S8E5: Brigitte Coovert

Hello and welcome back to Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines! This episode, I'm joined by Brigitte Coovert, a lifelong zinester and currently the author of Commonplace, who is based in Florida. We talk about the ethics of digitizing a zine collection, zine reviews, horse trauma, and more.

Find more of Brigitte's work here:

http://commonplaceszines.etsy.com

http://ko-fi.com/commonplacezines

http://instagram.com/commonplacezines

https://substack.com/@commonplacezines

Find more of my work here:

http://ko-fi.com/lngrmstplr

http://long-arm-stapler.tumblr.com

Chat with me on the podcast! Fill out a form here: http://tinyurl.com/letschatLAS

Thanks for listening :)

Logo by Miquela Davis: @ghostsb4breakfast

Intro/outro:

Who Likes to Party Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello and welcome back to Long Armed Stapler Podcast with Zines. I'm your host, Mayra. Today, this episode, I'm joined by Bridget, who has been writing zines off and on since the 90s. A former teacher who has used zines in her classroom, she now regularly publishes her zine commonplace, and she writes about zine philosophy as well as providing resources on her Substack. She was raised in a zine-centric household and is also an avid collector and reader. Hello, Bridget.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Hello. I barely even remember writing that.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Uh well, I mean, we will now talk about all of it. So yeah, that's good. So you got into zines in the 90s. That's that's wild. Um, how did you get into making zines?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah, I actually got into making zines. I can't really even say when I started making zines necessarily because my dad was a zine star, Andy Nukes. So he has been making zines since before I was born, and stopped making zines only when he had a stroke a couple of years ago. So he made zines into his 70s. So he has been making zines my entire life. So my first zine, technically, I made when I was seven years old, and it was monster drawings, and I walked around my trailer park knocking on doors and selling it for 25 cents, and I was a super shy kid, and I was like very excited to sell zines door to door. So technically that's my first zine, but I got into zines in the 90s when my dad decided I was old enough for fact sheet five, and he handed me fact sheet five, and he was like, do not look at the ads in fact sheet five. And I stumbled upon mystery science theater fanzine, a mystery science theater 3000 fanzine, and I thought it was like the coolest thing, and they were doing a contest because they were discontinuing their zine and they needed someone to take over. So my friend and I wrote a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fanzine and submitted it to take over their fanzine, and they did not select us to do so, but we still published like four issues of it together. And after that, I was like completely locked into making zines, and I published a per zine after that for my last two years in high school and my first two years in college almost every month. So for four years straight, I published essentially like my diary, Perzine, and then I've made zines off and on ever since then, but got back into them really heavily about two years ago when I started making commonplace. So it's been like a long zine journey for me. I published my first my fanzine under a pseudonym, and it ended up in the Francesca Leoblach and Hillary Carlip book, The Zine Scene. And it was under a pseudonym, and I went to high school that day when I got the book in the mail and was like, I'm in a book, I'm in a book, and no one believed me because it wasn't my real name. And I was so mad that I dropped the pseudonym because I needed the credit more than I needed the pseudonym. So yeah, it's been a long, a long, fun zine journey for sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

That's so awesome. Um, I feel like a lot of the people I talked to on this podcast got into zines like formally, like later on. And so it's really cool that you've just kind of been around zines your entire life.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yeah, yeah. I remember folding zines at my kitchen table with my dad when I was way younger, like way before I made zines, um, because he did um comics like with an ex. So his old zine friends still run into me online and are like, oh my god, you're Andy Nuke's daughter. I don't know if people even know who he is, but yeah, I remember folding zines with him. I went to a zine fest with him and tabled uh when I was in my early 20s. I mean, he's always been super heavily into zines and um his friends, he has this really awesome friend group. And one of the reasons I wanted to get back into it as an adult was kind of being inspired by how his zine friends really rallied around him um after his stroke because he became pretty significantly disabled by the stroke. Um, and he can't write anymore, he can't draw anymore, he can't really speak very well anymore, and he's partially paralyzed. And a lot of people kind of disappeared on him, but his zine friends have shown up for years mailing things to him. He loves reading their zines, and even though he can't send anything back to them, they've just never abandoned him. And it was like, damn, this community is so cool. Like I just I'm like, I want to have zine friends again, like I miss it. I want real connections again, not necessarily just online connections. I want to be old and still get zines from my friends, you know. So his experience really inspired me to get back into it too.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

That's so cool. Like, that's truly a testament to the power of the zine community, like and the strength of like friendships that you can make through zines and comments, like it just the the community around independent publishing and like self-publishing can be so strong. Um, so that's really cool that they're still you know supporting him and still sending zines, and you know, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah, those kind of like analog pen pal friendships, doing zine swaps and stuff, it just it's a whole other thing. And there's something very authentic about those relationships. And when we send zines to each other, it's like you're really giving a part of yourself to another person that you wouldn't necessarily even feel comfortable sharing online. So I think even if you don't write extensively long letters, those zine friendships can run really deep and span like many years. So yeah, I just love the community. I think it's the coolest. So I'm glad to be involved in it in any way. And I love that I got to get started in the 90s because then I get to say I've been making zines since the 90s, and I have a bunch of old zines too, which is really cool.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah, I bet you've got like, I mean, you say you're an avid collector, like I bet having zines from that era is such a exciting like treasure trope, because there were there were so many cool zines in the 90s, like it blows my mind.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah, I have a bunch of because I collected Persines and it was back when being a teenage girl and writing about your life was not something that people were exposed to. It's not we didn't have social media, we didn't have the internet. I was writing my perzine in like 1996, 1997, 1998, and it would be unusual to hear the intimate details of someone else's life. And so I was getting zines from other, mostly young women like around the world and learning about each other's lives. And it was very cool, like just to learn about other people's lives in this way. Now we kind of overshare, so it's not as radical to share your diary online. Now it's like, don't do that, people are weird, but it's really cool to have some of those zines, and then I also inherited my dad's zine collection, so I have all of his zines from like his whole lifetime of collecting, which is really, really cool too. I'm so torn because part of me is like, this would be awesome to digitize. I really really want to share these zines, but it's like we had no concept of the internet when we were writing zines in the 90s. Like, yes, the internet existed, but not really in the way that you would think of it now. And I'm like, I can't share these people's personal zines. We we had no concept of this, but I'm like, oh, I also don't want them to be lost to time. It's a constant conflict of like, what do I do with these zines? Like, how do I preserve them? How do I make sure that they don't just fade away?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah, that's that's something I have another guest coming on from a DIY art collective and local to me who recently got a grant to digitize like this massive zine collection. And so I definitely want to ask her about it. And I it's hard because like you said, there was no real concept of like the internet and kind of what it would become, you know, and so like I think about when I started making zines, the internet was very much a thing, and you know, I was making zines on and putting them on the internet, and it's I feel like it would be very different had I started making zines earlier, even though I was, you know, like online journaling, which is essentially a per like a digital per zine since I was like 12. And it's it feels like it would just be I feel like my perception of zines would be very different had I not discovered them on the internet and had I discovered them like pre-internet and just like what you would kind of put out there, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah, no, the the the diary zine that I wrote when I was a teenager, it was a diary, it was absolutely my diary, it was stuff that I I would not ever put online, and it was also like the the burn book from my high school essentially, because I was such a gossip person, and I'm using full names, you know, people's full legal names, and everybody gossip that I had heard about them. Madness. Nothing I would put online today went into that zine. But when I went to college, which was like a few years after I started that zine, I got my first email account, and it was a computer that's a completely black screen with orange text, and that's how you emailed. I mean, we're talking like the earliest days of the internet, and there was no way that we would have shared this information thinking that it was gonna be public in any way. And now I write my zine knowing full well that there's always a possibility that somebody could scan it, circulate it online, you know, decide that they were gonna read it or whatever. I'm also much older, obviously. So I just am a little less, I don't know, angry, a little less gossipy, a little more chill. So I wouldn't be, you know, writing every hot take that came across my mind like I was when I was a teenager. Truly unhinged. But we also have lost out on so much by, you know, like zines changing in the way that they have or the internet changing in the way that it has. Because even zines from 10 years ago, you'll read them and you're like, ooh, these are a little outdated, you know. But the cool thing about zines is because they're analog, if you aren't ready to co-sign them, you just stop publishing them. Like I would never reprint my old zines. I read them and I'm like, who wrote this? You know, what kind of person wrote this? And yeah, I just I think they've just changed so much that now we do write them kind of knowing in the back of our minds. This could be posted online because the internet's so ubiquitous. But I do think there's a really interesting discussion around the ethics of archiving zines that needs to be discussed because I don't know the answers. I'm still trying to figure out how I even feel about it. Because on one hand, I don't want them to go away. I don't want only certain types of collections to be archived, certain types of voices to be preserved. But at the same time, we were putting like our full legal names in these zines. People were putting their addresses, like their actual legal addresses in these zines. We were posed, we were writing about the most personal stuff in these zines, things that you had never once shared. And we had no concept of them, the internet being what it was going to be at that time. So, how could we ever consent to experiencing the you know our zines on the internet? There's no way. And I feel like if you can't really consent to it, it's like you have to respect those people's, you know, the right to not have their innermost thoughts published or archived online. And then on the other hand, right, I want zines to be preserved. And I don't think that the only place you should be able to read old zines is if you go to the stacks in an academic library at a university. So I'm super conflicted about it. Super conflicted. So yeah, I have no answers. I'm sure your other guests will know what to talk about about that.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Hopefully, it'd be cool to like just start, you know, ask. I think that's a good question I'm gonna start asking people is like, what are your thoughts on like digital archives of zines? Um, yeah, because that's something I'm super curious about, especially as someone who has put, you know, all of their maybe not deepest, darkest secrets, but like I've put a lot of information on zines online that are like really personal. And some of them I just don't publish anymore because I've was like, Right, no, nobody needs to know that in this like in the year of our Lord 2026, nobody needs to know that about me. Um if they've already got the zine, fine, but like no more. Um, but it's it is a it is a great kind of discussion topic, just yeah, because like how could they have consented to like putting that on the internet?

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Yeah, yeah, I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on it. I think some people will feel totally different about it than other people would. I think I'm coming from the the perspective of someone who, if my old zine was archived and published online, I would be mortified, mortified by it. Because like I love the person who wrote those zines. Like I love my younger self. I have a lot of kind of grace for her, as they say. But why would I want to subject this very like raw version of myself to scrutiny? Because it feels like on the internet when we exist, all of ourselves throughout all of time exist simultaneously, as though we've been a static person for the last 20 or 30 years, and it's just not true. So I would, I mean, and it's my my full name is in these scenes, and I would hate for someone to be like, in 1998, you said this. Like, I don't, I don't remember it, and also I was wrong, like, and so I think that that would really bum me out to even like have and some of the stuff is so personal, and a lot of it is informed by like a really bad childhood. Like some of the stuff that I wrote in there is just like, oh god, you needed therapy so bad, you know. But I think after a certain point we did realize that you know the internet existed and everything you would do would be online, and I think there is a kind of a break point where it's like after that it's kind of free game, but then you have to deal with internet intellectual property issues. Like, do we have the right even to freely share other people's intellectual property? Like, how does copyright come into it? So, yeah, interesting to hear perspectives on it. I I have I'm of two or three minds on it myself.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Somebody out there, if you have an answer, hit me up. I would love to chat about it.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yes, convince me, tell me what to believe. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Um cool. That yeah, that's well, A, quite the the zine journey, and B, like really interesting questions about you know consent and the internet. Um something you mentioned earlier was that you know, your your dad's zine friends kind of and like the zine community kind of inspired you to get back into zines. Is that like what currently inspires you to keep making zines?

SPEAKER_00 17:09

So I love writing. I've written forever, it feels like a really integral part of my identity, and so I just love it as a form of self-expression, so that's a huge part of it. Um, but my kind of dad's experience is one reason I got back into making zines, but the other one was that I'm online for my job. I'm an artist, so I have social media is a huge part of my job. And I feel like when you're very online, you start to absorb like the anticipated opinions of other people to like a huge extent. And so I got to the point a few years ago where I had completely embraced this idea that I had nothing of value to say and that no one would want to hear what I had to say anyway. And it wasn't the kind of thing where I was sad or down on myself, I just felt like it was the truth because I had been so online because of my job, and I was like, I don't know what I think about anything anymore. I knew what the correct opinion would be, I knew what I would have to say to not get any mean comments, but I had stopped understanding what I even thought about anything, and so when I decided to do zines again, I started thinking about what I wanted to write, and I started writing, and I am still writing the zines because I am trying to figure out how I feel about things and figure out kind of who I am again as a person completely divorced from the internet because social media as an artist has been a major part of my life for six years, and you can really disappear into other people's opinions really, really easily, much more easily than I had ever anticipated. So I started writing book reviews or thoughts about movies or just things I found interesting, and I really, really slowly got my voice back as a writer because even before the internet, I was a high school teacher. And again, you're in the crucible of other people's opinions. You know, you can't really have strong opinions about things, or you need to be very, very careful about what you say. I pretty much nuked my entire online presence when I was a teacher because I love my students, but they will look you up online, they will try to find out everything about you. So I just felt like I kind of stopped being a person with opinions. And the process of writing commonplace really helped me kind of figure out who I am again, as cheesy as that sounds. And now I feel way more confident in my opinions, or I don't look up like what did everybody think about this movie. I'm just like, did I like it or not? Why did I like it or not? That's a valid opinion. And it's been a really nice experience. It's what it's what really motivates me to keep going. That ends swapping with like my five or six zine friends and like my five normie friends who I forced to read my zine. That's I feel like I would say you only need like five zine friends. That's like it's like you want to just swap with your friends, you want to read their zines. You have to have something to send them. So that motivates me. And then what motivates me to write them is just continuing to develop my voice as like a writer and as a person after really having lost it kind of unexpectedly, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yeah, totally. Like, and yeah, something you mentioned in that is like kind of figuring out who you are without the internet. Like, and so while you were talking, I was thinking about that, and it's just like, do I like that's something I'm trying to figure out right now is like how do I like who am I without the internet? Because the inner I feel like the internet was such an integral part of me existing as a person and like growing up online and like spending my entire life logged on, or like you know, everything from like 10 years old to now, I've just been logged on. Yeah. Um, and I do think that zines personally, I think zines have been a good way to kind of figure that out, especially making them analog. Like when I started making them, I was making them digitally, and now I'm like, no, let me hand stamp each individual letter of this zine. uh and give my brain a break from being on a computer like so it's and yeah what you said about like kind of reforming your own opinions and like strengthening them that makes a lot of sense too yeah yeah I mean I I think my first or I think my second issue I wrote about like Katy Perry.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Everybody was mad at Katy Perry not for the space thing but for like women's world so I did like a lyrical analysis of woman's world and then I compared it to um too much labor which is this really feminist song and I wrote this essay that's kind of I thought a more subtle critique like yes Katy Perry's song isn't good but also ageism. You can't have a take like that online it's way too complicated. People will hear one part of it and either agree with it or really strongly disagree with it. And I really wanted a place to think through ideas that I was having that didn't have a comment section where there was no like punitive aspect of thinking through things because I think it was like six or seven issues later I was like I can't keep defending Katy Perry. I don't even listen to her music I just wanted to kind of think through this idea as a thought exercise. But again if you put it online you're permanently the person who defends Katy Perry. And I'm just not that I sometimes you just want to think about interesting things you know sometimes you just want to talk to your friends about some random idea. So Zine I feel like is almost like a letter or like an essay or a missive to like your group of friends. So yeah I just I was tired of the comments section sometimes you want to think through something without feedback. Sometimes that's good. But yeah it's really hard to figure out who we are outside of the internet. I mean I think I made my first website in like 2000 I have like ancient blogs and stuff and I sometimes go back through them and I'm like is there anything in here that would be good for a zine and I'm like nope just terrible takes I didn't remember writing it's all awful so yeah it's kind of like an interesting thing to think about like who are we outside of the internet because it's good. The internet I don't think is bad. I think that kind of thinking is a little too simplistic but it does shape who we are and we aren't really meant to have the feedback of that many people especially people who are potentially strangers bots um people who act in bad faith you know all that kind of stuff yeah the internet can I feel like the internet can be really good.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

I've gotten a lot of good out of the internet but the internet can also be bad but I realize that there's so much more nuance than like the internet isn't black and white you know like there's so much gray with the internet but it is interesting like trying to figure out like trying to divorce yourself from the version of you online.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Yeah yeah and I think everybody has a different tolerance level too and people are more and less um malleable emotionally I tend to take on other people's opinions of me I have learned too easily which is why I need to have a space safe space where people couldn't give me their opinion I needed that doesn't mean everybody does you know but I do think there's tremendous good on the internet I've met some amazing zine friends on the internet you know my Substack that I write about zines I love that I think the internet can be an amazing tool even an amazing tool for zines but it just can't be um used to I don't know completely replace your own opinions of yourself and it's so easy to get sucked into it it really is and uh I've I've learned that I I need to have a space where I can just be alone sometimes I need an analog space to exist and I think some of us need that more than others agreed um so when you are making zines in this analog space uh can you tell us about your general creative process yeah absolutely I think I write zines very digitally I write them on Canva um and I did not always my 90s zines are the classic cut and paste collaged photocopied zines and they really reflect that kind of 90s aesthetic but like I said I used to teach and I was incredibly good at making worksheets. So I was I got really good at Canva as a teacher and I feel like the most important part of zines is that they're an authentic expression of who you are and if I had mimicked my old copy and paste style it would have felt inauthentic because of who I am now. So now they are all designed and written in Canva because that's authentic to this current version of me. And my creative process is very much that I have my Canva template that I use for all of my zines and I have certain articles that I want to write. I have a document on my notes app that is stuffed full of zine ideas to the point where it's completely disorganized. And I'll go through there and just think about what do I want to write about? What do I want to research? So the creative process is like do I have time on the weekend what do I really want to write about and I taught English and I taught writing and I tutored writing both I taught I should say I taught writing to high school and college students and I tutored writing for college students. So I write pretty quickly and I don't edit my drafts a ton. So that's why I write directly in Canva because I don't really need to make a lot of adjustments to the structure of the document because I've essentially been writing every single day of my life for the last 30 years. So that's why it works for me. If you make a ton of edits I do not necessarily you know recommend it because Canva doesn't like your text flow between pages, which is eternally frustrating. But that's very much like my creative process is just opening it up, seeing what I want to make brainstorming in the notes app usually right before I go to sleep and the zine kind of takes shape on its own. So I'll rate commonplace continuously so I'm always writing commonplace and then sometimes I'll have the idea for a themed zine that I really want to do like Grimoire Girls which is a girly pop witchcraft zine or get wrecked which I know we'll talk about later which is my zine review zine and that one I'm writing continuously and I write that one in a Google Doc because there's so many little parts to it. So each project is a little bit different but it's when I think of like what kind of zine am I going to make it has to be either like what do I think really needs to exist or what do I really want to make and it has to be one of those two things because I have such limited time to write.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

So it has to be something I'm really amped about or I think just must exist in the world yeah that's that's I mean those are two very important like kind of pillars of the zine world is like what need what do I feel needs to be out there and also what do I want to do?

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Yeah exactly I think it should be high enthusiasm whatever you make I don't have a huge amount of free time because I said I'm an artist so all the time that I take to make zines takes time away from me making the art that I make to support myself. So like if I'm gonna use the time to make a zine I better be stoked on this zine. So I don't usually just kind of crank out zines like I probably would have if I was significantly younger. Like I know a lot of people make like 30 or 40 mini zines in a year. I'm sitting down writing five six seven page essays because it needs to be something that I'm super passionate about and that I want to really deep dive into or I just like don't have the time to do it basically. So yeah I end up with these monstrous essay zines that I love I love them.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

And that's what's important like being stoked about your own work.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Yeah yeah you should absolutely be like this is what I want to put in the world especially watching my dad as you know an elder zine star now he can't really create anymore and he's bedridden and all that stuff but he has his zines and he looks through them and there's this really tremendous diary of his life made out of creative works and it's like damn that's so beautiful like when I'm old I'll have my zines to read through and they'll all be embarrassing in different ways and I'm gonna love it. Because at some point in your life you enter this memory phase of your life rather than a creative phase and it's really beautiful to have something you've made over decades that you can look back on that means something.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

So it's like you're making a time capsule for your future self too yeah zine I I've talked about this before but zines are I think time capsule is such an excellent kind of word or phrase to describe zines especially making them for yourself as you're encapsulating like this version of you within these pages and like being able to look back on it later like I'm not that far away from where I was making like age wise I'm like not super far away from where I was when I first started making zines but I'll read back the zines that I wrote when I was first making them and I'll be like damn they were going through it um and I feel it it I can feel the growth you know since then and that feels great like it feels great to not be that person anymore.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah yeah it really does it's it's wild I'll I'll truly if your path is anything like mine in another decade or two those old dudes are going to be a trip.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

They're all retired now too which is nice like I don't put them out anymore. They're if anyone has a copy like great good for you thanks for supporting me early on but like now it's like these are just for me if I ever want to like reread them which is nice.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Yeah I agree. I mean zines are I love analog stuff because it doesn't exist forever it allows us to change without every single thing we create being a permanent part of ourselves zines are just cool.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

So I have some crowdsourced questions um that I was sourcing from Instagram and TikTok um no longer on either app. So if you're listening and you have questions that you want me to ask Zensters on the show please send them in but these are some questions that I have for you um thanks to people on the internet.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

So the first one is how do you know when to keep a zine versus pass it along to someone else so I have a lot of zines in my collection and I do curate it pretty heavily so I think that if you get a zine that you just aren't vibing with you're just not clicking with you know you read through it and you're like it's fine pass it along to somebody else because they might love it. It might be their favorite zine. So I feel like even though zines are very personal you don't have to be super precious with them because if they don't vibe with you they will vibe with somebody else they they will click with somebody else and I think you can pass them along to other zine sters through mail swaps you can put them in free little libraries you can donate them to zine libraries or you can just have a pile of them at the next zine fest that you go to and be like free zines. So yeah just pass them along because somebody else might love them. If you are not really feeling the zine for any reason unless it's wildly offensive you know of course throw those away but if you're not feeling it just pass them along keep the zines that you would either want to reread so there's like a thing in book collecting when you purge your book collection that it's a reread research or sentimental value. Those are like the three reasons to keep something so if you would reread the zine if you would use it for research or inspiration or if it just has a lot of sentimental value like it's from a really good zine friend keep it and if it doesn't fit any of those other things just pass it along someone else is gonna love it.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

That's good advice I need to because I have a really big zine collection um just from collecting over the years and from stuff people have given me when I've like interviewed them and tabling a million zine fests and like I've just accumulated so many zines and I really need to like a organize it um it is not organized everything's just in like magazine holders kind of willy-nilly but also like I would love to curate my zine collection better and I think those are three really kind of helpful guidelines.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Yeah I've definitely had to start doing that every month because I ended up with a big box of zines that I didn't go through and it's never going to get gone through now. So now I every month at the end of every month I post like a photo of all the zines I read and a list of all the zines and then I take the ones out that I know I'm not going to keep and they're in their own magazine box for the next time I do a zine fest so people can take them and swap with them kind of passively. That way you can swap without talking to somebody which I'm very shy so I figure other people are too so it's in its own little special box to be passed along and I have to do it every month or it's not going to happen.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

The next question to ponder I have for you is how do you price your zines okay so that's a super interesting question.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

I have so many thoughts on this because I started in the 90s obviously zines were like one to three dollars and that was because we were stealing everything which nobody talks about and I know there's a lot of old school zine stores online and I don't want to fight with you all do not do not comment do not add me but zines cost way more money to produce now it's really hard to seal photocopies it's impossible to seal postage unless you work at an office where you have a postal meter that is unobserved and a photocopier that does not have any kind of scan for you to get into it we cannot steal things. So things are going to cost money reams of paper are incredibly expensive toner is very expensive. And so my general guideline for zines is like mini zines three to five dollars quarter sizes usually like five to eight dollars depending on how many pages and then half size zines would be some people do like four or five dollars for them but I would say like you know between like seven and twelve dollars professionally printed full color zines would be you know anywhere between ten to twenty dollars over twenty dollars I feel like we're getting into art book territory because you can get professionally printed full color zines on jukebox on mix them and they would they're about three to five dollars a copy so there's no reason to charge 20 30 $4 for them unless it's just profit driven. And I do feel like one of the core principles of zines is that they are anti-capitalist. I feel like you should keep the price as low as you feel that you reasonably can, which is completely different for every person. So I'm not going to come in here and say you're not allowed to charge blah blah blah that's nonsense but it's what is the amount that you are comfortable in asking other people before factoring in payment processing fees factoring in whether or not you charge for shipping factoring in your time if I write really quickly versus somebody writing very slowly that's a completely different thing. Assembly time all that stuff so those are my general pricing guidelines. That's what I feel comfortable asking other people for I also swap a lot I try to give uh zines away I try to give zines to free zine libraries so that's part of my pricing as well so like my zine commonplace is 30 to 40 pages and it's quite dense text and it's eight dollars. And that's because I have to take away time from my other job where I produce things you know for a living like my art job. If I was working at an office and I was making the zine on the clock it would be less expensive because I would be able to steal part of it. So I think if you can steal part of either of the creation process as far as like printing is concerned or construction is concerned that the price can reflect that. And I think swapping is really really important too I don't want to lose that principle in our community either like definitely be open to swapping things. So that's how I feel about pricing zines personally but yeah everybody there are strong opinions on zine prices and do what you're comfortable with charge what you're comfortable with but remember too that anti-capitalism is kind of one of our core principles in the zine community so be cool about it.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Something you mentioned about like kind of taking your own time into consideration when pricing is really interesting because I've never like even if a zine I've just never thought about that like even if a zine takes me a really long time I'll be like oh you know whatever five bucks um because I've I I do this with sewing too and like pricing stuff that I sew it's like I don't take I don't take my like hourly rate into consideration at all and I'm just like uh how much were materials okay uh double that so I'm like making a little bit like I don't know but I think that's really a good idea because you are when you're making a zine like you're putting time and effort that you could be doing something else to make money I guess or like you know if you're if you're taking time away from like doing a job and getting paid that way like that is something to consider.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Yeah yeah I think because I have to kind of clock out of my my other job my main job every time I write I have to really think about you know what do I need to charge and it's not the same it's a fraction of what I make during my job as an artist of course it would be silly to expect zines to make a huge amount of money but it has to be at a price where I'm not making such a huge loss that it's like this hobby is too expensive for me to do this hobby is too indulgent for me to do it needs to be some kind of balance. So yeah and I think too that if you give away a lot of zines or if you make the digital version of your zine available for free charge whatever you want to charge for your paper copy because you are putting in so much of your time labor to print the zine, assemble the zine, staple the zine, pack the zine you're dealing with taxes potentially you're dealing with hosting on multiple sites, payment processors, all that stuff. So it's like I've known some people who will make a very limited run of their physical zine and then make their digital version free because they have enough time to distribute 20 copies or 50 copies and after that they are simply out of time. And I think that's another way that you can think of it too that oh so I'll make 20 of them this is an addition of 20 this is an addition of 50 and then I'm done and you can buy it digitally or download it for free digitally and then you can have it that way. So you can ask people to pay for your time as far as assembly is concerned. And you should value your time writing and creating I was thinking about this really recently that if you're giving your zines away For free because you don't think they're valuable, then you either have one of two problems. You either haven't made a very good zine, in which case you need to work on it more, or you need to work on your self-esteem because you need to feel comfortable asking someone for three dollars for what you have done. It's an exchange. We're exchanging money for a zine for your time. People put in their time to make money at a job, you put in your time to make a zine. If it's not worth three dollars, you have one of two problems going on. And I think a lot of the time it's just that we don't believe in ourselves, we don't value our own creative output because to us, we're just us. Like I'm just Bridget, you know, but it's not the case. What you do has value.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

When I think about pricing my own, yeah, when I think about pricing my own zines, I don't take my own efforts into account, but you know, maybe I should like because I also I have a photocopier. So like, and I have a Costco membership. So like I get my paper from Costco, I print my own zines, but I do also take time out of my day to make them, and I pay for shipping, and like I have to pack them all myself, and so it's like it's just things like that that I don't think about that I it's not that I don't value my time, but I guess maybe I don't value my own time. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yeah, and I having there the other side of it is that having a hobby is valid. My husband writes zines too, and when I asked him about the pricing, because he gives away his zines digitally, and then he sells the paper copies, and I was like, Don't you want to sell the digital version? And he goes, I already have a job. And I'm like, You're right. You already have a job, you don't want this to be a second job. I get that. We have that hustle culture mindset so baked into us now that if you're making something, people always ask, Are you selling it? There are some people that only give away their zines for free. Those people rock. And if that is your philosophy, I think that's awesome. I a hundred percent support that. And you kind of need to figure out what is your profit and are you making a dollar off of your zines? I think I charge eight for mine, and I think my profit's four dollars. And I'm like, is that a massively useful amount of money for my time? No. Is it good enough? Absolutely. I am more than comfortable with that. That is fine, and that's what I'm comfortable with. So it's like we should value ourselves, but then there's the philosophy of really giving everything away from free. It has to be a decision you make personally, it can't really be based off what everybody else is doing because everybody has different philosophies, different motivations. You know, just don't make them $40, please. Please don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Don't do it.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

Don't do it.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Um, so I want to I want to get into some of the zines that you sent me. Um so the first one is Get Wrecked, which is a zine review zine. Yes, plus some information on like how to make zine friends, um, an interview with a fellow zine star, zine swap etiquette. Um, yeah. Tell us about Get Recked.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Yeah, I love Get Rect. I that was a huge undertaking. So I read a lot of zines. I read about a hundred zines last year. I do zine recs, which is just short for recommendations, um, on in my zine every month. But then I noticed that those zines were selling out way before people were even receiving commonplace. So I started posting my recs on my Substack and people liked them, and I was like, that's cool. And so as I read more and more zines, I started compiling reviews of all of my zines. I was originally thinking, like, oh, I should do like a zine wiki type of site, whatever. I don't have the time for that. So it ended up just being a compilation of all of the different reviews of all the different zines I had read during the year, and it was 80 zines at the end of the year. I had about 20 that either the people had no website or um the zines just had no information about the author on them. And at the same time, I had a zine friend to say to me that, like, oh, no one's doing zine review zines anymore. I guess there were zine review zines that were pretty popular, but a lot of them had like recently shuttered their doors or stopped publishing. And I'm like, oh, well, I have 80 zine reviews. I guess I really do need to make this happen. And so I compiled it and it was, you know, a decent like stack of zine racks, and then I added in an article about how to make zine friends. In the center is a mini zine about zine swap etiquette because I feel like so many zines now learn about zines from the internet instead of from other zine sters, that the etiquette of our community is getting a little bit lost, and not in a like old man yelling at clouds way, but in an like uh this community is very cool, and I don't want it to get ruined by TikTok capitalism kind of way. So I wanted to write a little zine swap etiquette guide that was like, hey, swapping is a big part of our community. Here's how to do it. And I put in scripts and stuff for people who are shy or aren't sure what to say. And then I had an interview with my very good zine friend, Elisa Milan. Shout out Elisa Milan, she's amazing. And so I decided to put the interview with her in there as well because she's awesome and I want everybody to know about her. So that was kind of my process behind Get Recked. And then it turns out that yeah, people do want to read a zine of zine reviews, which I was not expecting. And I am very stoked that people like it. It makes me super happy.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

Yeah, I love reading reviews of things, um, especially when I'm like kind of in a rut and like, oh, I want to read or watch something new. I'm gonna form my own opinion eventually, but like I want someone to tell me, like, oh, you might like this, and like here's what this is about, and like just reading like a synopsis of something. And I found um one of the zines you mentioned in this is like a six uh 59-page Sims. Yeah. Like like just everything about the Sims. Um, and so I found that one and I was like, this sounds like it rocks. And I immediately texted a friend who loves the Sims and I was like, check this out. Like so that felt good to immediately just being able to like take something from a zine and be like, ah yes, I know the perfect receptacle for this information.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

Yes, yeah, that zine is awesome. It's called I Really Love The Sims. I think it's by Sarah Wood, is that right? I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

Sarah Wood, yes.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

Yeah, so I really love the Sims by Sarah Wood. That zine's awesome. I bought a paper copy of it because I love The Sims, and then there's the digital download version. It was one of my favorite zines from last year. I love it when a zine is about just a niche topic that someone's super excited about. I don't even care what the topic is. I am excited because you're excited about it. That zine's awesome. I'm so glad that you checked it out. It was it's such a good one. It's such a good one, and you can still get it online for free. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Yeah, so I really liked Get Wrecked. Um, and I it made me want to start because like I keep track of every book and movie that I read and watch, like for the year, but I never like write a review. I just give it, you know, like or I'll like do not necessarily throw away reviews on Letterboxd, but I'll be like, damn, that was crazy. Like, and that's my entire review. And so, like, I think I would love to start writing my actual thoughts about something, even in just like a note on my phone, like when I finish something, like, oh, I liked this for X, Y, and Z reasons and not just like this was cool. Yeah, because like that doesn't help anyone.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Yeah, I would love to read it. I love reading reviews too, I think it's awesome. I write book reviews of all the books that I read too, and I really love reading reviews where people hate stuff too. I find that so fun. I love to know why people hate stuff. So I would love to read that. I think that's a great idea. More review zines. I demand more review zines in the world. Make it happen.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

All right, listeners. You you heard Bridget. Let's do some more review zines. Um, yeah, I love a review zine. I think it's such a fun idea and a fun way to compile reviews. Um, even if they're like already published somewhere else. Like, I would love a like a just a zine of like someone's like one-star letterboxed reviews or whatever. Like, I think that'd be really fun.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Yes, that would be great. Um, movies I hated 2026. I'll read it. You have a reader right here. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, and I just I'm such a zine dork. Like, I love zines so much. I am very much wanting to get other zine sters work out there. So being able to write a zine, review zine, and hopefully help people find other zines that they love. I just I love that too. I really want people to read more zines in general. I definitely don't care at all about only promoting myself. You know, like I said, as an artist online, I have to do that for my regular job. So zines, it's like a chance for me to hype up other people more than I'm hyping up myself. And it's very healing to the soul to be more excited about other people than one is about oneself online. It's a it's a fun thing.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Yeah, that's why I do the podcast. I've like let other people talk about things that they're really like zines that they're really passionate about, and I'll host it. But like I just love hearing what other people are excited about and what they're working on.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

So the other zine, one of the other zines um is Commonplace 12, which is is that your most recent zine?

SPEAKER_00 54:37

Yes, yeah, the horse issue.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

So I like this one. I liked the Animal Crosser, Animal Crossing, horse villager ranking. Um I have had two horse villagers my entire time on Animal Crossing. Um Ed, who I recently got rid of, he was kind of a random move-in um from a friend's island. And then when he wanted to leave, I was like, cool. See you later, dude. Um, and then I had Julian on my old island.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

And I loved his house. Um I I thought he was he was cool. I like that he's a unicorn. I thought that was really like special, and I really liked his house. I don't know if I had any other strong opinions on him. But I really liked your ranking.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

Oh, thank you. Yes, I for me, so commonplace is azine based on it. The the title comes from two things. One is a commonplace book where you have multiple extracts, and the other one comes from what I talked about earlier in the podcast about feeling like I didn't have anything worthwhile to say, which was that I felt commonplace, I felt unimportant. So there's the double meaning of the title and the definition, both definitions are on the front page or the cover of every zine. So commonplace is very much an eclectic zine. There's a bunch of different essays in it, but coming from the old school like 90s zine scene, there has to be like some nonsense in the zine. It's not all serious, it cannot be all serious. So the horse issue, which is my first themed issue, has like childhood trauma about horse riding, and then my My Little Pony collection, and then the horse villager ranking from Animal Crossing. And Julian is S tier for me. Obviously, we have the unicorn. I've been playing Animal Crossing since it first came out. Obsessed with that game. I feel like people are gonna really hate some of my rankings. Sorry, but I love that. There has to be nonsense in the zine too. It has to be fun, it can't just all be super serious, or I'm not gonna like writing it. And I I don't think anyone else is gonna like reading it. So yeah, there has to be nonsense too. So horse villager ranking, very important part of the zine.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

I also have a traumatic childhood horseback riding incident. So I was like, ah, yes, let me read about this.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

Um did my trauma resonate with you?

SPEAKER_01 57:11

Yeah, I yeah. I was like scared of horses, any not like uh horses, but like I was like, these things look scary and they're huge, and I don't want to ride one, and then my parents made me ride one after I had been in a bike accident, so my like arm was like bandaged up, and like I was in a bunch of pain, and they were like, No, we already paid for this like horse riding lesson, you have to do it. And I was like, This is the worst moment of my life. Um it wasn't, but it felt like it at the time. So I similarly not a horse fan.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

Yes, I had a more than a few people come up to me and say, like, oh, I I you're the horse zine, uh horses, I don't really love horses, and I'm like, yeah, so the zine's actually about how horses have traumatized me throughout my life. So it might actually be the zine for you. Yeah, horseback riding. I I was like, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna be a horse girl, and then the horse tried to scrape me off on a tree, horribly injuring me emotionally in the process, and yeah, I was never the same. I was never the same. So we got horse trauma zine.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

I think if people really think about it, I think a lot more people have horse trauma than let on.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Yeah, they're so beautiful and majestic, and yet I don't think that they want us riding them.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

No, no, I don't think they do. And you know what? I don't think we should.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Yeah, or they can sense if you're a horse girl or not, and if you're not, they're like, No, you didn't pass the vibe check. I'm scraping you off on this tree. Okay, it's like the oh, is it like the sword and the stone, you know, like excalibur or whatever? Yeah, but horses, yeah. No, the horse rejected me. It sensed, it sensed my inadequacy, and I've learned to accept it.

SPEAKER_01 59:08

You know, warranted. If that like the horse knew that I didn't want to be on it, and it was like nothing terrible happened to me. I was just terrified the entire time I was up there, but it it like I'm sure could sense like this guy does not want to be on a horse.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

Yeah, horses are giant.

SPEAKER_01 59:27

The other zine I wanted to talk about is Grimoire Girls, which is a girly pop witchcraft zine. Can you describe for the listeners uh girly pop witchcraft?

SPEAKER_00 59:39

Yes, so Grimoire Girls was a journey. I thought of the pun because I thought it was hilarious, because obviously it's a play on Gilmore Girls, which I've never watched, actually, to be frank, and a grimoire, which is the book of spells that you would have if you were a witch or in a coven. And I thought Grimoire Girls was a hilarious title for a zine. And so I posted on my Substack, and I have an issue of Commonplace where I have like zine ideas, like a zine idea bank, but I was like, hey, someone should really make this zine. It's called Grimoire Girls, and it'd be like girly pop witchcraft, which would be like super fun, super feminine witchcraft. It's super tongue-in-cheek as well, it's not serious. I was watching a lot of um the YouTube channel Fawn, P-H-A-U-N, and they do girly pop Pokemon rankings, obsessed. And I was like, uh, you know, he considers himself like an expert in girly popology. And I'm like, I love this. And I felt very resonant with it. So I wanted it to exist, Grimoire Girls. I posted about it, and I got a ton of comments saying, You need to write it, we're not going to. And I said, Fine, I'll write it. So it has a charcuterie board for crows called a crocuterie board. I looked up Crow Safe Food. I was doing my research. It has a coffee flavor spell magic. So you can go to Dunkin' Donuts and get a flavor in your coffee that will manifest certain things throughout the day. It has a Sailor Moon spell jar. It has a girl group-based tarot spread. I did work um at a metaphysical bookstore and was very heavily involved in witchcraft for many years. I'm not making this stuff up. I actually know a bit about it, so that's good. And I just thought it'd be really fun. And it was, and then shockingly, it's my most popular zine. I don't have any more ideas. So, or I have like, I'm good at card spread, so I have those ideas. So I opened it up to submissions and I got a few submissions. So there's gonna be a second issue coming out pretty soon because other people were like, Yes, girly pop witchcraft, it resonates. So yeah, it started with just a pun for a title and then it became its own thing. That zine had a mind of its own.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:57

So that's exciting that people went from we're not gonna do it to okay, here's an idea. Like we do have something.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

Yeah, I wanted someone else to make it, I wanted to read it. But yeah, no, I consider Grimoire Girls like the zine that manifested itself. That zine wanted to exist. I am but a humble vessel for grimoire girls, and now I am its editor. So it will have as many issues as either I can think of or people contribute to. So I thought it was gonna be a one-off. Now I think the second issue will probably be the only one, and then who knows? Maybe I'll be publishing it for decades. I have no idea, but it was just it's fun and it's not super serious, and I just love it. It's just the zine that I did because I'm like, this is just fun. Zine should be fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Agreed. Um, other than Grimoire Girls 2, are you currently working on anything?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

Yeah, I'm well, I'm always working on Get Wrecked, so that's a continuous thing. I'm planning on making that an annual zine. So Get Wrecked 2026 will be out probably at the end of the year. And I'm always working on a new issue of Commonplace, so they're not always themed, but issue 13 is going to be romance novel themed. So I'm going to be writing about romance novels and some of the debates in romance novels. I have a master's degree in literature. A lot of people really look down on and hate romance novels. So I really wanted to write a zine about a genre that is so reviled. And I think that, you know, a lot of people don't like it because of internalized misogyny. So I'm gonna write about that, so that'll be fun. And then my journey with writing, or not writing, but reading and kind of how unpacking my internalized misogyny let me enjoy reading again. So that'll be fun. And oh, I'm also gonna be working on a RuPaul's Drag Race fanzine because I love RuPaul's Drag Race. I watch every episode, every season. I watch the international seasons, I'm obsessed with drag race, and I always write about drag race in every issue, but I feel like it would just be really fun to have a drag race only fanzine. And the drag race fandom is unhinged, and I am not gonna be in a comment section anywhere that has to do with drag race fans, so I will be putting my completely unsolicited opinions in a zine, and I'll leave a little box where you can tell me I'm wrong at the end of every page. So those are the things I'm working on right now that I can think of. And then, of course, I have my Substack. I do recommendations every month on my Substack, and I do zine-related articles and education there because, like I said, I used to be a teacher. I taught with zines in the classroom, and I think it's really important to give back to the zine community and keep it thriving. And I think the best way to do that is to just give away as many resources as I can for free. So that's something that's a continuing project, too.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:04

Hell yeah. Um, is there anything else you want to talk about zine related? I know you just tabled a zine fest recently.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

Yeah, yeah. I was at the St. Pete Zine Fest 26 in St. Pete's, so it's the third year they've done that zine fest. It's organized by Prince St. Pete, which is really awesome. It's like a local Rizo studio. Everyone says is it Rizzo, Rhizo? I don't know how to say. I say Rizo? Yeah, I always say Rhizo. I don't know. I'm probably wrong. But they're a local print shop and they organize it every year. And it's my second year tabling, it was super fun. I love, love, love doing zine fests. So it's indoors and it's during the day. And that's how you get me at a zine fest. So I just finished that and it was just so much fun. I loved it. I bought so many zines there, and it was amazing. And I did a workshop there too. So I love a good zine fest.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:02

Nice. What was your workshop?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:04

So it was on how to make foiled zine covers. So my Zine Commonplace, did I send you one of the ones with the foiled covers? I think issue 10. Yes. So it used to be that every issue had a foiled cover, which is, you know, basically like a shiny heat transfer. And huge shout out to Cooper Calligraphy and Dana Moth from Cat Moth Crow for kind of inspiring me to do that. And eventually the foiled zine covers became way too much work. So now I foil all the issues for my subscribers. And then in my shop I put up non-foiled issues because it takes a huge amount of time. But um I did a workshop on how to do foiled zine covers because it's it looks really good, it's not that expensive, and it's incredibly easy. So I wanted to make sure that people had access to that information. So yeah, we did the workshop. Um I was barely at my table because I was at everybody else's tables collecting zines, and it was a great time. So I loved it. Tampa Zine Fest is coming up next month, so I won't be tabling, but I will be walking around shopping. So yeah, that's coming up too. So I'm excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

Um, where can people find you online?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

So I am at commonplace zines on Etsy. So commonplacines.etsy.com. If you hate Etsy, that's very valid. I have a ko-fi, which is ko-fi.com slash commonplace zines. I put up all of my free downloads on my ko-fi. So there's a free sample issue of commonplace. I don't like charging money for mini zines. So um my mini zines are all free digital downloads there as well. And then you can find me on Substack at commonplace zines. So I do my newsletter about three times a month there. And that's super fun. And I have an Instagram now. I haven't actually put anything on it yet, but it's Instagram CommonplaceZines because I am told that a lot of Zensters are on Instagram. So even though the last thing I wanted was another Instagram, I did that. So yeah, that's where you can find me. So come on by and say hello to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:25

Cool. I'll put all of those links in the show notes as well. Um, so people can reference those.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I love meeting other deansters, I love talking about deans, obviously. Um, so yeah, I love it. Come and say hello. I always reply to comments. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:45

Cool. Um, this has been great. Thank you so much for doing this. Um, if you are listening and you are a monthly podcast supporter, thank you. If you are not listening and you're a monthly podcast supporter, thank you. Um you can support the podcast for as little as a dollar a month. Um, and it helps with subsidizing the cost of hosting and other such podcast-related things. Um that is on my Kofi, which is L N G R M S T P L R, Long Arm Stapler with No Vowels. Um I also, you can find that on my link tree, which is same username. I am no longer on Instagram. Um, I am on Tumblr now, though. So you can find my zines on Tumblr as well. Um taking it back, taking it back to Tumblr. Um yeah, thank you to all the monthly podcast supporters. Um, thank you, everyone, for listening. Thank you, Bridget, for yapping with me about zines. Thank you. Um yeah, keep listening. Um I'm a little biased. I like them all. Um, and some exciting guests coming up too. So um keep listening. If you have questions you want to ask, um, or if you want if questions you want me to ask Zensters, send them in. Um, if you have questions you want to ask specific Zensters and you want to know the upcoming roster, you can become a monthly podcast supporter and I will send you that information and you can ask specific questions. Um yeah, keep listening, hit me up if you want to be on the show. Um, there is a link on my Link Tree to fill out a Google form. Uh thanks everyone. This has been welcome.