Tiny Zines for StokerCon

Putting my Visual Arts degree to use

As I prepared for StokerCon—and thought ahead to other reading events as well as the Boise Comics Arts Festival this summer—I wanted to expand my collection of giveaway items. I had stickers, business cards, bookmarks, and bookplates, but something was missing.

Oh yes, I realized, I need to spend many (many) hours making tiny zines!

The concept of the tiny zine is simple: one sheet of paper is divided into 8 “pages,” the top 4 are printed upside down. A cut between the top center and bottom center pages allows the book to be folded, making a compact, sturdy, and pleasing little object.

The design I settled on after much experimentation was cover, QR code, and a story from the book (or in the case of Beulah, the novel’s preface) with a background made from my doodles.

Here is an example I made from the story “You Will Make Me Strong Again” in The Best of Our Past, The Worst of Our Future:

I have loved Book Arts since taking classes from the late Tom Trusky at Boise State back at the turn of the century. He was an inspirational professor to me!

The best thing I ever made for him was an accordion-style pop-up book called House Dog Dreams. I remember we had to make a limited edition—a copy of our books for everyone in class—and with all the cutting and gluing, this one presented quite a challenge. I made it from damaged cardstock my mom had brought home from her job in a printshop and used my dog Zoe as a model.

Pop-ups from House Dog Dreams

The process of making these tiny zines has been fun and stimulating too—if a bit frustrating. An earlier prototype for The Best of Our Past, The Worst of Our Future’s zine includes pop-ups, silver foil, and more. Alas, I decided this was too grim in tone (plus too time-consuming to make many of), but I might bring one or two of these to give away.

Pop-ups from The Best of Our Past Prototype

Only two things remain to be said here:

—Doing this, and doing many more of my doodles lately, has gotten me thinking of the importance of art as a secondary creative outlet, and the prevalence of art as subject matter in my fiction. I plan to write more about these topics in future for Noglesque.

—If you are going to StokerCon, hope to see you! Here is my StokerCon schedule. All events are on Friday, but I will be hanging around the rest of the time just waiting to give you a zine!