat zine in the fall of 1992. Six issues were printed up, and the last one was released in 1998. I switched to the name Sobstory, because I felt that the feeling of the zine had matured. I was 18 when I printed up the first Kumquat. You can imagine the difference between an 18 year old’s zine and a 25 year old’s zine. It was time for a change. I’d liked the name sob story for a couple years, I was into the idea of a title that said this zine tells a story. So Sobstory it was.
I hate the name personal zine, it sounds too sissy. Like this is my private little story I’m sharing with you. Yeah, I may talk about experiences that move me, but it’s no different than someone singing a song about romance, gun fights, or being a rambling man. They don’t label those songs as personal songs. Most things that inspire people touch them personally. I don’t think it’s any different than an author writing a story. I do like some zines that might be labeled as personal zines, these are my all time favorites: Reality Control, Notes from the Lighthouse, Scam zine, and Beer Powered Bicycle.
How have you grown as a zine maker over the years? How have your zines improved over the years? Are you happy with how Sobstory came out? Were you happy with Kumquat? If you could improve Sobstory how would you?
I’ve grown as a person and inevitably my zine has followed the same path. My zines have improved as far as design and printing techniques. When I first started, it was entirely a cut and paste layout. And I hope the writing is a little better. I’m happy with all of the zines I’ve ever printed, even though each one has a lot of room for improvement. I always think the next one I print will be a little bit better. I suppose if I had an editor to read my stuff before it was printed that would be an improvement.
Where do you see yourself and your zine in five years? What do you hope to accomplish by then?
In five years I will be probably be dead, but at least my zines will finally be recognized. Just kidding, I don’t know. I hope to keep putting out zines, and busying myself with other creative projects. My head is always conjuring up these ideas in which I can waste more money. Nonetheless they keep me going, I’ve found that involving myself in these projects sort of puts more meaning into life, like maybe I have a greater purpose than working some shitty 9-5 job for the rest of my life. Well, I’ll still be working that 9-5 job, but hopefully doing stuff on the side.
why i like zines (and minicomics)
and we’re back to the notebook. i wrote this for a little zine that a friend of mine, hatuey, and i put together that compiled contributions from people that participated in our self-publishing workshop that we used to run out of chicago comics. that workshop was called gutters. we don’t do it anymore. so i wrote this on 9/2/05. you’ll see that i out myself as a librarian in this piece. i still agree with what i wrote regarding the “as a librarian” bit, but i’m an archivist more than a librarian at this point. although there’s a lot of overlap between the two. so at some point i could be more of a librarian than an archivist. and it would still rule if i could be a zine librarian/archivist. now you know.
I had
I’ve never really tried to put into words what it is about self publishing in general, zines/minicomics in specific, that draws me in captivates me inspires me engages me.
I’ve written about my frustrations. I don’t know if I’ve ever published any of that – I try to keep things positive – so many rants already there, I try to avoid that. But I have written in my notebooks of how agonizing it can be, how aggravating, how tiring, angering, annoying it can be to do yr own zine. It’s enough to make you say, why bother, and quit.
But I don’t.
There’s something there that keeps me going. This brings me back to my opening sentence. The one I meant to finish. I’ve never really tried to put into words what it is about zines that I love, until recently. Lately I’ve had to explain what zines are to a whole new bunch of people. I’m in library school learning to be a librarian – hopefully a zine librarian/archivist and I’m meeting all these new people that don’t know what zines or minicomics are and they’re intrigued. But they ask or I assume they want to know what makes zines so important. To which I used to take a while going “hmm. Let me think. Umm.”
But now I’ve got it boiled down to one immediate answer. It’s the immediacy, the intimacy of zines that I love. The instantaneous expression of ideas and opinions. But as a librarian what is important is the documentation of the everyday. The preservation of this huge record of information about normal people. Not celebrities. Not politicians. Not athletes. No stars. Just plain regular people who are observing their world, their lives. That is an important body of information.
500 years from now. We’re all dead. Generations have come and gone. But, theoretically, those people will look at the zines from now and see what was going on. They’ll see what we cared about. What you and I were doing. Us unfamous yokels. What we thought. Even if we’re just writing about bands and bikes and our traumatic high school experiences and loves and ups and downs. It may seem trivial, but it’s not.
Diy publishers. Zinesters are documenting important information for posterity. Whether we admit it or not.
That of course is my high falootin answer. Ask me sometime in person and the first thing I’ll say is. Um. I don’t know. I like zines. Then I’ll shuffle my feet and look at the ground.