Welcome to SEE YOU—a companion for artists, thinkers, and analog lovers with ideas, inspiration, and reflections on living an intentional creative life.
Today I’m sharing seven of my favorite zines from my collection, along with tips on sourcing your own zines for inspiration. Join to follow along, and if you want to make a zine—sign up for Zine Lab starting August 4!
Zines are self-published booklets made in small batches. They’re accessible to make and acquire, and they are an extremely powerful & freeing way to get your creative work out in the IRL world.
Want the full explainer of what zines are and why they’re my favorite creative form? Pause here and read my Zine 101 post.
As I gear up to teach another season of Zine Lab next month, I have been riffling through my big box of zines to show my students for inspiration. Here are some of my current favorites, several of which are created by former Zine Lab students(!!)
In 2024, artist and tarotist shea in the catskills emailed me about a tarot zine box set idea, wondering if Zine Lab would be a generative place to start actualizing the concept. During the class shea completed one of the five zines for print and was deeply in the zone finishing the others in the set.
A few months later shea kindly sent me the full 78 Faces of Power box set and I was floored! I loved the paper engineering that went into making custom box sets for these zines, as well as the beautiful collages and non-prescriptive interpretations of tarot cards. 78 Faces of Power has been deeply influential in my tarot study—I even brought it with me to my residency to set on my altar.
You can purchase the box set and read about shea’s zine making process here.
Sarah Shaw is a cartoonist and illustrator who writes Found Objects on Substack. I found her here and immediately subscribed to her quarterly zine subscription for paid subscribers.
Can I tell you I absolutely drooled when I received Borestone Mountain Field Journal last summer? Not only does Sarah make gorgeous gouache paintings that make nature come alive, but this zine has so many fold outs and cut outs to delight my inner child. I’ve never been to Borestone in Maine, but this field journal made the experience come alive through all five senses.
You can read more about Sarah’s zine making process here. While this zine no longer seems to be available, you can purchase Sarah’s other wonderful zines on Etsy.
NYC-based artist KellyAnne Tang walked into Zine Lab wanting to create an exploratory zine that would combine her sketchbook drawings with reflections on creative practice. She finished the draft for her zine during Zine Lab, then printed and assembled it in the following weeks.
I was so excited to receive a copy of KellyAnne’s zine, What Makes A Creative Life, in the mail! She explores the various pillars of her creative practice, from intuition to curiosity to craft, and what each of those look like in tangible form. There are beautiful quotes and journal prompts woven throughout. KellyAnne has kindly posted this zine for free digital download here!
Designer Mitchell Volk is a Substack friend who also contributed to my collaborative zine project Rules to Live By. In February, he reached out to me asking if I wanted to receive his newsletter in physical format, compiled into a zine. Of course, my answer was a resounding YES!
Mitchell has now mailed out two quarterly issues of his zine Dispatch to his close friends and peers. These zines are a family affair, filled with drawings from his children and comics about his children. Every page is a new delight—a list of bird sightings, a mini comic inside of a greater comic, musings on generative AI, album recommendations. Dispatch shows me what a zine can be—everything all at once!
George Slade, a Minneapolis-based photographer, joined Zine Lab wanting to make and print a photo zine of ICE protests. I was so impressed by how quickly he turned this project around, from sourcing paper, printing, trimming, and binding it all himself!
ICE OUT is the first photo zine in my collection. Flipping through its pages, especially with its emotionally charged subject matter, I felt that I could sit longer with these images and immerse myself in the environment. Photographs are exchanged so often online that they are mostly rendered decorative in my brain—projects like ICE OUT invite me to slow down and see it as documentation come to life.
I discovered this zine at Typewronger Books in Edinburgh and was immediately enamored by its paper fold. Four Punctuation Marks, a zine made by Typewronger’s founder T.S.J. Hodges, is a single square sheet. The “exterior” shows the four marks—the asterisk, pilcrow, at, and pound signs—then opens up to historical explanations of how each mark came to be.
It’s the perfect niche zine for a print and book lover, printed and assembled in house on Typewronger’s risograph machine. While this zine doesn’t seem to be for sale online, you can browse Typewronger’s other zines for sale here.
Writer and cultural strategist Beth Howard joined Zine Lab by way of shea in the catskills. She had a beautiful dream filled with synchronicities that she wanted to document in a zine.
The zine To Return To My Trees combines illustrations, photography, journaling prompts, and poetry to create a magical reading journey. I was most delighted by the envelope (with a fun sticker seal!) that revealed the story of Beth’s dream. Reading the dream is the highlight of Beth’s zine, so I loved that she wrapped it in an envelope to accentuate the reading experience. To get a copy of To Return to My Trees, order through Beth here.
While many of my favorite zines now come through zine trades and private mailings, I didn’t have any zine friends when I first started growing my collection. Here are some ways you can start acquiring your own physical zines for inspiration:
Zines are usually made in limited quantities by artists, so they can go out of print quickly. Zine fairs and art book fairs are the best way to see a lot of small publications and get a sense of what you like.
There are always new fairs popping up all over the world—Art Book Fairs has a comprehensive list and map so you can see upcoming events near you! The site is also an incredible resource if you’re a zinester/book maker looking to apply as a vendor.
When I go to a fair, I like to skim the lineup and note a few artists or small presses that I definitely want to see. Artists at fairs will usually announce which table they are at on their social media or newsletter beforehand. Of course, I also leave plenty of time to roam and see what catches my eye—but it’s nice to have a game plan of “can’t miss” stops, as fairs can get very overwhelming! Don’t feel like you have to stop and browse every single table.
You can find zines across independent bookstores, print shops, and gift shops. I like more art-heavy zines so I have a higher success rate at print & gift shops. Bookstores tend to have a better selection of poetry, prose, or comic zines.
Here are a few of my favorite shops around the world that stock zines and artist books:
Minnesota Center for Book Arts in Minneapolis, MN (my zines are stocked here!)
Secret Room, Outlet in Portland, OR
Secret Riso Club, From Here to Sunday, Archie’s Press in New York, NY
Heavy Manners Library in Los Angeles, CA
On Waverly in San Francisco, CA
Gosh! Comics in London
Have a recommendation from your neighborhood or travels? Share in the comments!
Though I see a lot of zines I love in the wild, I can only buy a fraction of them—my budget and space are limited! But I always try to follow the artist online and subscribe to their newsletter, so I can stay updated with future offerings.
You can do this too as you start to attend book fairs, see art you like in gift shops, or come across cool zines online. Though many artists who primarily sell in person will debut their new zines at fairs, you can always message them directly to inquire if you can buy a copy and get it shipped to you. People have messaged me about sold out zines in the past, and sometimes I will have an extra copy that I can mail them. It never hurts to send the email!
The most rewarding, serendipitous way to acquire zines is to make your own zines and trade with others! I organize a trade for Zine Lab students at the end of every cohort, so that everyone has a chance to see and touch each other’s zines in real life.
While zines are a fulfilling creative project on their own, they are really meant to be an avenue to share our work. That’s why I love zine trades as a way to practice exchanging ideas and artistry in a gift economy.
Want to make a zine of your own? Registration for August’s Zine Lab is still open 🌟 Zine Lab is a four week online workshop starting August 4. No preparation or experience is required—come in with loose ideas for a zine you’d like to make, and after four weeks, you’ll be holding a physical copy of your finished zine to share and trade!
Want more zine articles & inspiration? Dig into these past zine posts:
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